MEXICO CITY (apro).-As part of its 140th anniversary, Citibanamex celebrates with two exhibitions: “See each other again. Reunion of two collections” (in collaboration with the art collection of the Sura company) and “Commitment to Mexico. Two decades of acquisitions”, which are open from this Friday with free admission to the public until January 12, 2025.
As part of “See Us Again,” the collection of the National Bank of Mexico presents a discovery: a sketch of a breastfeeding Mayan woman that on the back has a message and signature from Diego Rivera, plus an exceptional poem by a friend-poet of the painter.
At a press conference, Citibanamex cultural authorities gave details of the exhibitions from the Valparaíso Forum, exhibition venues and central offices and a museum complex named in honor of the Counts of San Mateo de Valparaíso who lived in the mansion located in Venustiano Carranza # 60, which covers practically half of that block.
During the question and answer round with the press, and given that Process has followed the fate of the Citibanamex collection of works of art (the largest in the country) since the sale of Banamex by the Citi corporation was announced in 2022, which would take place this year, that there would be no dispersion of the collection to the be an indivisible asset of Banamex, and therefore would continue that way.
In the case of “See us again. Reunion of two collections”, it is a collaborative exhibition between the National Bank of Mexico and SURA with a total of 109 pictorial works and sculptures distributed among 16 rooms.
The reference to “reunion” dates back to 1982, the year in which a significant number of works remained as assets of Seguros América Banamex. The insurer was subsequently acquired by different groups until 2012, when the company SURA bought the business.
Under the curatorship of Caty Cárdenas, director of Artistic Heritage of Citibanamex, and Consuelo Fernández, curator of SURA Art Corporation, the exhibition is divided into nine thematic cores:
Introduction; Habits and dresses: New Spain social diversity; Journeys to earthly paradise. The traveling artists; Painting of a young nation. The Academy of San Carlos; Testimonies of a daily hustle and bustle; Cosmopolitanism and avant-garde (1900-1930); Reconstruction of a national identity (1930-1960); Plastic experimentations (1960-1982) and The collections in counterpoint: key works of the 20th century.
The point that distinguishes the exhibition is that it brings together rarely seen works by national and foreign artists who addressed Mexican themes through different genres, techniques and styles from the 17th to the 20th century such as Agustín Ylizalaturri, Chucho Reyes, Conrad Wise Chapman, Cordelia Urueta, Diego Rivera, Édouard Pingret, Félix Parra, Frida Kahlo, José María Velasco, Juan Cordero, Juan O’Gorman, Juan Tinoco, Leonora Carrington, Julio Castellanos, Manuel Felguérez, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, María Izquierdo, Olga Costa, Raúl Anguiano, Remedios Varo and Rufino Tamayo, among others.
As a detail of interest, the exhibition is not ordered by dates, but by themes, hence it is not necessary to go through it in an order.
Breastfeeding Woman, by Rivera
In addition to various works by Velasco, a little-known self-portrait by Saturnino Herrán (belonging to Sura) from 1916, signed pieces by Tamayo, Varo, and Carrington, there is a work that stands out for being shown for the first time in an exhibition:
“Mayas”, undated, watercolor and Indian ink on paper.
It is a sketch that has the following message on the back and Diego Rivera’s signature at the bottom:
“For you I offer this idea or work inspired by the Mayan soul of matriarchy. It’s a sketch for a bourgeois magnate who wants a mural inside his hollow mansion. Carlos, write me a verse that will hurt him, even if his vanity does not understand it.”
Below, the following verses by Carlos Gutiérrez Cruz appear:
“Yucatecan comrade:
“The family is your wealth, your plot and the hut in which they live. “Do not let the dollar come in to degrade you and then enslave you.”
Caty Cárdenas stated that after a series of investigations into whether the work is a Rivera, since the sketch is not signed on the front by him, only on the back, it was concluded that it is, she said:
“It would be interesting to be able to tour Yucatecan mansions and see if we found this sketch in one of them. We only have this work, we do not know the date or who the magnate was. “What we wanted is to show both sides so that the public understands the context of the work.”
That piece opens the room ‘The collections in counterpoint: key works of the 20th century’, and is located in the center for a greater appreciation of the work in 360º, right there works are exhibited “The fruits of the earth”, by Frida Kahlo; “Arrest”, by Leonora Carrington, and “Alacena con Paloma”, by María Izquierdo, among others.
To close the exhibition, the visitor can go through a “sensory room” based on the works seen in that exhibition, and when going down to the central patio they will find the exhibition “Commitment to Mexico. Two decades of acquisitions” that has more than 20 works from the Banamex collection that were acquired in the last two decades.
“The pieces are an example of the commitment that Citibanamex has with the country to acquire, preserve, research and disseminate Mexican culture,” the bank stated.
The authors that make up this exhibition are: Alice Rahon, Alberto Gironella, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Alfredo Salce, Nicolás Enríquez, Eugenio Landesio, Francisco Corzas, Francisco Toledo, Gunther Gerzso, Luis Zárate, Irma Palacios, Jesús Urbieta, Juan Urruchi, Pelegrín Clavé , Pedro Coronel, Rodolfo Morales and Sergio Hernández.
The exhibitions See each other again. Reunion of two collections and Commitment to Mexico. Two decades of acquisitions are open to the public for free until January 12, 2025, Wednesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The only thing required for the tour is to show official identification.
In addition, during this exhibition period (June 2024-January 2025) the Valparaíso Forum will organize parallel activities and weekend children’s and youth workshops that will be announced on its Instagram and Facebook social networks @forovalparaisomx.
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2024-06-13 13:48:38