Pimping Your Ride Via Indigenous Traditions
Applying beads to the “Vochol” (Vocho + Huichol) Image from the Facebook page of Museo de Arte Popular.
Mexico’s Indigenous people have been making art from millenia. When the Spanish invaded and conquered what’s now modern Mexico in 1492 they found complex metropolis, their buildings decorated with intricately carved sculptures and brightly colored painting. The painful conquest didn’t annihilate their passion for art making and in modern times their new works of elaborate pieces of art are often displayed in museums’ collections.
For the opening, some of the artists appeared in traditional garb of The Huichol, an indigenous ethnic group of western central Mexico
For this piece eight members of two Huichol families took the task to create a piece of art, seven months in the making, by using more than two million glass beads and a vintage Volkswagen as a canvas. Inspired by the designs of Francisco Bautista, a patriarch of one of the families, they incorporated their traditional indigenous theologies and cultural symbols with modern vernacular.
The serpents on the the front design represent “rain”, while the the roof is decorated with the sun and four eagles. Birds were thought to be the intermediaries between gods and mortals. The rear part and sides are tributes or “ofrendas” of fruits of the earth to their gods.
The piece will be shown at Museo de Arte Popular for a period of time and then the four wheeled piece will be go on tour in Europe and the in the rest of the Americas. Finally the piece will be sold at auction with the proceeds of the sale to benefit the programs of the museum.
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
SpY. "ORB". Place des Arts. Montreal, Canada. (photo © Ruben P. Bescos) SpY, a prominent public artist hailing from Madrid, has unveiled his latest sculptural work titled “ORB" in Montreal’s renown...
Box trucks are a favorite canvas for many graffiti writers in big cities and have become a right of passage for new artists who want the experience of painting on a smooth rectangular surface that bec...
BSA is in Barcelona right now and we are honored to collaborate with Fundacion Contorno Urbano and their project Mural Salut. Working in conjunction with the municipality of Sant Feliu de Llobregat...
Utopia, as you know, is unattainable. Neither should one think that we are devolving into a Dystopian nightmare. Not just yet. A new show at London's Somerset House is examining the acts and results...
An Interview With the Artist Who Installs Underwater It’s Christmas time – do you have your underwater tree up yet? Gola Hundun. Stele del Grano (Wheat Stele). Capodacqua Lake. Capestrano, Ital...