Just as art and history seem to be everywhere and in everything in Oaxaca, so too are museums and galleries: big ones with international recognition to small, intimate spaces; workshops in a room off a house where passersby are welcome; collections displayed in stores and markets; the body of work that an artisan takes to market; the living galleries of street art and the ink of a tattoo artist ... and most are free of charge, or a nominal fee, or a showing of interest.
There is no particular order to the following notes, just what we were able to see and a note on what we ran out of time for.
MUSEO de FILATELIA de OAXACA (MUFI)
A fascinating and free little museum in a beautiful building with a relaxing, charming courtyard houses the stamp museum, the only one of its kind in Latin America. It kept us delighted for over an hour.
It has every Mexican stamp issued since 1856; rare stamps from around the world; thousands of stamps from other countries; some historical letters (Frida Kahlo to her doctor); fascinating and interactive displays; a gift shop; a couple of rooms dedicated to coins; a reading space; and a place to sit down, write and send postcards to anywhere.
While really enjoying this visit, which showed a profound respect for stamps and communication, we also found it very ironic. Living in Mexico for six years, we didn't use the post office. A family member mailed a Christmas card that arrived the next summer. For several months I sent weekly postcards to nephews in Canada, and they arrived all on the same day, months later. It was hard to reconcile what we saw in the museum with what we experienced.
MUFI looks rather ordinary from the outside, but once through the doors, the outdoor spaces and courtyards and even the roomy interior are a wonderful surprise.
Outdoor spaces at the Museo
Incredible displays for a favoured sport - soccer. Stamps from FIFA games all over the world, reproductions of stadiums, Mexican soccer heroes and more.
Baseball is another passion.
All kinds of unusual displays, including ceramic interpretations of post boxes, a VW Beetle entirely coated in stamps inside and out, everyday items covered in stamps.
Random art - not sure how it fits with stamps
Thousands of stamps from around the world, easily seen from pullout drawers.
An old-time post office.
The Reading Room
MUSEO TEXTIL de OAXACA
This little museum in a carefully restored 18th-Century mansion in Centro exists to promote education about and preservation of Oaxaca's textile industry.
Sadly, in several museums, all information was in unilingual Spanish. Even without the explanations, the fabrics were lovely to look at.
One display that I could find information about on the web is called Embroidery in Glass. The work is a tribute to the intricate floral embroidery found on traditional garments from the Isthmus of Oaxaca.
Specialized glass pigments imitate the texture, overlapping lines and contours of real stitched petals and leaves. You can feel the raised "thread" texture on the glass surface, and it looks very three-dimensional, just as if you are looking at embroidery. Remarkable.
These two pieces of lacework are so fine, it's hard to imagine doing them. The black piece is especially delicate work.
I think of the two pieces below as 'samplers'.
Woven work
I assume (but am not sure that ) the three items below are all shirts/blouses for women. The square shape remains prominent in woven clothes sold today.
MUSEO de los PINTORES OAXAQUENOS (MUPO)
(Museum of Oaxacan Painters)
This museum was built in 1686 as a girls' school. It has four galleries with rotating exhibitions and primarily showcases modern and contemporary art.
We were glad to have made it here as we did not get to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), AKA: the Museum of Contemporary Art and Culture of Oaxaca.
Here are a couple of works, in no particular order, from each of the four artists on the day we went: Guillermo Olguin, Hermann Orduna, Katherine Wong and Cesar Villegas.
The courtyard had some interesting sculpture and a gift shop.
GALERIA RUFINO TAMAYO
Walking along one day, we stopped to admire a serpent, or dragon sculpture in the middle of the sidewalk. We learned later that it is by Allan Romeo Amador Maya, a contemporary artist who specializes in taking industrial waste and discarded everyday objects and turning them into something else. This massive creature, named Quetzalcoatl, is made from tires. Quetzalcoatl is the Feathered Serpent deity in ancient Mexican mythology, creator of the world and humanity, god of wisdom and corn and is associated with wind and rain.
Behind this creature we see a single room with art on the walls and a security guard who lets us in, no fee as usual. Little do we know that this gallery is but one small part of a massive complex called Casa de la Cultura Oaxaquena.
We enjoy the work of Christina Lopez Casas who paints completely from memory, her own lived experiences as a woman, immigrant and grandmother. A couple of her pieces:
MUSEO COMMUNITARIO Ta Guiil-Rein (Matatlan)
This little two-room museum is operated by a grassroots community-curated space.
Lobby of the museum
To see our visit to a palenque, go to Part 3 of this series.
One room is all about mezcal - equipment used, methods, etc and it shows both the traditional and ceremonial uses for mezcal. This information comes from the lived experience of the Zapotec people involved with the museum.
The second room is about El Palmillo and the archaeological site at the edge of town, including artifacts dug up. It is possible to hike up to the site, but in the summer heat we chose not to.
To learn a bit about the town Matatlan go to Part 4 (Some Villages)
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