Mexico Out of the Labyrinth
Out of the Labyrinth is the title of an exhibition of contemporary Mexican studio ceramics I guest curated at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, September 25 – November 9, 2015. The title comes from a statement made by Nobel Prize winning author Octavio Paz in his famous book of essays, published in 1950, where he described Mexico as ‘a labyrinth of solitude’. Whether or not this is still accurate, or ever was, the exhibition revealed that it was certainly not true of the nine featured artists: Gerardo Azcúnaga, Gloria Carrasco, IsadoraCuéllar, Javier del Cueto, Gustavo Pérez, Maribel Portela, Eduardo Sarabia, Paloma Torres, and XaweryWolski. Their work, for all its ties to Mexico, its history and its culture, is cosmopolitan rather than provincial in spirit, and is not at all trapped in artistic isolation.
When I proposed Mexican ceramics as a possibility to the exhibition committee at Northern Clay, I knew next to nothing about the subject. Truth be told, my knowledge is still a work in progress. Yet beyond the pleasure I experienced in seeing the exhibition realized, there have been lessons learned about Mexican ceramics, ceramics in the United States, and the relationship between the two.
The original proposal came in tandem with a proposal for an exhibition on Canadian ceramics. I did not know much about Canadian ceramics either, although Walter Ostrom was included in an exhibition I curated on the theme of the garden and ceramics. Fortunately, other committee members knew a considerable amount about, appeared in 2014.
