'Day of the Dead' Exhibit Will Lift Your Spirits

By Laura M. Browning in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 14, 2010 3:20PM

We’ve long been fans of the National Museum of Mexican Art, and not just because it’s always free. This year’s Day of the Dead exhibit opened last weekend, and we were quick to hop on the Damen bus to check it out.

The love child of Mesoamerican spiritual rituals and Spanish Catholic traditions, Día de los Muertes, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated on November 2 (All Souls’ Day) each year. Even if you’re not familiar with the traditions of Día de los Muertes, you probably recognize its images—brightly decorated sugar skulls, dancing skeletons still wearing the bright clothes of their less ghostly pasts, a marigold-like flower called the cempasúchil.

Vida breve: Day of the Dead 2010 is a celebration of these popular images, the traditions they are borne of, and the fine art they inspired. Traditionally, Mexicans who celebrate Day of the Dead create ofrendas, or offerings, to welcome and guide the souls of their deceased loved ones home.

The NMMA has worked with artists, many of them local, to create large ofrendas in the exhibit, remembering their mothers, women who fought in the Mexican War for Independence, and other loved ones. It’s nice to see such an unusually personal touch inside a museum, like letters written to mothers and friends, family photos, and a multimedia memorial to the murdered local rapper J-Def (aka Jeff Abby Maldonado). We were particularly enamored of an entirely knitted ofrenda created by El Stitch y Bitch, a group of knitters from the Pilsen, Bridgeport, and Little Village neighborhoods, whose ofrenda is a glorious knitted homage to their crafty ancestors.

Other surprises include an ofrenda dedicated to the Chinese in Mexico, exquisitely detailed prints by José Guadalupe Posada, known as Mexico’s greatest printmaker, and paintings by living artist George Yepes. NMMA curator Dolores Mercado has expertly woven the past and present together and brought new life (forgive the pun) to these dancing skeletons as their souls make their annual descent.

Vida breve: Day of the Dead 2010 runs until December 13, 2010, at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th Street.