Reflection On The Mexic-Arte Museum

For my art exhibit portion of this essay I visited the Mexic-Arte museum in Austin, Texas. The exhibit consisted of different paintings, photos, film, sculpture, and displays all centered on the Mexican heritage and focused on the Dia de los Muertos celebration. The Mexic-Arte museum has been in commission since 1984, and has been showcasing the cultural artwork since its opening while expanding the amount art work every year. I learned that the museum also holds street parades during Dia de los Muertos to commemorate and spread the Mexican culture throughout the city of Austin on 6th street. Some of my favorite works I viewed included, that I will discuss, were “La Vida y La Muerte” (Life and Death), Catrinas, and photos of Guanajuato. The …show more content…
This piece out of the three I am writing about challenged my perspective the most because I had to find a way to attach the meaning of title of the work to the actual visual; I feel like the young life which is the girl and skulls represent the idea of death in this beautiful piece. I believe the influence for this piece is how the Mexican culture is rooted to the idea of death, but also embraces the beauty of life. I also viewed four different photos which have no specific artist, and were donated to the museum from the city of Guanajuato in Mexico. All four pictures displayed the Dia de los Muertos celebration that, like many cities in Mexico, takes place in the main square of town or the main plaza. The photos show alters that are made to show respect for friends, family, and neighbors. There is major decoration that goes with the celebration that uses many colorful flowers, many candles, and religious significance that is clearly shown in the high resolution pictures. The people in the photos show how important they find this celebration, and they show respective facial expressions instead of