Nobody in a Swamp, Lorena Diosdado, oil and oil stick on canvas, 121 in. × 86 in., 2024
Sep. 5, 2025 @ 6:00 pm – Jan. 4, 2026 @ 5:00 pm
About the Exhibit:
The Mexic-Arte Museum has been celebrating Día de los Muertos for over 40 years with its Annual Viva La Vida Festival and Parade, accompanied by an exhibition that honors this beloved tradition. For this year we are excited to depart from traditional expressions and embrace a wide range of cultural and artistic responses that extend beyond Dia de los Muertos and instead engage with broader themes of death, nature, geographic space, memory, and the cycles of life.
The Fall 2025 exhibition centers on “En lo más negro del verano” [In The Darkest of Summer], a haunting poem by Peruvian poet Blanca Varela (b. 1926 – d. 2009). Serving as a conceptual framework, the poem offers a profound meditation on death, memory, and the cyclical nature of existence. Through this text, ten emerging artists interpret and respond to Varela’s words, exploring these themes across a variety of mediums, including installation, painting, ceramics, film, and mixed media.
Resonating deeply with the spirit of Día de los Muertos as well as other expressions and traditions, Varela’s vision of death parallels the cultural understanding that the departed are not gone, but remain with us in memory, ritual, and spiritual return. This exhibition embraces these cultural continuities while expanding the dialogue to include contemporary responses to mourning, transformation, and rebirth.
Through contemporary expressions that reimagine mourning, transformation, and rebirth, “En lo más negro del verano” becomes both a guide and a mirror—reflecting the vibrancy and solemnity of death while inviting viewers to consider the cycles of life, nature, and identity.
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