Side Trip: Mexico IV

It is the rainy season in Mexico, I am very lucky - there is no significant rain until my last day. That day, however, it rains the entire day, luckily not heavily, and the umbrella my nephew laughed at me for buying because it is so big proves itself. I plan an indoor event, but don’t realise there’s quite a walk from the metro station to get there, not helped by gates and walls I have to figure out a way around because Google doesn’t know they are there. By the time I arrive, I deserve a coffee and when I learn there’s a full restaurant onsite, it’s spaghetti time.

I’m at the Mexico University Museum of Contemporary Art, some 20 km south of the centre of the city - it forms part of a really cool Cultural Precinct, which includes performance spaces, theatres, a cinema and a book shop.

The biggest exhibition is of the works of Magili Lara, who has been creating art for 40+ years. They start with her latest work and move backwards - I like her art more the further I progress. I’m amused by her work called Coffee - which is also the element she used to make it.

I really like the crooked still life, and am impressed by the last image, the tree, which is made out of newspaper - the artist is Miler Lagos. It puzzled me when it said they were cut with a router, then I work it out.

Another installation is by a gamer - Andrew Roberts. When I walk in, I see dancing skeletons, which I like a lot, but I only catch the end of that video. Although I hang around, they don’t come back. The installation is called Spectral Corpses, and is supposedly after the zombie apocalypse - he specialises in horror and fantasy. A lot of the work was him (or maybe an AI created being) reciting fairly doom-laden poetry followed by a music video.

I’m not sure what’s going on in this exhibition of works by Kader Attia - it is called Jacob’s Ladder, and is supposedly about Jacob’s vision of the angels of God.

I’d say the last exhibition I see is my favourite - all it is is a timber lined room with heaps of speakers, at three levels. Sun Ra left behind 600 tapes of all sorts of things - rehearsals. audio sketches, poetry, lectures, hypnosis sessions… Leslie Garcia has created what he calls a sonic diary from these tapes, although there is no order, and plays them in this room - the sounds travelling around the room from speaker to speaker make for an entrancing listen.

The guidebook says I should see the University library, but I failed to record why - it turns out it is because of the murals, rather than the building having any sort of style to it.

The central campus has a lot of space, but that’s about all it has going for it.

There are other murals as well.

I have some trouble getting off campus to catch the metro - the University is walled and fenced, and the gates I find are wired shut. With the aid of some passersby I get out and on to the metro. I’m very tired - it’s been wet and I walk 20 km - so all I want is a beer and to go home. Regina Street is supposedly the very starting point of Mexico, but these days, it is a line up of bars competing to sell you 5 litres of beer for the cheapest price (the bar I go to does it for 320 pesos, less than $30). No, I don’t get 5 litres, just one.

In the morning, I make a good start to the bus station to catch my bus to Guadalajara, setting off more than three hours early. I am foiled, however, by rush hour on the metro - I just can’t get my bag and I on. There’s supposedly a bus that will get me there, but I never see it. So, I resort to a taxi which, surprisingly, has its meter on and charges a modest amount. The bus terminal is a fabulous place, a real work of art. I just wish I had time to enjoy it, or some of the great food available. Instead, I catch my bus

Cheers!.