At Mexic-Arte Museum –Austin

On August 3, I attended Mexic-Arte Museum‘s opening for an exhibition of up and coming Latino artists in Texas under the age of 35, Juventud Desenfrenada or Youth Gone Wild.

Mexic-Arte Museum was founded in 1984. It is small and located in an old building on Congress Avenue. The evening was hot and steamy, like many other recent evenings, here in Austin. Unfortunately, Mexic-Arte has no air conditioning. Hopefully that will change if Austinites approve Proposition 4 this November, which would enable Mexic-Arte to renovate its quarters.

There were many fashionably dressed people at the art opening. Grace Zuniga dressed in a red dress is an artist exhibiting at the museum. Ms. Zuniga’s medium is photography and her work has a spiritual quality to it. She is posing for a photo being taken by the woman in a black dress on the left. They’re both wearing great dresses and accessories for the event and season.

Ms.Zungia is posing in front of the Quinceañera installation by Angel Quesada. The woman sitting in a chair behind the photographer is the mother of Mexic-Arte’s director, Sylvia Orozco.

Artist, Kimberly Garza Campell, also showing her work at the museum, stands with her family, while waiting to be announced. She’s wearing a wonderful red necklace. Her husband looks very comfortable in his pressed white shirt and gray slacks despite the heat. Ms Garza Campell works in scupture and painting. Her art is complex and sophisticated.

This is the opening to a human size nest, Nido, by Cesar Alexander Villareal. The inside is lined with feathers and has a camera watching over those inside the nest. It suggests vigilance, comfort and home security.

The preoccupation with personal appearance is evident in this work, In High Esteem, by Michael Garcia.

The exhibit ends October 1. It’s worthwhile to go.

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