viernes, 27 de marzo de 2015

Clipping 0018 - Why Spring Travelers Should Flock to México City

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/why-spring-travelers-should-flock-to-mexico-city-300055175.html

Why Spring Travelers Should Flock To Mexico City

Quaint Neighborhoods, Rich Culture and Delectable Cuisine Abound in Mexico's Capital

MEXICO CITY, March 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- A cultural mecca where vibrant history and tantalizing entertainment collide, Mexico City is the ideal destination for travelers planning a getaway this spring. An easily accessible destination, more than 50 direct flights travel to Mexico City each day from international locations. U.S. and Canadian cities connect to Mexico City via nonstop service operated by Delta, Aeromexico, United Airlines, Air Canada and American Airlines among other carriers. And, once you arrive, the opportunities are limitless. Beautiful accommodations, breathtaking attractions and engaging people, culture and history await visitors of all backgrounds and interests.

Mexico's capital delivers mesmerizing neighborhoods fit for every lifestyle. While there are over a dozen distinct neighborhoods – each with their own personality and attractions – here is a snapshot of the varieties to be found from neighborhood to neighborhood within the sprawling city limits:

Centro HistoricoFor a glimpse into Mexico City past and present, visitors can stroll through the heart of the capital, the Centro Historico neighborhood, a UNESCO world heritage site featuring notable landmarks and streets that have evolved over the years. Here travelers will find prominent examples of the city's history in the iconic architecture and layout.

The main plaza, Zocalo – the second largest in the world – is the perfect starting place for exploration around this neighborhood and the city as a whole. Don't miss the 16th century constructed cathedral; Mexico's seat of Government, Palacio Nacional; or the ancient ruins of the Aztec's most important temple, Templo Mayor.

Roma and CondesaAn essential part of the city's cultural and gastronomic life, the adjacent Roma and Condesa neighborhoods are home to Mexico City's trendy and creative. The area overflows with diverse dining options and alluring nightlife possibilities; as well as varying architectural styles and bold design. Whether strolling past immaculately tended public gardens and art deco architecture, grabbing coffee at a sidewalk cafe or perusing one of the many clothing and design stores, the Condesa neighborhood appeals to visitors seeking chic culture and style in a relaxed setting.

With its fascinating history and creative residents, the Roma neighborhood has numerous art and design galleries can be found along the popular street Calle Colima, delighting enthusiasts with a curated selection of fine art.

Reforma and Chapultepec With quaint cafes, historic architecture and intriguing museums dotted throughout the area, the Reforma – Chapultepec area is the perfect stay for arts and culture enthusiasts. Chapultepec is commonly known as one of the most dynamic green spaces on the planet and is filled with museums well as zoological gardens and three sprawling lakes.

Paseo de la Reforma is a grand leafy boulevard which showcases the city's French influences and most recognizable monuments. On Sundays from 9-2pm, Paseo de la Reforma is car-free, allowing visitors and locals alike to ride bikes or walk in the street and discover a more intimate view of the charming neighborhood. Also, with Roma, Condesa and San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhoods nearby, staying in this area ideally positions visitors within reach of top galleries and emerging spaces of new young artists.

Polanco Within close distance to Reforma and Chapultepec by car is one of the city's main and most prestigious business districts: the Polanco neighborhood, which serves as home to a range of Mexico's most important businesses and embassies. Balance business and leisure with retail therapy due to your proximity to designer shopping such as Ferragamo, Hermes and Christian Dior, and the Antara Polanco Shopping Center, which houses high-end shops, restaurants and cantinas.

For a glimpse at how the landscape of Polanco has changed, walk along Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra where you'll find the Soumaya Museum and Jumex Museum. Inside the Soumaya Museum, visitors will find featured collections spanning the fifteenth through twentieth centuries, while more contemporary works are displayed throughout the new Jumex Museum across the street.

San Angel and Coyoacan To sample some other flavors of Mexico City, head south to the San Angel and Coyoacan neighborhoods, where wide streets, ancient churches, plazas and distinguished museums serve as a perfect setting to unwind. Museo Frida Kahlo, a must-see attraction, is located at Coyoacan, offering visitors an opportunity to see the environment where she grew up and then shared with Diego Riverain some periods of their life together.

Xochimilco Also situated in the southern region of Mexico City, Xochimilco is another one of Mexico City's four UNESCO world heritage sites. This borough of the capital city features hundreds of colorful boats, called trajineras that float along the canals of Lake Xochimilco. Popular for weekend outings, family get togethers and celebrations, colorful gatherings are held here. Once used for transporting goods, these gondolas are now primarily utilized for tourism and are available for various group sizes. There are many different ways to explore Xochimilco, including an intimate ride with a relaxing picnic past pristine gardens and the famous island of dolls.

For more information on travel to Mexico City's various neighborhoods, visit http://mxcity.mx/en/.

Mexico City is the country's premier tourism destination, welcoming more than 12.5 million visitors a year. The ancient capital offers a vibrant, contemporary culture that combines pre-Hispanic, colonial and modern influences that span nearly seven centuries. With more than 150 museums and more than 180 galleries, 30 distinct archaeological and historic sites, the city is a mecca of fine art and treasures that speak to its vast history. The Mexico City Tourism Promotion Fund (Fondo Mixto de Promocion Turistica del Distrito Federal) supports and enhances city tourism. For more information and daily updates please visit/follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MexicoCityLive) and Twitter (@MexicoCityLive).

Media Contact: Lauren Lane, +1 (212) 445-8303, llane@webershandwick.com

SOURCE Mexico City Tourism Promotion Fund

jueves, 19 de marzo de 2015

Clipping 0017 - The Wall Street Journal - Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden Life.

Fuente de Clipping - Webershandwick - Martes 17 marzo 2015 - Positive/Neutral Mentions

http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-spring-arts-preview-1426296119

Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life

New York Botanical Garden

May 16–Nov. 1

nybg.org/frida

ENLARGE

Frida Kahlo’s ‘Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird’ (1940). PHOTO: SEE CAPTION

A half-century after her death, Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo is internationally renowned, even among the non-art set, for her striking surrealist self-portraits. With the exhibit “Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life,” the New York Botanical Garden aims to show Kahlo’s art in a new light—namely, sunlight. The artist drew heavily on the natural world just outside the window of her Mexico City home (known as La Casa Azul and now a museum), often featuring animals and lush greenery. This exhibit will re-create aspects of the painter’s home and garden within the park, juxtaposed with a dozen canvases.

Clipping 0016 - Detroit Free Press - Ellen Creager - See more Rivera-Kahlo treasures in Mexico City

Fuente de Clipping - Webershandwick - Martes 17 marzo 2015 - Positive/Neutral Mentions

Para ver el articulo de origen el enlace es:

http://www.freep.com/story/travel/michigan/2015/03/15/dia-rivera-kahlo-tour-mexico/70282238/

See more Rivera-Kahlo treasures in Mexico City

By Ellen Creager, Detroit Free Press2:26 p.m. EDT March 15, 2015

If you're intrigued by the new Detroit Institute of Arts exhibition on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, make plans to get to Mexico City.

"How do we get more people from Michigan to come visit Mexico beyond Cancun?" asked Vicente Colmenares Sumano, deputy consul of the Mexican Consulate in Detroit, as we sat together at a recent lunch downtown.

Make it easy to get there, I said. And attract cultural tourists.

Already, Mexico is by far the most popular international destination for Americans.

More than 6.5 million of us flew as tourists to our southern neighbor last year, flocking to beach spots like Cancun, Cozumel, Riviera Maya, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta. Many more arrived by cruise ship or car.

Still, most Americans plod year after year to the same few destinations, missing culturally rich spots like Campeche, Oaxaca and the capital, Mexico City.

To attract Michigan tourists to a place like Mexico City you need to lure them with something exotic and also warmly familiar.

Something like, say, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Rivera-Kahlo at DIA

With the opening of the big Diego Rivera-Frida Kahlo art exhibition today (running March 15-July 12) at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Michiganders will have a chance to glimpse 70 pieces of the Mexican artists' passionate work.

Intrigued by it? Then you absolutely need to see more.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

Review: 'Rivera & Kahlo' at DIA celebrates Detroit soul

Mexico City is not only a phenomenally interesting, cosmopolitan world capital with a great food scene and colonial beauty, but it also was the home of Rivera and Kahlo. It is there you can tour their quirky houses and studios, see the Frida Kahlo Museum and the dynamic Rivera-packed Dolores Olmedo Museum. The city has so many Rivera murals at so many public buildings your head will spin.

Luckily, Detroit is a great jumping off point for such a sojourn. Delta flies nonstop to Mexico City as well as to Cancun, Monterrey and seasonally to Los Cabos.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

Tale of two artists: Rivera and Kahlo together at DIA

For those who want to see more of Diego and Frida's legacy, Ann Arbor tour operator Tia Stephanie will offer a Mexico City tour Aug. 8-16 that immerses travelers in the artists' world (see the itinerary and pricing at www.tiastephanietours.com, 734-769-7839.)

Related: photo gallery of Rivera and Kahlo attractions in Mexico City

Beyond the beaches

While an art tour may attract some of us, it won't attract all. So Mexico also is looking to other ways to attract Americans beyond the beaches, such as Maya tourism or "beautiful small town" tourism, or "family heritage" tourists (about 400,000 people with Mexican citizenship or heritage live in Michigan, Sumano says, about 45,000 of those in metro Detroit.)

The biggest hurdle to more widespread American tourism in Mexico? Fear. As in Detroit, there are some spots in Mexico you do not want to go because of crime. The State Department lists some of those places in its travel warning.

On the other hand, I asked Sumano and his colleagues how their families responded when the diplomats were first posted to Detroit.

"They were afraid for us," said one.

"They thought it was dangerous," said another.

So maybe there's a lesson here. Maybe it's time to branch out from the beach and experience a fuller Mexico.

Start by visiting the new exhibit at the DIA. Then make your plans.

Contact Detroit Free Press Travel Writer Ellen Creager at ecreager@freepress.com.

Clipping 0015 - Denver Post - Ray Mark Rinaldi - From complicated, cosmopolitan Mexico City, art attempts to cross the borders

Fuente de Clipping - Webershandwick - Martes 17 marzo 2015 - Positive/Neutral Mentions

link original de este articulo:

http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_27653858/from-complicated-cosmopolitan-mexico-city-art-tries-cross?source=infinite

ENTERTAINMENT

From complicated, cosmopolitan Mexico City, art attempts to cross the borders

By Ray Mark Rinaldi
Denver Post Fine Arts Critic

POSTED: 03/08/2015 12:01:00 AM MST1 COMMENT| UPDATED: 10 DAYS AGO

Mexico City's annual Zona Maco art fair draws dealers and collectors from across the world and has helped develop a high-end art market in Mexico's capital. This installation appeared in a booth shared by two Berlin galleries, Dittrich & Schlechtriem and Alexander Levy. (Ray Mark Rinaldi, The Denver Post)

MEXICO CITY — North America's largest city has long deployed modernism as a way of proving that it's a contemporary place. Within the natural decay of a crowded, 400-year-old metropolis, where buildings crumble and sidewalks disappear, where corruption is a fact and hope for broad economic prosperity fleeting, there's been a five-decade, government-sponsored intervention of sleek office towers, high-tech transportation systems and, in so many plazas, over-scaled pieces of public art made from steel or concrete.

Mexico City's progressive galleries show an international roster of visual artists. At the Labor gallery, Santiago Sierra's "La Lona," exploring the loss of individuality in contemporary life, consisted of 15 people standing under a white shroud. Only one spectator at a time was allowed into the gallery.

The old crashes into the new in ways that are meaningful and undeniably beautiful. Downtown, aging cathedrals are smudged in pollution. But in the Condesa neighborhood, sleek, architecture-forward apartment buildings rise that would look more at home in San Francisco or Berlin. On the broad boulevards of gentrifying Roma Norte, high-speed bus lines set international standards for efficiency, but on the rooftops hang a tangle of clotheslines where laundry dries and the conveniences other countries take for granted seem worlds away.

Art is flourishing here right now — really flourishing — and it's easy to see why. Since mankind invented paint, art has had a unique ability to delineate the haves from the have-nots. There is much to be said about this conflict between past and present, progress and stagnation.

It's hard to know yet how much of this story will be told in Denver this summer, but the potential is beguiling. Dozens of Mexico City artists will show new work as part of the Biennial of the Americas — outdoor installations, painting, sculpture, video, performance pieces.

Matt Scobey, the first of the Biennial of the America's Ambassadors, is spending 10 weeks in Mexico City making art to show in Denver. (Ray Mark Rinaldi, The Denver Post)

The biennial's mission is to explore the culture of the entire hemisphere, but for its third edition, the art program will focus on one place in hope that the conversation goes deeper. The choice of Mexico City isn't random; a third of Denver's population has Mexican roots and its capital sizes up its dreams and failures.

"We need to have this conversation," said Lauren Wright, the biennial's in-house curator. "But how can we do it in creative ways?"

And in honest ways. American perceptions of Mexico's interior are clouded by media reports of brutal crimes and drug trafficking. No one denies that's a fact of life — in some places.

But Mexico City is a thriving, safe, culturally rich metropolis that Americans might love as much as Paris if they got to know it. Museums, shopping and restaurants go hand-in-hand with traffic, beggars and endless noise, all adding up to the "complex, complicated and totally cosmopolitan" place it is, as Wright puts it.

The Zona Maco art fair takes place every February, spread across 12,000 square feet in Mexico City's giant Centro Banamex convention center. Dealers come from more than 20 countries to show and sell work. This booth hosted the Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery from Madrid. (Photos by Ray Mark Rinaldi, The Denver Post)

Artists are invited to report the story however they see it, and the biennial is fostering the exchange on several levels. Its Ambassadors program is sponsoring four, 10-week residencies. Two Mexico City artists, Cristobal Gracia and Daniel Monroy Cuevas, will come here and two Denver artists, Matt Scobey and Melissa Furness, go there. All will showcase their work at the McNichols Building in Civic Center this July.

Lauren Wright with a mural by Michael Ortiz and Jonathan Lambural . (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

There will be a large group show that includes Mexican artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, likely to include important names. Artist Erick Meyenberg, now creating a performance piece at a Mexico City shopping mall featuring girls from a local military academy, will stage a related piece at Denver International Airport.

Marcela Armas will produce an interactive work to reside concurrently in Denver and Mexico City. An all-female collective called De Sitio is hatching a project involving artists, architects and designers.

Most of the work is being dreamed up right now, just four months out, as artists meet one another and explore possibilities. It is a grand experiment in process, a risk considering that projects could succeed or fail. Whatever the outcome, the display will be public, stretching from downtown to DIA.

Meet the ambassador

Matt Scobey looks like a Colorado guy. He's 6 feet tall and thin, blond and blue-eyed and obsessed with his bike, a royal-blue American Eagle he's been riding around Mexico City during his residency.

All this makes him stand out in a place where, generally speaking, people are shorter and browner than Scobey, and most locals know better than to bike in a zone where cars and pedestrians see traffic rules as a choice.

But it allows him a unique perspective for soaking in what he calls "the constant balance between beauty and brutality" in the city. If you're going to be an ambassador, you've got to represent; and Scobey is experiencing Mexico City in visceral ways.

Two weeks in, he got food poisoning so bad he dropped 25 pounds in just a few days. His bike was impounded by customs and he had to pay about $250, cash, to get it back.

Scobey, the first ambassador to get started, is a graphic designer, though he also makes sculptures out of concrete, and this is where he has connected creatively. Concrete defines Mexico City, the streets, the best houses, and mostly notably, the sidewalks, which alternately devolve into ruts and rise into platforms. They've been paved over so many times a curb can easily rise 16 inches off the street. For Americans, the sidewalks here can feel like one big tripping hazard. "You can see the layering of the eras in their development," Scobey said.

Like the other ambassador artists, Scobey's task is to make something out of his experiences, and that has happened organically. Working in his studio, a sunny shotgun of a room six paces wide and 20 long on the fourth floor of an artists co-op in the Centro district, he has poured batch after batch of concrete, molding it into various things.

He's come up with a plan to make tiles, maybe hundreds of them, about 1 foot square, and lay them on the floor of the McNichols Building. He's imprinting them with plastic trash bags scavenged from the streets: crinkly, veiny, tactile patterns.

Scobey won't finalize ideas until he returns to the U.S. March 23. He is considering thickness and color, whether to layer them flat or raise them off the floor, or leave cracks, like the sidewalks themselves. He wants to wrap in notions about urban ecology and the underground economy he's seen with the thousands of vendors who line the streets in the Centro.

"Some days the pollution is intense here. Some days the smells are intense," he said. "It's an intense visual and auditory reality all the time."

Two art worlds

In many ways, Mexico City is as posh as London or Los Angeles. In the swank Polanco district, Gucci and Cartier shops fuel a daytime bustle that pricey nightclubs sustain into the early morning. Bars are world-class, people dress up for breakfast and the place is wired: Free Wi-Fi in the plazas.

But you don't have to look hard to see another side. Children selling candy on the streets. People who walk long distances because they can't afford a 33-cent subway ride. Even folks with good government jobs talk of working 10 or 12 hours a day.

Everyone complains about corruption, and it's visible on the streets. A few blocks from the Zocalo, police stand by as prostitutes work a busy avenue, many of them teenagers. For $7, you can get a girl and a place to complete the transaction.

Such duality defines the city, and it's reflected in the burgeoning art scene.

The city's annual art fair, Zona Maco, is in its 12th year. It has grown nearly as big and expensive as the great fairs in Basel, Hong Kong and Miami and draws dealers from Berlin, Bogata and Manhattan, plus an international corps of collectors (this year, there were a dozen from Colorado and they spent money).

The February fair has pumped up Mexico's reputation as an art center and created a high-end market. The city supports a number of posh galleries where customers ring the bell to get in and peruse works with price points you'd see in Chelsea.

There is at the same time a grassroots wave rushing in. Complementing Zona Maco is an upstart called Material Art Fair, founded two years ago by expat Brett Schultz, along with Daniela Elbahara and Isa Castilla. It presents small and interesting galleries with younger, experimental artists and has given the fair scene more credibility.

In 2009, a group of artists developed SOMA, an alternative, upper-level art school. Artists come from throughout Mexico for two-year residencies where they take formal classes in history and theory. In the summer, SOMA runs a program, in English, drawing from across the globe.

The school has coalesced a community of young artists and emerged as a hip center for culture. Its Wednesday art talks, convening around 8:30 p.m., are packed.

Small galleries are popping up throughout the city, often produced by artists and independent curators who show daring work that rivals that in any capital city. LuLu, a project space opened by curator Chris Sharp two years ago, presents international artists in a room the size of a one-car garage.

The work is highly conceptual and sometimes profound. LuLu's recent biennial show in February featured one piece by artist Tania Pérez Córdova that consisted of three counterfeit coins. One was placed on he gallery floor, the other resided in the gallery owner's pocket. To see the third, you had to walk two blocks to a juice vendor squeezing oranges on the street and ask her to present it.

At the Labor space across town, Santiago's Sierra's "La Lona" consisted of a single piece inside a large, white-cube gallery that had 15 people standing under a single cloak. Just standing there. Only one spectator was allowed to enter the gallery at a time.

Artists here make their own opportunities. There's Bikini Wax, in Condesa, a renegade operation run by Cristobal Gracia that's part gallery, part party house. It hosts a different exhibit, and a rollicking opening, most every weekend.

In the Santa María la Ribera neighborhood, artists have turned an old house into a studio and resident space called Casa Imelda. It's shabby but full of energy. In San Rafael, there's Casa Mauaad, a compound of galleries and bedrooms that hosts artists and exhibits from near and far.

Mirroring cities

Lauren Wright saw a number of parallels between what was happening in Mexico City and Denver. She came on board as the biennial's artistic director last August and was charged with building its cultural program in just a year.

Denver has RedLine, an exhibition space in Curtis Park founded by Laura Merage in 2008, which provides free studio space to developing artists, shapes careers and exhibits work.

It's not like Mexico's SOMA — not a school, less formal — but it has connected regional artists in a way that is bringing some definition of what it means to be a Colorado artist in the 21st century.

Several RedLine artists helped develop Tank Studios in south Denver, a co-op inhabited by talented up-and-comers. Local artists Adam Milner and Jeromie Dorrance opened Dateline, a tiny gallery in RiNo that doubles as a living room.

South Broadway gallerist Adam Gildar, who specializes in emerging talent, separated his business interests out and opened the ArtPlant, a non-profit residency program that has started hosting out-of-town artists for an extended period.

For the Ambassadors program, Wright signed on Gildar and SOMA's Carla Herrera-Prats. The two selected the four Ambassadors artists and work with them closely as they are developing their ideas for the McNichols show.

By mingling creatives from here and there, the Denver Biennial hopes to capitalize on the energy of these artist-driven things "bubbling up in both places," said Wright, and in a way that inspires artists to continue making their city's culture more interesting while making interesting work themselves.

Wright asks the question: "How can we learn from one another, in a concrete way, about how to make something out of nothing?"

Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi

Tania Pérez Córdova's piece at LuLu gallery consisted of three counterfeit coins. One was placed on the gallery floor, the other resided in the gallery owner's pocket. To see the third, you had to walk two blocks to this juice vendor and ask her to present it.