featured artists
Alfredo Castañeda
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biography
(b. Mexico City, Mexico, 1938).
A contemporary of Francisco Toledo (b. 1940), Alfredo Castañeda avoids the artisanal textures that many Mexican artists have inherited from Rufino Tamayo, yet refers to the Pre-Columbian past in other ways. His work shows the European influence of René Magritte, as it presents absurd visual paradoxes. Stylistically, Castañeda references folk art and the naiveté found in the work of Hermengildo Bustos (1832-1907). He repeats themes found in Pre-Columbian pottery but adds impossible aspects to these subjects; such in his self-portrait, The Great Birth (1983), in which he is shown giving birth to himself. His first solo exhibition was held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City in 1969, and in 1990 the Museo de Monterrey in Mexico held a retrospective of his work.His most recent solo exhibitions include; 1999 Nuestro yo y mi nosotros (Our I and My We) , Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art, New York; 1997 En busca del corazón (In Search of the Heart) , Galería GAM, Mexico City; 1997 ARCO '97, Galería GAM, Madrid, Spain; 1996 Dibujos Recientes (Recent Drawings) , El Guardián de lo Pequeño, Madrid, Spain; 1996 Retrospective, 1969-1996, Instituto de Mexico, Madrid, Spain; 1996 ARCO '96, Galería GAM, Madrid, Spain. His most recent group exhibitions include: 1988-1999 Muestra Anual de Pintura Latinoamericana, Galería Espacio, San Salvador, El Salvador; 1996 Espíritu, California Center for the Arts Museum, Escondido, California; 1991 Mexico: Figures of the Eighties, Instituto Cultural Mexicano, San Antonio, Texas and Washington, D.C.; 1990 The Heart of Mexico, Riva Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona; 1990 Forces of History, Symbols of Desire, Parallel Project, New York; 1988 Mexico Nine Suite, a traveling exhibition organized by the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico; 1986 Surrealists in Mexico, Museo Nacional de Arte del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, D.F., El Museo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Nueva León, Mexico; 1986 The Sacrifice at Confrontation 86, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico, D.F.
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