For the next three months, one of central Guadalajara’s crown jewels, the Cabañas Cultural Institute, is availing the city of an exhibit which should please mightily those who appreciate the intersection of art and equine.
The UNESCO-recognized institute, formerly a home for orphans and “invalids” and now a house for art and a meeting place for visiting statesmen, brings together for “Equino 100” works in various media produced between the 17th and 21st Centuries which represent in some way the equus ferus caballus – horse, to the layman.
The exhibition has been organized and timed for maximum numerological symmetry. First of all, there are a total of 100 pieces covering the walls and floor of the large four-room space. Second, its opening coincided with the centenary of Guadalajara daily El Informador. Last, but from a purely artistic point of view, not least, a large canvas by Cuban painter Waldo Saavedra is featured, which purports to represent, vis-à-vis a feat of minutely detailed brushwork, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ 1967 classic of magic realism, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” It was one of the few works in the collection that wasn’t explicitly related to our most fetishized of beast of burden.
The collection, which also includes the works of Fernando Sandoval, Rufino Tamayo, Maria Izquierdo, Juan Soriano, Gabriel Flores, and Jose Clemente Orozco, among others, belongs to the Jesus Alvarez del Castillo Foundation (he was the founder of El Informador).
The show features several stunning works, but Saavedra’s painting – which, no matter what you think of it aesthetically, is without question a work of monumental labor – had the largest draw, consisting as it did of exquisitely rendered detail within detail of events and personages both historical and mythological; onlookers were seen gradually moving closer and closer to the piece until the museum guard on duty had to remind them not to touch the canvas with the tip of their noses.
An adjacent painting by Saavedra, only slightly less awe-inspiring in its ambition, featured a polemic photo-realistic portrait of Queen of Spain Letizia Ortiz, naked to the waist, holding a smoldering paper airplane and surrounded by a swarm of tiny disembodied renderings of famous works by Spanish painter Francisco Goya. The artist, not to be outdone by the 90-plus equine-related works in the exhibit, also contributed a few horse-centric works to the show.
The event’s opening drew 300 people, suggesting that our hooved partners in a variety of functions (war, transportation, agriculture) are in no danger of falling out of favor. The success of the city’s new fleet of horse-less, electric powered calandrias (carriages) seems less-than-assured, given the town’s apparent obsession with the animal.
El Instituto Cabañas Cultural is located at Calle Cabañas 8, at the end of Plaza Tapatia. Open every day except Monday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Go to hospiciocabanas.jalisco.gob.mx for information on exhibits both temporary and permanent.