Shadow Shot Sunday 57 : Betsebee Romero

I'm continuing to showcase Art in Mexico City this week for my shadow shot, by profiling the work of Mexican artist Betsebee Romero. Born here in Mexico City, she has held over 40 individual exhibitions, and her work is in permanent collections all over the world. This piece was part of a recent exhibition "Lagrimas Negras" at Antiguo Museo San Ildefenso here in the city, which also displayed some beautiful work done with tyre tracks along the gallery floors. I like the shadows in sepia too...

and the reflection of the work against the gorgeous colonial architecture of the gallery....

Romero is most well known for the innovative use of cars and tyres in very new and surprising ways. Her site specific installations and urban interventions criticise the "Car is King" culture - an attack which is highly relevant to Mexico City. Here are some shots from a 2009 exhibition which show cars buried in maize, being overtaken by the bicycle, covered in ceramic tiles and overgrown with greenery....

Her work is both visually stimulating and thought provoking, and she makes a strong contribution to the rich contemporary art scene here in Mexico City. I am going to leave you with another of those beautiful patterned images...

For more stimulating shadow shots from around the world check out Shadow Shot Sunday by clicking here.... and Weekend Reflections by clicking here...Enjoy!!

Mexico City's contemporary art scene.....

Mexico City has a really rich contemporary art scene, always with a myriad of exciting and stimulating exhibitions on display. Take a look at the sheer range and variety that was on offer last weekend in the city. The blockbuster exhibition at present, with over 100 original Surrealist works, is the Magritte at Bellas Artes until July....

Holding centrestage at a private gallery in Colonia San Rafael (Galeria Hilario Galguera, Franciso Pimental 3) is Britsh artist Damien Hirst's "Dark Trees", an exhibition of over 30 "blue" paintings which indeed are a series of intense blue/black oils most with a white skull hovering...

Hirst's work exhibits so well here in Mexico as it seamlessly slots right in alongside all the skull and Day of the Dead imagery so ubiquitous throughout Mexico. Here are posters on display at Mumedi Design Museum (Francisco Madero, Centro Historico) which form part of a competition illustrating the poem by Alvaro Rego Garcia de Alba " A la Muerte con una sonrisa" (To Death with a smile...)

With maxims on these posters such as "muero, luego existe" (I die, therefore I exist) and "una forme diferente de vida" (a different form of life) it is not hard to appreciate the central place Death continues to hold in Mexican culture. On offer at the Museum of Modern Art is the intriguing and beguiling work of Surrealist Spanish artist Remedios Varo who fled the aftermath of the Civil War in 1941 to live in Mexico....

I love the title of the painting depicted bottom right "Woman leaving her psychotherapist". Exhibited in the beautiful colonial Palacio de Iturbide (now the Banamex Cultural centre) on Francisco Madero, Centro Historico, is an interesting exhibition about the Peruvian writer Mario Llosa Vargas plus a wonderful retrospective of the Oaxacan painter Rodolfo Nieto (1936-1985), an artist who was both inspired by European avant garde trends as well as his native Mexico...

Just further along Madero in the courtyard in front of the Latin American Tower, Mexican artist Paloma Torres (aptly named) exhibits her own sculptural towers against a backdrop of photos depicting the high density of both population and construction in Mexico City. Her exhibition is entitled "Ciudad de Construccion"....

Last weekend culminated in Mexico's largest contemporary Art Fair MACO at the Banamex Centre on Conscripto with hundreds of private galleries showing their work from as far afield as Sweden, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Columbia, and Brazil. The Mexico City Galleries more than held their own alongside such leading lights of the contemporary art world.....

Back outside Bellas Artes is a very avant garde and unconventional interpretation of the twelve apostles by artist Vladimir Cora "Los Apostoles". The painted wooden sculptures are a favourite backdrop for photographs right now....

And finally full circle, back inside Bellas Artes, let's not forget the wonderful permanent display of the Mexican muralists - Rivera, Siqueiros, Tamayao, and Orozco....

Look at the amazing perspective in that Siqueiros mural depicted bottom right! (Although that probably does not forgive him for the part he played in the assassination of Leon Trotsky here in the city!) Are you an Art fan? Interested particularly in contemporary art?? You could do far worse than coming to spend some time gallery-hopping here in Mexico City - You will not be disappointed! For more gorgeous glimpses of the world this week check out My World Tuesday by clicking here.

Shadow Shot Sunday 56 - Puddles in Mexico City

Mexico City has some of the cleanest and most pristine pavements I have ever seen in such a big city, all thanks to the obsessively observed daily routine of sweeping, brushing, and mopping which seems to be scheduled for 7.15 most mornings. One maniacal mopper always gives me a particularly mournful and doleful look as I walk across his freshly mopped stoop on my way to work.....

Freak thunderstorms and torrential flash floods last weekend here in Mexico City, arriving as a prelude to the forthcoming rainy season, left lots of interesting puddles on these pristine pavements. So I went puddle hunting to see what shadows, reflections and other worlds lived in these pools of water...

As you can see, I found plenty of new transient worlds inhabiting all these ephemeral puddles.....trees, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, ornamental lamps...

I am still trying to decide which I like best, and whether they are more effective in natural colour or softened sepia tint....

What do you think?? I would love to get your opinions on which one works best as I have to submit a shot for a little photography competition amongst friends under the theme "Images within Images." In the meantime check out some great shots at Shadow Shot Sunday and special thanks to Gerald over at Ackworth born, gone West who first gave me the idea of looking down with one of his own puddle shots....plus the inspirational edgy urban photography over at Art of the City. Be sure to check them both out!!

The Magic of Cuetzalan....

Mexico is full of tiny places which have been designated "pueblos magicos", and Cuetzalan at the end of the road high in the Puebla Mountains is one such magic village - "The Place of the Quetzals". Like any village in Chiapas, this is authentic, traditional rural Mexico at its very best...

The town is a vibrant kaleidoscope full of market stalls, street food, artisan goods with women dressed in beautifully embroidered huipiles and men all in white with thin leather sandals.....

The architecture is also dominated by white colonial buildings - the cathedral, the clock tower, the bandstand, and the municipal palace in the zocalo, and narrow, winding cobbled alleyways with overhanging wooden eaves...

Traditional dancers perform the Dance of the Quetzals in the zocalo, and voladores (flyers) perform their ritual ceremony by climbing to the top of an extremely high pole and swirling gracefully to the ground attached only to a rope...

During Semana Santa (Easter) other ceremonies were also taking place. Here a group of men are working communally to renew the Easter decorations for the arch of the Cathedral. The decorations are made from a type of palm sewn into these circular medallions...

It is hard to believe that this place is only six hours from the seething metropolis of Mexico City. To get here take a direct bus either from Tapo bus station in DF (6 hours 258 pesos) or direct from Puebla ( 4 hours). It is certainly off the beaten track but well worth a visit...

In the meantime, check out other places around the world by clicking here for My World Tuesday. Enjoy!!

Shadow Shot Sunday 55 - Tlacotalpan

I've written a lot about this town this week, and have chosen this shadow shot because it is such a contrast to the rest of Tlacotalpan. This is the dark, shadowy market where little sunlight enters, and it is very hard to see what is for sale in its murky depths. I like the dog strolling in, the symmetry of the patterns above and below, and the different sombre tones and textures. This is what the rest of the town looks like.... an absolute riot of colour.....such a contrast!!

For more fun with shadows around the world check out Shadow Shot Sunday by clicking here.

All the colours of the rainbow...........

Tlacotalpan must be the most brightly-coloured town in Mexico, and at present it displays the most crazy colour combinations cheek by jowl as I showed in my last post.......... But what if a government decree insisted on stringent colour-coding with all the colours of the rainbow regulated and reassembled into streets of only one colour. What might the town look like then??

Which street would you choose to live in?? I think I would have to reveal my inner Barbie and plump for the pink street!! Or do you prefer the town in reality without the fantasy colour-coding??

Taking in Tlacotalpan....

Put on your shades or else be seriously dazzled by what must be the most brightly-coloured town in the whole of Mexico...(and believe me there are many contenders for this award!) For the second week of Easter, I decided to get a lot more off the beaten track, so here is Tlacotalpan on Rio Papaloapan in the state of Veracruz, and unsurprisingly it received Unesco World Heritage status in 1998 for its colourful colonial casas ornamented with columns and colonades......

In the 19th century it used to be quite a major port due to its location, but now it is a sleepy little town with little movement beyond the creaking of rocking chairs on the porch in the steamy heat of the day, or in the cooler evening breezes wafting in from the river...

Wandering the cobbled streets, strolling through the plazas, and marvelling at the colour combinations cheek by jowl is entertainment enough for a number of hours. The architecture undoubtedly has the wow factor!!

After that you can take a boat ride, swim in the pool, hire a bike - which is the preferred mode of transport when anybody does decide to move....

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...but beyond that it is rather a struggle to fill the time - especially when the very few cafes and restaurants have exceedingly erratic opening hours, but hey when was the last time you could afford the luxury of sitting in a rocking chair on the terrace reading a good book from cover to cover?? Indeed the liveliest place in town - open all hours and certainly doing a roaring trade - is Comex (Mexico's national paint shop!!)

I would recommend a day trip if you are in the State of Veracruz as it is only two hours by bus from the city of Veracruz, and at most an overnighter from Mexico City as it is seven hours by bus from TAPO station. The yellow and blue Hotel Tlacotalpan pictured at the start of the post is a reasonable place to stay and has a small pool, and the busiest and supposedly the best time to visit would be for the Candelaria Festival in early February. For more windows on the world this week, click here for My World Tuesday....Enjoy!!

Shadow Shot Sunday 54 - Zihuatanejo

This week's shadow shots were all taken on the beach at Zihuatanejo - the resort I wrote more about earlier this week. Early in the morning the beach is teeming with birdlife - willets, whimbrels, cormorants, pelicans, frigates, terns and boobies......

Do you know the difference between the willet and the whimbrel?? The willet above is very slender with a straight beak, whereas the whimbrel is a little chunkier with a distintively hooked beak...

Early morning the beach is also teeming with the human species - tai-chiing, power-walking, jogging, and getting ready for the working day....

Or simply chilling out and contemplating more important things down under...

For more fun with shadows check out Shadow Shot Sunday by clicking here....

Chilling Out in Zihuatanejo.....

This is one of my favourite beach resorts in Mexico, and it is where I have been spending the first week of the Easter break. Zihua is a fishing village and small port which has developed into a low key laid back resort around the beaches of La Madera, La Ropa, and Las Gatas.....

The white beaches are pristine, the atmosphere is very chilled, and the biggest decisions of the day revolve around pool or beach? sunlounger or hammock? margarita or pina colada? coconut prawns or catch of the day? A myriad of fish restaurants are strung along the beach plus there is a lively little town itself with many more dining and shopping options...

Nearby Ixtapa soaks up the more upmarket high-rise, nightclubbing crowd, so in Zihua at the end of the day, nightlife amounts to sitting on the beach, cocktail in hand, watching one of the greatest shows on earth - namely the glorious sunsets...

One of the nicest places to stay is on Playa Ropa at the oldest hotel in Zihua - the Catalina. Opened in 1952, it used to host movie stars and rock stars such as Liz Taylor and Mick Jagger in its glamorous glory-days. Now the clientele is more modest and you are more likely to meet teachers from International schools, jewellery designers from Taxco, and escapees from the harsh winters of Canada and the US - great atmosphere and a really friendly crowd. For more windows on the world this week, check out My World Tuesday by clicking here.