Paintings collected and cataloged by the Moore family of Petaluma will be on display at the InterCultural Center Gallery in the Sonoma Student Union at Sonoma State University from Sep. 3-26.
The exhibition, "A Celebration of Modern Latin American Art" includes original modern works from well-known artists representing the countries of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, and Peru. The opening reception will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 4 in the InterCultural Center Gallery from 4-6 p.m.
Featured works include Peruvian artist, Fernando de Szyszlo?s piece titled, The Execution of Tupac Amaru. Writes Mario Vargas Llosa, ?Szyszlo belongs to the minority of modern creators that maintain the tradition of the humanist painters, for whom painting is the expression of a sensibility and intelligence nurtured with water from many cultural springs, ranging from philosophy to science, who for this
reason hope to project their work into other fields of human endeavor, and who have always refused to consider their art a ?specialty.?
Among the authors, events or works of art to whom he has rendered homage (Rimbaud, Breton, Vallejo, Arguedas, the Quechua poem "Apu Inca Atawallpaman", the execution of Tupac Amaru, Cajamarca, etc.), in the themes or titles of his paintings, in his own writings. (www.museum.oas.org/permanent/abstraction/szyszlo/writings_about.html#llosa)
Tupac Amaru became the last emperor of the Incas in 1570. Tupac Amaru had grown up in the Incan convent of Vilcabamba, the so-called religious university of the Incas. He was favored by the native religious and military leaders. He opposed Christianity and the Spanish occupation. According to art collectors, Norman and Barbara Moore, ?The head of the Incas was considered also to be the sun. When the Spaniards executed the Inca Emperor there occurred a simultaneous eclipse of the sun.?
Other featured artists include Carlos Ramos Galvez of Peru. Galvez studied in the Escuela de Artes Plasticas de la Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru and has won many awards, including Premio "Amigos de Ibiza" en la III Bienal Internacional de Ibiza, Spain in 1968. Ramos Galvez, also from Peru excels in engraving, especially in his unusual ?cartongraphias,? which utilize many new ways of printmaking. He works with his cartongraphias like an alchemist, resulting in more rich and novel techniques.
Mexican artist, Leticia Tarrago, worked in the atelier of Guillermo Silva Santamaria in Mexico City when the Moores visited in 1968.
Argentinian artist, Oscar Esteban Conti, 'Oski', is a caricaturist, cartoonist and humorist, well known in South America for comical illustrations of ?Fausto; Impressiones del Gaucho, Anastasio el Pollo, en la Representation de esta Opera, by Estanislao Del Campo,? and for the humorous book, Historia de Indias.
The InterCultural Center is located in the Sonoma Student Union and is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
