For our 2021 Curatorial Residency in partnership with @musa.museodelasartes, the Museum of the Arts in Guadalajara, Mexico (MUSA), BBAX is hosting Laura Ayala who, for many years, served as Curator, Educator, and Coordinator of Exhibitions at MUSA. For this residency, Ayala will undertake research, education, and community projects, focusing on Mexican Muralism and their connection with California and Santa Monica's Spanish speaking community. Through this program we hope to engage, inspire, and highlight the contributions made by the Latino community to our city.

 

Throughout the residency Laura will research the local Chicano and Spanish speaking communities, while also engaging with the LatinX community as well as local Spanish speaking artists through virtual studio visits, portfolios reviews, lectures, and workshops discussing José Clemente Orozco muralism history and restoration.

 

From 2014 to date Laura Ayala has studied the life and work of Orozco, she worked in the Museum of the Arts of the University of Guadalajara for more than 15 years where she developed a series of curatorial and educational projects around the murals that Orozco painted from 1936 to 1937 in the auditorium known as Paraninfo, located inside the building that is currently the headquarters of the Museum.

 

In May 2016 an earthquake caused some cracks to these frescoes, it was crucial to make a comprehensive intervention. The scaffolding - on which the restorers worked - gave Laura the opportunity to observe the paintings at a close distance, allowing her to appreciate the brushstroke of the master and above all to perceive the monumentality of the works and the great difficulty that represented their execution. With this experience she conceived a project that would allow her “to transport” the frescoes, this work was entitled Metaphysical Orozco which is an animated video experience.

 

This project was first presented at the LA ART Show in 2018 and later at the MUSA headquarters itself. Laura considers it of great importance to know the background and historical context in which a particular work is produced. Mexican Muralism was possible in Mexico thanks to the combination of many social, political and artistic factors.

 

It is very important that both the well-informed and the new public can have access to new elements of interpretation of the work of the Grand Masters, in this case Orozco. This research intends to sow a seed in postmodern times, giving us new elements of interpretation that lead to a critical rereading of the work of José Clemente Orozco, creating cultural understanding and awareness of the social issues Mexican artists like Orozco face.

 

This program is possible with support from the city of Santa Monica's Community Access & Participation (CAP) program. For more information on our Curatorial Residency Program, please click here.

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Para nuestra residencia curatorial 2021, en colaboración con @musa.museodelasartes, MUSA Museo de las Artes de la Universidad de Guadalajara, México, BBAX recibe a Laura Ayala quien, por muchos años, ha trabajado como curadora y educadora; fue además Coordinadora de Exposiciones

en el MUSA. A través de este programa esperamos atraer, inspirar y mostrar la relevancia de las

contribuciones que los latinos han hecho a nuestra ciudad.

 

Ayala realizará proyectos de investigación, de educación y actividades con la comunidad de habla hispana y con los chicanos, al mismo tiempo que se vinculará con algunos artistas por medio de visitas a sus estudios, revisión de portafolios, conferencias y talleres en los que se discutirá sobre la historia y la restauración de los murales de José Clemente Orozco.

 

Con esta charla, Laura sugerirá la idea del arte como un catalizador que nos integra con las raíces de nuestra riqueza cultural pero, también, como un puente que nos comunica con los nuevos conocimientos que se adquieren al entrar en contacto con una sociedad distinta a la propia. En este sentido, el intercambio que se experimenta con las migraciones se convierte en un beneficio de ida y vuelta. En su ir y venir entre México y Estados Unidos y los resultados de sus experiencias creativas entre California, Nueva York, Nuevo Hampshire, la Ciudad de México y Guadalajara, ¿qué es lo que Orozco se lleva y qué es lo que deja tras de sí? Laura Ayala propone un recorrido por el arte de Orozco para redescubrir el espíritu de su época y destacar la trascendencia de su legado mural.

 

Esta actividad es posible gracias al apoyo del Programa de Acceso y Participación Comunitaria de la Ciudad de Santa Mónica (CAP).