Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery Presents México Ahora: Punto de Partida/ Mexico Now: Point of Departure

Largest Exhibition Showcasing a New Generation of Contemporary Mexican Artists to Tour the United States

COLUMBUS, Ohio-- México Ahora: Punto de Partida/ Mexico Now: Point of Departure, an exhibition featuring 13* emerging Mexican artists whose work is forceful and full of invention, will premiere at the Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery January 25 through April 5, 1997, and travel to six other sites in the United States and Puerto Rico. The exhibition will reexamine the traditions of Mexican art and chart new creative territory through photography, sculpture, installations and more in approximately 40 large scale, exciting contemporary works. México Ahora/ Mexico Now is a declaration of artistic independence and captures the energy of Mexico in the late 20th century.
*There will be 13 artists in the touring exhibition, 11 in the Riffe Gallery exhibition.

Building on Ohio's strong trade relationship with Mexico, the Ohio Arts Council, in partnership with seven state, regional and jurisdictional arts agencies, will present México Ahora: Punto de Partida/Mexico Now: Point of Departure. It is the first exhibition organized through the Ohio Arts Council's International Program to tour extensively throughout the United States and to Puerto Rico.

Philip Morris Companies Inc. is the national sponsor of México Ahora: Punto de Partida/Mexico Now: Point of Departure.

"The Ohio Arts Council is pleased to present the work of this exciting group of emerging young Mexican artists to an American audience," said Wayne Lawson, Executive Director of the Ohio Arts Council. "The opportunity to work with the Mexican curators to develop and present this exhibition furthers our efforts to build cultural as well as economic relationships with countries around the world. The support of this exhibition by our state and regional partners illustrates that there is a growing national desire to become part of a more global community ."

"As a global corporation, Philip Morris has a long tradition of supporting work by emerging artists in our communities around the world," said Stephanie French, Vice President, Corporate Contributions and Cultural Programs, for Philip Morris Companies Inc. "Mexico Now features 13 innovative artists from Mexico, whose work reflects their roles in an international art community and the issues and themes of their generation. Philip Morris is proud to sponsor the first U.S. touring exhibition to highlight the contemporary visual arts of Mexico."

The Ohio Arts Council organized the exhibition in partnership with Arts Midwest, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, Delaware Division on the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council and the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. This is the first time the Ohio Arts Council has collaborated with other state, regional and jurisdictional arts organizations to present an international touring exhibition.

The Riffe Gallery exhibition features approximately 30 works by 11* contemporary Mexican artists; it includes painting, sculpture, photography and installations. Guest curator Robert Stearns, Stearns+Associates, Columbus, Ohio, in association with Agustín Arteaga, national coordinator of decorative arts, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, and María Guerra, an independent curator, Mexico City, have brought together an exciting group of contemporary artists who are breaking away from stereotypes of Mexican art. Objects in the exhibition demonstrate the evolution of a complex, sophisticated and sometimes contradictory society.
*There will be 13 artists in the touring exhibition, 11 in the Riffe Gallery exhibition.

Younger Mexican artists are re-examining, deconstructing or, in some cases, rejecting painting, historically the standard of high art in Mexico. They are addressing the painted surface in new ways, breaking away from the flat plane, using non-traditional materials and experimenting with extremes of scale. They are creating environmental and site-specific installations and pushing photography far beyond its traditional role of documentation. The result is art that looks quite different from that which we have traditionally seen from Mexico.

Painting has been the predominant medium of 20th century Mexican art. No artist in Mexico is unaffected by the presence of nationalist painters whose murals still cover acres of public walls and dominate the collections of nearly every public museum in Mexico. Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and many others are glorified as cultural heroes. Their influence was global, reaching artists and affecting public policy in other countries, especially the United States where it nourished politically oriented public works commissioned by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

In the intervening years, artists have added their interpretations of what is Mexican about Mexico and Mexican art. The most visible painters in the late 1950s and 60s were associated with the La Ruptura (the Rupture), heralded by many critics as the second renaissance of Mexican art. The rift that the movement's name suggests was the displacement of figurative and narrative images in favor of abstraction. Its message was exuberant and emotional as well as intellectual.

A 1980s artistic movement known as neomexicanismo (NeoMexicanism) again attempted to define the essence of Mexican art through the use of native, religious and historical symbols that embodied national identity. Like the muralist and La Ruptura movements, neomexicanismo was dominated by the medium of painting. Today's younger generation of artists view all those movements skeptically. They are questioning the form and content of what art is expected to be, and their answers are startlingly different. They are declaring their independence from the rules of painting and the conventional images that have traditionally defined Mexican culture.

For the first time, contemporary Mexican artists are aggressively re-assessing the role of painting. Will those artists' efforts and the historical importance of their icons translate across the border? Will their creations read as more than meditations on contemporary international trends? Exhibition viewers must consider those questions.

México Ahora/Mexico Now rose out of an international collaboration begun by the Ohio Arts Council in 1993. The partnership of seven regional, state and jurisdictional arts agencies is an important step forward in leveraging funds to create broad-based support for arts programming and cultural activities.

A full-color, bilingual catalog with essays by curators Robert Stearns and Agustín Arteaga and guest essayist Osvaldo Sánchez will accompany the exhibition. The 70-page catalog will be available at the Riffe Gallery for $15. All gallery materials will be bilingual to encourage cross-cultural discussion.

Philip Morris Companies Inc. is the national sponsor of México Ahora: Punto de Partida/Mexico Now: Point of Departure. The exhibition is funded in part by the U.S./Mexico Fund for Culture. Additional support for the Riffe Gallery exhibition has been provided by WOSU FM and AM.

CORPORATE SPONSOR: Since 1958, Philip Morris Companies Inc. has supported a broad spectrum of cultural programs that reflect the corporation's commitment to innovation, creativity and cultural diversity. Philip Morris' support of the arts focuses on contemporary and multi-cultural visual and performing arts, and is among the most comprehensive corporate cultural programs in the world. Current and recent exhibitions sponsored by Philip Morris include The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970 (1988); Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985 (1991); Latin American Women Artists, 1915-1995 (1995); and the exhibition In the Spirit of Resistance: African-American Modernists and the Mexican Muralist School (1996).

Philip Morris Companies Inc. has five principal operating companies: Kraft Foods, Inc.; Miller Brewing Company; Philip Morris Incorporated (Philip Morris U.S.A.); Philip Morris International Inc.; and Philip Morris Capital Corporation.

The Riffe Gallery, operated by the Ohio Arts Council, showcases the work of Ohio's artists and the collections of the state's museums and galleries. The gallery is in the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, State and High Streets, Columbus, OH. Hours are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Thursday and Friday 11a.m.-7:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 12-4 p.m. Admission is free. For information or to schedule a tour call the Riffe Gallery at 614/644-9624.

The Ohio Arts Council, a state agency established in 1965, is committed to the economic, educational and cultural development of the state. The Council believes the arts should be shared by the people of Ohio. The arts arise from public, individual and organizational efforts. The OAC supports and encourages those efforts.

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