Museo de Arte Moderno

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Modern Art Museum (Mexico)
Museo de Arte Moderno (Mexico)
Main access to the museum
Map
Established20 September 1964
LocationChapultepec Park, Mexico City, Mexico
Coordinates19°25′23″N 99°10′47″W / 19.422929°N 99.179781°W / 19.422929; -99.179781
TypeArt Museum
Public transit accessChapultepec Station, Line 1
Websitehttps://mam.inba.gob.mx/

The Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM) is a museum dedicated to modern Mexican art located in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City.

The museum is part of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura and provides exhibitions of national and international contemporary artists. The museum also hosts a permanent collection of art from Remedios Varo, Gelsen Gas, Frida Kahlo, Olga Costa, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Leonora Carrington, Rufino Tamayo, Juan Soriano, and Vicente Rojo Almazán.

Background[edit]

Details of the Museum of Modern Art of Mexico City.

A forerunner of MAM called the National Museum of Plastic Arts, was created in 1947 by Carlos Chávez. This first museum was located inside the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

In 1953, Carmen Barreda, then director of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and later the first director of MAM from 1964 to 1972, founded a board tasked with building a museum to preserve, study and disseminate the modern art of Mexico. This project took more than ten years to materialize.

Building[edit]

The museum building was based on the design of the architects Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Carlos A. Cazares Salcido (Professor at the University of Sonora), in collaboration with Rafael Mijares Alcérreca. A part of the original project, which included an auditorium, library and wineries, was never completed.[1]

The gardens and walkways were designed by Juan Siles, with the direction of the artist Helen Escobedo.[2]

Collections[edit]

Sculptures in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.
Sculptures in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.

The museum focuses on displaying modern Mexican art, mainly from the decade of 1930 onwards. Within its permanent exhibition are works of several great Mexican masters of the period, such as: Frida Kahlo, Julio Castellanos, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Emir Jair, Roberto Montenegro, José Clemente Orozco, Louis Henri Jean Charlot, Juan Soriano, Juan O'Gorman, Diego Rivera, Jesús Guerrero Galván, María Izquierdo, Rufino Tamayo, Raúl Anguiano, Federico Cantú, Carlos Orozco Romero, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Ricardo Martínez de Hoyos, Jorge González Camarena, Guillermo Meza, Francisco Corzas, Leonora Carrington, Alfredo Zalce, Remedios Varo, Agustín Lazo, Ángel Zárraga, Gerardo Murillo, José Chávez Morado, Mathías Goeritz, Gunther Gerzso, Manuel Felguérez, Abraham Ángel, Pedro Coronel, Luis López Loza, Francisco Toledo, Francisco Zúñiga, Pedro Friedeberg, Luis Ortiz Monasterio, Feliciano Béjar, Rosa Castillo y Mardonio Magaña.[3] Like other Mexican art museums, the MAM has a very wide collection of modern and contemporary Mexican art, which by limitations of physical space is known by means of temporary exhibitions.

The museum's lobby and gardens are adorned with sculptures by great national and international artists. Among nationals represented are Gelsen Gas, Germán Cueto, Mathias Goeritz, Estanislao Contreras and Manuel Felguérez.

The theme of the museum mainly covers what is known as the Escuela Mexicana de Pintura and the Generación de la Ruptura. Exhibitions of international contemporary art are also presented.

The museum has under its shelter an important collection of works by the great Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo.

Rooms[edit]

We must confront vague ideas with clear images.

The museum has four rooms that are named after different personalities of the Mexican cultural environment of the twentieth century: Xavier Villaurrutia, Carlos Pellicer, Antonieta Rivas Mercado, and José Juan Tablada. It also features the Fernando Gamboa Gallery.

The museum's permanent collection is on display in room "C" of the main building, on the first floor.

Gallery[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Historia del Museo de Arte Moderno". INBA. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
  2. ^ "MUSEO". MUSEO DE ARTE MODERNO. Archived from the original on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  3. ^ "La Colección: Obras selectas del Museo de Arte Moderno". www.mam.org.mx. Archived from the original on 4 July 2011. Retrieved 13 January 2022.

External links[edit]