By Lourdes Rivera
On September 15 Manuk Gallery opened its new exhibition called “Tekitl,” a word that in Nahuatl means trade.
Trades are activities generally related to manual or artisanal processes that are learned through experience and continuous practice and are often a family inheritance. Therefore, Mexican crafts carry in their existence a testimony of our customs and traditions.
Most of the trades are practiced by men and women of all ages; day by day they dedicate themselves with love to what they do with the purpose not only of obtaining their livelihood and that of their families but also to do it better and better and better, thus preserving a personal and cultural identity.
Among the most representative trades of Mexico, we can mention these: jimador, globero, taquero, organ grinder, camotero, cartonero, piñatero, tinsmith, shoemaker, and blacksmith.
A well-performed job requires perseverance, discipline, and time. However, these are not always valued. For this reason Galería Manuk dedicates the exhibition “Tekitl” to those in Mexico who give us, through their efforts, the magic of the trade impregnated in our crafts, music, food, and many other services that make our lives more colorful, and artistic, and give us that taste of Mexico.
By attending this exhibition you will be able to appreciate the work of four artists:
José Galileo—the interest in art has been present all his life starting as a graffiti artist in adolescence, studying graphic design, and having an enormous interest in the image in all its forms of expression: pictorial, photographic, audiovisual, and so forth.
His taste for art is not only visual. He has an enormous interest in literature, finding in it secret places where imagination and feelings create a different way of seeing life.
He believes that the purpose of all art is to unite us with the invisible with what can only be felt by what we feel, dream, and vibrate.
José Rocha—the pieces that I present on this occasion at the Manuk Gallery, are a selection of two of the works that I have enjoyed the most, from their conception as a paper project, to the realization of the prints and their interventions. “Las Doñas” was born as a project five years ago inspired by my passage through some towns in Quintana Roo and Yucatán.
Reynaldo Contreras—we are confronted with the passage from anatomy to the symptom which is carried out not without a shudder. Beauty takes on another face, slides from another perspective, that of what we have experienced in our body, in our spirit, recalling this inner trembling that announces, that reveals, that there is a rich plastic vocabulary, interiority, and provocation. Contreras bursts into the particularity of each of these characters and starts to cross the threshold.
Wendy Ramírez—considers herself as an old soul and it is in her work where she tries to capture all the wisdom of existence merging nature, the subconscious, and the expression in the gaze that speaks of itself in each of its pieces.