Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Museo de Arte Popular...


Mexico City boasts a plethora of wonderful galleries and museums which are all undoubtedly worth a visit, but my favourite is the Museum of Popular Art. Opened in 2007, it is housed in a beautifully renovated colonial mansion with a modern, spacious and airy light-filled interior..

It showcases quite beautifully the very bext of Mexican folk art from masks to minitiatures, pottery to papier mache, and textiles to Trees of Life...

In addition, there are always temporary exhibitions, and at present you can go and see ceramics by Mexican living artist Jorge Wilmot. Born in 1928, he spent time in Afghanistan and Burma, plus he was instrumental in setting up the pottery tallers (workshops) in Tonala, the ceramics neighbourhood in Guadalajara.

The museum is located in the Centro Historico on Calle Independencia at the corner with Calle Revillagigedo. It is free on Sundays or any time with a teacher's ID card. It also has a wonderful shop with quality folk art pieces for sale, but it is best to scout out what you want, and then buy the pieces either at Balderas Market or one of the Fonart shops in town, as the prices tend to be very high.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tis one of my favourites too. I'm about to buy an annual membership with the San Ildefonso, which gets me free entry into that museum, plus the Franz Mayer and Munal. Gutted that the MAP isn't part of the deal.

Are you going along to the Alebrijes parade that the MAP is organising for the 24th?

Catherine said...

Hi Gary - fortunately I can get in free to all those galleries etc with my teacher id card... and yes I am going to try and get along to the parade...presumably the alebrijes will be displayed along Reforma afterwards as usual??

Prêt à Voyager said...

wow! i love all the color! looks like a great place to visit.

anne

Catherine said...

Hi pret a voyager - there´s certainly no shortage of colour here....pay us a visit!!

Fly Girl said...

The art! The color! The beauty! This looks like it might be a favorite museum for me as well. Nothing like being surrounded by an array of colorful art to make you happy.

Catherine said...

True enough Fly Girl - mind you the Chicago Institute of Art is pretty stunning if I remember rightly... there was a great Benin exhibition on when I visited