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Mexpert's Blog

“Travel news and information on Mexico from Mexico.”

October 17, 2017 New Viva Peru in Mexico

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Viva Peru 2017 features the best of Peruvian art, film and cuisine at venues throughout Mexico’s capital from Oct. 22 to 27, along with several events to be held at Acapulco’s Mundo Imperial.

You can take a cooking class with accomplished Peruvian chefs at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Liverpool department store, Festival de Sabores Peruanos at the Club de Industriales in Polanco, or restaurants Millesime, Nicos and Rosa Negra.

Audiences will get a chance to see contemporary Peruvian cinema at the Cineteca Nacional, as well as Cinemex theaters and the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana.

Works by Peruvian artists will go on show at La Celda Contemporanea, Sor Juana U’s contemporary art space, and Galeria Alfredo Ginocchio. The artists have also donated works for an auction to benefit victims of Mexico’s recent earthquakes. Viva Peru!

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February 20, 2017 Short and Sweet: Mexico’s Micro Teatro

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Betty Boop meets Dirty Harry in “The Roxie Hart Syndrome,” a short play
about a struggling actress who can’t get a break, and decides to take
matters into her own hands. She’s charming and you’re smitten in less time
than it takes to hail a cab — with your app.

Hers is just one of a dozen or so stories inspired by the world of burlesque
and condensed into captivating 15-minute performances at Micro Teatro
Mexico, a beehive of theatrical activity in Mexico City’s Colonia Santa
Maria la Ribera.

You can pick and choose the plays you want to see, or see everything spread
over several nights. Don’t miss all things burlesque, which runs for another
three weeks before the playwrights tackle a different topic. Performances
run Thursday through Sunday.

Micro Teatro Mexico
Roble 3, Col. Santa Maria la Ribera (Metro Buenavista)
Tel: 6390 5060

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November 10, 2016 Mexico Presents The China Experience

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There’s never been a better time to visit China … in Mexico. As part of the Year of China-Latin America Cultural Exchange, several great exhibits are showcasing Chinese contemporary art, as well as prized folk art and ancient artifacts.

· “Masterpieces from the National Art Museum of China” at Mexico City’s San Ildefonso Museum: A charismatic statue of Confucius greets visitors at the entrance to this exhibit, which features enchanting shadow puppets, Tibetan death masks and splashy ink wash paintings.

· “The Memory of Hands: The Splendor and Color of Guizhou’s Heritage” at Mexico City’s National Museum of Cultures: Guizhou province is home to nearly 20 of China’s 55 ethnic minorities, including the Miao, famed for their rococo silver creations.

· “Memories of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions,” at Acapulco’s San Diego Fort Museum, displays the mysterious millenary origins of China’s complex writing system.

Enter El Dragon

Mexico City’s leading tour bus operator, Turibus, launched a special China-themed tourism route on Nov. 9 called “The China Experience,” which combines guided visits of “Masterpieces” and “Memory” with lunch at one of the capital’s leading Chinese restaurants, El Dragon.

Known for its Peking duck roasted in a wood-burning oven, El Dragon has put together a special tasting menu of classic favorites for you to tuck into after working up an appetite at the museums.

The China Experience is available every Wednesday starting at 10 am, with the first pick up at the Auditorio Nacional stop. Don’t miss it.

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October 9, 2016 The Other Silk Route

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Tornaviaje, or Return Voyage, a Mexico City exhibit, spotlights China’s artistic influence on the New World through trade.

The Manila Galleon, better known in Spanish as the Nao de China, regularly plied the Pacific, bringing Chinese silks, spices and lots of other goodies from the Orient to Mexico’s Pacific coast port of Acapulco. Some of it would then be shipped overland to Veracruz, on the Gulf Coast, and loaded onto ships bound for Europe.

The artistic fusion between the Far East and the New World is clear in many of the pieces on show, which were mainly made by Chinese artisans to suit European tastes, including elaborately decorated leather and wooden chests, embroidered silk shawls, carved ivory statues and ceramics.

Argh! Apparently the eyepatch wasn’t the only accessory in the pirate’s wardrobe. The scary metal mask below was reportedly worn by the infamous Dutch pirate Lorencillo, who had a long and lucrative career sacking Acapulco, Veracruz, Campeche and other Mexican ports.

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Tornaviaje: The Nao de China and the Baroque in Mexico
Franz Mayer Museum
Through Oct. 30

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March 7, 2015 A Taco to Remember

Alejandro Escalante, author of La Tacopedia, “the world’s first taco encyclopedia,” has put all that knowledge to work in the kitchen. Why just read about Mexico’s variety of regional tacos when you can also try them at his latest restaurant venture, La Casa de los Tacos? The full taco tour will take you from coast to coast. Where should you begin? Start with the sublime Tacos de Pechito made of beef breast slow cooked for six hours until it resembles something closer to beef butter, then spread on fresh handmade tortillas, topped with roasted onions and served with a selection of homemade salsas. It’s like brisket served Mexican style, says Escalante. After all, he adds, “the tortilla won the space race,” becoming the bread of choice on the International Space Station. But you don’t have to go that far. La Casa de los Tacos is located on the corner of Carrillo Puerto and Francisco Ortega, in Mexico City’s Coyoacan district.

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November 21, 2013 Lending an Ear or Two at the Franz Mayer

teacupSay “I hear you” with this unique tea set by ceramist Oscar Vazquez Alanis, part of the 6th Biennial of Utilitarian Ceramics at Mexico City’s Franz Mayer Museum. There’s lots more on show and it’s just as amusing, including candlesticks with a plumbing theme and a lamp that lights up a forest. In all, 89 pieces by 70 artists from 12 Mexican states.

The museum is also hosting the 1st Biennial of Silver Design, featuring 80 creations, some award winners.

Ceramics exhibit on through Jan. 12, silver biennial, until Jan. 19.

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March 11, 2013 Titanic Treasure Trove on Show in Mexico City

Titanic Treasure Trove on Show in Mexico City

By Titanic I mean L-A-R-G-E exhibit of Mexican silver art through the ages and up to today, with some pieces even beamed in from the future. Spectacular, don’t miss it. A challenge to see both floors in one day, luckily it’s on through end of May, so you can pace yourself. See you there. http://fomentoculturalbanamex.org/artificios-·-plata-y-diseno-en-mexico-1880-2012

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April 6, 2012 Plumed Serpent Lands in LA

Standing tall: this six-foot pair of feet served as a column base in pre-Hispanic Mexico

Children of the Plumed Serpent, a major exhibit of pre-Hispanic artifacts, opened this week in Los Angeles. More than five centuries old, the 200 pieces on show are on loan from collections around the world, including the UK, Austria, Canada, Germany, the US and Mexico.

Among the prized works are the Nutall Codice, which may have been among the first batch of gifts Hernan Cortez shipped to Spain’s King Carlos V in the 16th century as proof of the marvels of the New World; it was borrowed from London’s British Museum. Another featured relic is also the show’s largest: a six-foot-tall (1.8 meters) column base in the shape of the feet of an Atlante, or giant; borrowed from the museum at Tula, in central Mexico.

Made of jade, turquoise, gold, seashells, pearls and other materials, these objects depict the way various cultures in Mexico, including the Maya, Toltec, Zapotec, Mixtec and Nahua, venerated the Plumed Serpent god, Quetzalcoatl. The show will travel to Dallas before arriving in Mexico towards the end of 2012.

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March 27, 2012 The Color of Spring in Mexico City

The Color of Spring in Mexico City

Blue jacarandas signal springtime in the capital

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March 16, 2012 Psyches in Vivid Color

Painter Johan Falkman

Many of us are inclined to think that, with the advent of photography, the art of portrait painting has gone the way of the dodo bird. Not so, proves Swedish painter Johan Falkman, whose newly inaugurated one-man show at Mexico City’s San Ildefonso museum features more than 90 of his “psychological portraits.”

Touted for reinventing the genre through his expressionist style, Falkman says his greatest inspiration has been Mexico’s muralists, including Siqueiros, Orozco and O’Gorman. Their influence is evident in his group and individual studies in oil featuring bold strokes, highly textured surfaces and vibrant colors more typical of tropical Mexico than northern Sweden, where artists tend to use more muted shades, says exhibit curator Leticia Lopez Orozco.

Falkman’s subjects are other Swedes, from well-known doctors to actors to members of the royal family, and occasionally himself. “All of the characters I have painted in this exhibition are experts at playing their roles,” says the artist, which is one reason he selected them. Are his subjects generally happy with the end result? “Some are quite happy, but there have also been people who have been completely destroyed by it,” he admits with a laugh. “Some people have been very shocked by my depiction of them, probably because I have focused on an aspect of their personality they were not aware of.”

Falkman talks with art critic Robert C. Morgan about his career and artistic process Saturday, March 24, at 1pm (in English, with simultaneous translation). Also, art students and teachers are invited to watch the artist at work, from Tuesday, March 27, to Thursday, March 29, 10 am to 1 pm; reservations required by calling 5789 2505 or emailing pedagogicos@sanildefonso.org.mx.

  • Johan Falkman, La alteridad en el espejo
  • Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso
  • Justo Sierra 16, Centro Historico
  • Until July 15, 2012

 

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