A big collection of small drawings and a smattering of other works by celebrated Oaxacan artist Francisco Toledo are on display at the University of Guadalajara’s Museo de las Artes until September 2.
“Libreta de apuntes/sketchbook” treats the viewer to a look at the ink and watercolor musings of Toledo, who is arguably Mexico’s most renowned living artist. The show is said to be the result of a collector’s idea to take apart and publicize the sketchbook, approximately 8 by 10 inches, which he had been storing at his gallery since Toledo gave it to him in the 1980s.
One may expect that work from a sketchbook might not be of the same technical caliber as an artist’s principal work, and such is the case here, at least according to the comments of some viewers. One unique and pleasant aspect of the drawings is the novel fashion in which they are displayed in the museum — matted, sandwiched between glass, and hung from the ceiling in banks of three or four throughout the center of the room, so that both sides of the paper, sometimes curly from watercolor, can be seen.
Trying to distill the significance of such work is treacherous, but one viewer noted approvingly that the drawings have different meanings for different people, leaving this writer feeling relieved at being temporarily let off the hook.
The artist’s biographer writes that the drawings aim to “confront and provoke” and that Toledo uses shock and intuitive rejection to provoke a type of catharsis in the viewer. “He doesn’t want to be liked.”
If shock and not being liked were Toledo’s aims, he frequently succeeds in this.
Toledo’s work will show until September 2, overlapping with an exhibition of the imaginative and sometimes large-scale textile art of Sara Maria Terrazas.
Besides the two exhibits, visitors can walk around the outside of this building in which the museum resides — the landmark rectory of the University of Guadalajara — to the Vallarta entrance and go inside to see, if no other events interfere, the famed, fiery Orozco mural “The People and the Leaders,” which is painted on the interior of the dome.
University of Guadalajara, Museo de las Artes, Lopez Cotilla 930, near corner of Avenida Vallarta and Enrique Diaz de Leon. Museum hours: Tuesday–Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday & Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Monday. Website: www.museodelasartes.udg.mx. No charge to enter.