This year, the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas, is presenting an exhibit titled “Love to Death: Day of the Dead Community Altars.”
CREDIT: Image by Araceli Cruz
It features ofrendas (altars) created by members of the Austin community, and also some from its own permanent collection.
The Mexic-Arte Museum has been celebrating Día de los Muertos for the past 34 years.
CREDIT: Image by Araceli Cruz
The show features traditional altars and themed altars.
The museum also has a special exhibit on Frida Kahlo, so naturally, they have an altar just for her.
CREDIT: Image by Araceli Cruz
The Frida Kahlo exhibit (separate from the Day of the Dead exhibit) is called: “Diego & Frida: A Smile in the Middle of the Way.”
This altar celebrates the life of deceased pets.
CREDIT: Image by Araceli Cruz
I couldn’t help but think of the film “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” The uniqueness of this ofrenda is so cute, especially because each pet was constructed out of paper mache.
There’s also an altar paying tribute to street artists.
CREDIT: Image by Araceli Cruz
What’s most amazing about Day of the Dead is that there’s no wrong way to build an altar, and this one shows that. The street art itself is already stunning, so the mixture of tokens (like the ping pong paddles and journals) is what makes it a unique altar.
But there was one amazing altar that left me in tears. It’s called “Selena Forever,” and I almost fainted when I saw it.
Image by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli CruzImage by Araceli Cruz
The altar was created by Stephanie Sandoval, and the details show she is a true fan. She includes everything Selena loved, such as pizza, Coca-Cola, and Doritos. It also features her MAC lipstick, a setlist from her concert, and a sewing machine.
Here’s the altar in all its glory.
The exhibit is on display through November 26, 2017.
So many of us have been moved the art of the late Frida Kahlo. Even in death she’s gone on to inspire entire generations with her Surrealist self-portraits, lush depictions of plant and animal life, and magical realist tableaux. Not to mention her incredible life story.
She also inspired future generations of artists, many of whom are alive today creating beautiful works of art. These are just a few of the artists who have similar techniques, subjects, and styles to Frida Kahlo that you’ll definitely love if you’re a fan of Frida Kahlo.
Maria Fragoso – Mexico City
Credit: Teach Me Sweet Things / Theirry Goldberg Gallery
Influenced by the style and narratives of Mexican surrealists and muralists, Maria Fragoso creates work that celebrates her Mexican culture, while also addressing notions of gender expression and queer identity. Her brightly colored canvases offer voyeuristic glimpses into intimate moments, with subjects engaging in acts that seem at once seductive and mischievous—often while gazing directly out at the viewer.
Recently featured in Forbes’s “30 Under 30” in the “Art and Style” category, the 25-year-old artist is quickly rising to prominence. Born and raised in Mexico City, Fragoso moved to Baltimore in 2015 to pursue her BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art. While in school, Fragoso was the recipient of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship at the Yale Norfolk School of Art. Since graduating, she has completed residencies at Palazzo Monti and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Nadia Waheed – Austin, Texas
Credit: Message from Janus / Mindy Solomon Gallery
Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents, Austin, Texas–based artist Nadia Waheed explores notions of relocation, displacement, and vulnerability in her work. Her life-size figurative paintings are both allegorical and autobiographical—the female figures represent her own lived experiences, as well as the multifaceted identities of all women.
Rodeo Tapaya – Philippines
Credit: Nowhere Man / A3 Art Agency
Rodel Tapaya paints dreamlike, narrative works based on myths and folklore from his native Philippines. Drawing parallels between age-old fables and current events, Tapaya reimagines mythical tales by incorporating fragments of the present. “In some way, I realize that old stories are not just metaphors. I can find connections with contemporary time,” Tapaya said in a 2017 interview with the National Gallery of Australia. “It’s like the myths are poetic narrations of the present.”
While the content of Tapaya’s work is inspired by Filipino culture, his style and literary-based practice is heavily influenced by Mexican muralists and Surrealist painters such as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and, of course, Frida Kahlo. Often working at a large scale, Tapaya has been commissioned to create several site-specific murals, including one for Art Fair Philippines in February 2020.
Leonor Fini – Buenos Aires
Credit: Les Aveugles / Weinstein Gallery
Long overlooked in favor of male Surrealists, Leonor Fini, a contemporary of Kahlo, was a pioneering 20th-century force. Known for having lived boldly, Fini is recognized for her unconventional lifestyle, theatrical personality, and avant-garde fashion sense. Born in Buenos Aires in 1907, Fini was raised by her mother in Trieste, Italy. She taught herself to paint and first exhibited her work at the age of 17.
Fini had one of her first solo exhibitions at age 25 with a Parisian gallery directed by Christian Dior. Her work was then included in the groundbreaking exhibition “Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism” at MoMA in 1936, while at the same time she had her first New York exhibition with Julien Levy Gallery. Today, Fini’s work is represented in many major public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
Ramon Alejandro – Miami
Credit: Eternal Life / Latino Art Core
José Ramón Díaz Alejandro, better known as Ramon Alejandro, paints idyllic still lifes of tropical fruits set in ethereal landscapes. The surrealistic compositions have a similar spirit to Kahlo’s less iconic but equally masterful still-life works
Coming from a long lineage of artists, Alejandro grew up with the artworks of his great-grandfather, grandfather, and uncle adorning the walls of his childhood home. After growing up in Havana, Alejandro was sent to live in Argentina in 1960 amidst political turmoil in Cuba, and has continued to live in exile since then.
Texas police are currently trying to get to the bottom of a disturbing incident that happened in Raymondville on Monday.
Former Republican candidate for Texas state Senate, Vanessa Tijerina, posted a shocking 10-minute Facebook Live video detailing the brutal assault she experienced in a nearby hotel on Monday.
12.24.2020 I was violently terrorized, bound, gagged & tortured. 3 have been arrested. This was purely a hate crime. The person ordering the torture on a live stream is still unidentified. Please call 9566892441 for any information. Thank y'all #VanessaTijerina#JusticeForVpic.twitter.com/QvDGGQejje
Tijerina appeared in the video with her face looking unrecognizable. She had two black eyes–both of which were swollen almost completely shut.
Her face was covered in bruises. Her speech was impaired from how much swelling she was experiencing. It looked–to be blunt–like she had been beaten to a pulp.
Through tears, Tijerina explained to her followers that she was lured to a hotel room by some unnamed assailants who led her to believe they had “something really really really important” to tell her that they couldn’t tell her over the phone.
But once she was alone in the hotel room, the assailants “gagged, bound [and] tortured” her.
“I was beaten. I was terrorized, bound, gagged, tortured,” she said in the Facebook Live video.
“I never fought back because I knew that if I fought back, it would’ve been worse and I probably wasn’t going to survive. And I needed to survive for my daughters.”
Although a motive for the assault hasn’t yet been established, Tijerina is a relatively high-profile figure in Texas’s Raymondville community. She is active on social media and regularly goes on Facebook live to engage with her followers and supporters. And with her high profile comes a litany of critics and haters who have created troll accounts with the express purpose of smearing her.
Despite all this, Tijerina refutes the rumors that she “did something” to motivate the beating.
“There was nothing that I did that made this okay for this to happen to me,” she said. Tijerina began to get increasingly more emotional as she talked about her children and the fact that she was not able to give her children the toys she bought them for Christmas.
Raymondville police released new details on Tuesday on three people charged in connection to a brutal beating of a former Republican State Senate candidate on Christmas Eve.https://t.co/lV3gfQwSOo
So far, Raymondville police have arrested three suspects in connection to the assault: Amanda Salinas, Ariel Jamie Vela and Ramon Donato Santana Jr. As for who was on the phone giving orders at the time of the assault, police are still looking for answers.
As of this writing, the police have not yet publicly revealed a motive. But since her attack, Tijerina has again taken to her Facebook page to assert that the assault was “100% motivated by hate.”
