Art as tax, tax as art

Artists pay taxes in Mexico and the country benefits for generations. How can this be when artists aren’t typically the wealthiest members of society?

In 1957 artists David Alvaro Siqueiros and Gerardo Murillo (Dr. Atl) visited Hacienda authorities at the Finance Secretariat (Hacienda) with a unique proposal. A friend of theirs — also an artist — heavily in arrears on taxes, faced imprisonment. Siqueiros and Dr. Atl asked, “How about if he pays his taxes with works of art rather than pesos?”

Hugo B. Margáin, an independently minded Hacienda official later to become the treasury secretary, agreed to give it a try. The “Pago en Especie” (Payment in Kind) program was off and running.

Nearly 60 years later, Mexico is enriched by 6,500 pieces of art received through this program. They are housed in the Palacio del Arzobispado just north of the Palacio Nacional and overflow into other exhibit areas and warehouses. This patrimony is considered one of the world’s most valuable contemporary art collections.

And they travel. Hacienda sends exhibits throughout Mexico and other countries. “In addition to lending works of art to museums we currently have shows in Turkey, Russia and a collection on its way to Brazil,” commented Hacienda’s Director General of Cultural Promotion Juan Ramón San Cristóbal. “In the past year we’ve had shows on five continents.”

I met Sr. San Cristóbal last week at the beautiful Olmedo Museum in southern Mexico City. He was there to open a new exhibit in Olmedo’s “Payment in Kind Room.”

The concept of artists paying their taxes in kind is unique to Mexico but is receiving favorable publicity in other countries. The U.S. magazine The Atlantic ran a feature article on Mexico’s Payment in Kind program last month. It explains, “The program is simple—donations are made according to reported sales. If an artist sells between one and five pieces of art in a given year, he or she donates one piece to the federal government. If the artist sells between six and eight pieces, he or she donates two, and so on, with an annual cap of six donations. Only painters, sculptors, and graphic artists can participate, though program administrators are currently considering whether to include performance art as an acceptable means of payment.”

There is a jury to qualify the artists and evaluate submitted pieces. Quoted in The Atlantic, artist Antonio “Gritón” Ortiz says, “You might think we would be tempted to scribble something on a napkin to pay our taxes. But aside from being convenient, inclusion in the program is a source of pride.”

Artist Flor Minor’s show opened at the Olmedo last week. “Architecture of the Intimate” features 24 pieces of art, most owned by Hacienda. The show includes sculpture, drawings, and lithographs. The sculptures, all male nudes, are mostly performing various forms of manual labor.

Minor has participated in 15 collective and 25 individual exhibits throughout Mexico and has been a part of the Payment in Kind program since 2004. She’s donated even more art than her contribution required because she sees the benefit of having work in a prestigious national collection.

I was fortunate to have some time alone with Ms. Minor to ask about her art. She told me the Payment in Kind program “is a way to get my work out and be seen without leaving my workshop. At the beginning of my career I was known for my drawing and lithographs. In 2009 I had my first sculpture exhibit. This show promotes this other phase of my art.”

Her large sculpture “Equilibrium” intrigued me and I wondered whether this human balancing act was even possible. I asked Ms. Minor if she uses models for accuracy. “In none of my artwork have I used a model,” she said. “ I only use myself. I know how muscles work. I twist around, contorting my body to see what is possible. How do I move my leg, how do my fingers flex? I’d like to work with a model. Maybe I don’t because I haven’t yet found my model.”

She laughed when I replied, “You use a woman’s body to sculpt men!” I suggested that in her workshop she might have mirrors. “No, I start from the consciousness I have of my own body. I may not know the names of the muscles and bones but I know they’re there and I know their shapes.”

What I know is that the concept of payment in kind is allowing the Mexican public to have access to art that might otherwise be held only in private collections, as well as permitting artists to pursue their avocation — a win-win for us all.

“Architecture of the Intimate” will be on exhibit at the Museo Dolores Olmedo through August 17, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., closed Mondays.

A taste of Paris in Mexico

A new metro station opened in Mexico City last Saturday. It will be a station that even those leery of riding the subway will want to visit. It’s this year’s Days of the Dead altar at the Dolores Olmedo Museum in southern Mexico City, presented hand-in-hand with masterpieces of art on loan from the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.

This exhibit came about because relations between France and Mexico have been mended by the current administrations in both countries. In exchange for lending Mexico the paintings from France’s national collection, 75 paintings and drawings by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are on exhibit in the Musée de l’Orangerie.

This convergence will be capped by French President Hollande’s visit in early 2014 — the 50th anniversary of the visit by General Charles de Gaulle.

“Masterpieces of the Musée de l’Orangerie” is made up of 30 paintings by 11 impressionist and modernist painters. They will be on exhibit until Jan. 19, 2014. The exhibit features paintings by Paul Cézanne, André Derain, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Chaim Soutine, and Maurice Utrillo.

In recent years Days of the Dead altars at the Olmedo Museum have been dedicated to the art and crafts of different states in Mexico. This year’s extravaganza goes a step further. As a visitor you’ll enter the altar through Paris’ Montmartre metro station. After a few twists and turns you’ll emerge into Paris of the early 20th century, populated by life-sized skeletons going about their daily activities.

Pay close attention to the scenery. You’ll see it again in the paintings in the exhibit or you’ll recognize it as taken from paintings by the French masters. Maurice Utrillo, in skeleton form, is painting “Notre Dame.” The finished painting is the last one in the exhibit. You’ll also see the paintings he would sell to fruit and vegetable vendors along the Seine. Look for Chaim Soutine painting in the butcher shop — one of his favorite topics. One such painting is in the exhibit.

Don’t miss La Calaca Catrina — an elegantly dressed female skeleton. It is an emblematic figure in Mexico’s Days of the Dead made popular by Mexican cartoonist and satirist José Guadalupe Posada. Diego Rivera came to know her by purchasing copies of Posada’s broadsheets on his way to class at the San Carlos Academy in Mexico City. Later Rivera incorporated her into in his mural “Dream of Sunday afternoon in Alameda Park.” In it, Rivera as a boy holds her hand while Posada stands the other side of her. In the Parisian scene you’ll see La Calaca Catrina on a street corner accompanied by Posada, now also a skeleton.

Exiting from the “metro station” you’ll be in the Olmedo Museum’s extensive gardens. You’ll see peacocks on each side of the path and dogs of metallic color, the descendants of xolitzcuintle dogs, that stand so still it is hard to distinguish them from the sculptural portrayals of dogs in their pen.

“Masterpieces of the Musée de l’Orangerie” is in the museum’s main building. It begins with Claude Monet’s “Argenteuil” and ends with Maurice Utrillo’s “Notre Dame.” The five galleries between those two are filled with paintings on loan. Museum director Carlos Phillips said “there hasn’t been a foreign art exhibit in Mexico with as many paintings of this quality in the last 50 years.”

Stepping through the doorway beyond the last painting will put you in a 1900s Parisian café. Choose a table and sit down. One of the servers will bring you a menu. But instead of food on the menu there are names of artists and art supplies to choose from. The museum invites you to create whimsical scenes based on the work of the artists you’ll have just seen — and save them in photos. Hats of the time period are available on a hat rack.

Niches in the wall are large enough for two or three people to stand in and are framed as if they are paintings hung on the wall. In them you’ll find masks, dresses, and tuxedos.

The entire experience is a delight. Where else could you enjoy the whimsy of creating your own art a few steps from a staid art gallery, combined with Mexicans’ ability to laugh at death, all set amid lovely gardens?

The only thing that brought a bigger smile to my face during my visit to the museum last Thursday was hearing Marie-Paule Vial, director of the Musée de l’Orangerie, talk about the Mexican collection on display in her museum.

She said: “All over Paris people are talking about Diego, talking about Frida. The surprise for the French public isn’t in discovering Frida. She’s already well known through film and exhibits in Europe. But through the exhibit at Musée de l’Orangerie we’ve been able to show Diego’s work on canvas.”

Hard for many in Mexico to accept. For years I’ve been hearing that “Frida is known because of her husband.” Fitting of the French though — didn’t they refer to JFK as “Jackie’s husband?”

'Modern Impulses' at the Olmedo Museum

We are the beneficiaries of the turnaround in strained relations between Mexico and France. The Dolores Olmedo Museum has loaned its whole collection of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo paintings to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.  Taking their place is "Impulsos Modernos, Pintura en Mexico 1840-1950" (Modern Impulses, Painting in Mexico 1840-1950) -- an exhibit designed to be loaned to France in 2011 in exchange for impressionist paintings. Plans for both exhibits came to a screeching halt when President Sarkozy cancelled France’s planned “Mexico Year.”  With the recent changes in administration in both countries, cultural exchanges have resumed.

Curator Miguel Cervantes Diaz Lombardo inaugurated the new exhibit last Saturday. He explained that "Impulsos Modernos" spans a little over a century (1840-1950) of Mexican art .  It focuses on 65 pieces of portable easel art by 43 artists.

Curator Cervantes told us “The Revolution brought Mexico a new identity charged with nationalism -- a new conception of what Mexico had been, and was. Jose Vasconcelos, [1920s Secretary of Public Education] was extraordinarily important in developing Mexico's renowned post revolutionary mural art movement dominated by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.  Less appreciated, a modernist easel art movement paralleled the mural art movement."

As if the wonderful "Impulsos Modernos" exhibit weren’t enough, it gives us a fresh reason to return to the remarkable museum housed in Dolores Olmedo’s Xochimilco residence, the gorgeous Hacienda La Noria.  Olmeda’s will left La Noria and its contents to the people of Mexico.

Since opening in 1992, the Olmedo Museum has been home to an impressive collection of Mexican 20th century art -- including 145 pieces by Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and 25 by Frida Kahlo (1907-54).

At age 11, Dolores Olmedo (1908-2002) accompanied her schoolteacher mother to the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) building, encountering Diego Rivera working on murals there.  Upon introduction, Diego requested permission to paint the young girl, and her mother agreed.  In an undated interview published after her death Olmedo, known to her friends as Lola, acknowledged to Elena Poniatowska a secret she’d kept for decades.  The model for the nude in the mural on the staircase of the SEP building was a very young Lola!

Olmedo had a lifelong friendship with Rivera culminating in him leaving Olmedo head of a trust that contained many of his and Frida’s most valuable works as well as control of Casa Azul, Frida’s birthplace and home.

Lola was an amazingly successful businesswoman.  She transformed the purchase of an old brick factory into a megamillion dollar construction industry. She transformed herself into one of the most powerful and influential people in Mexico.  A product of post-revolutionary Mexico City, she was a friend to several presidents and spent her life at the heart of the 20th century Mexican art renaissance.  Most artists featured in the exhibit were contemporaries of and indeed acquaintances of Doña Lola. 

Mexican artists adapted the European art trends of surrealism, cubism, impressionism, realism, naturalism, modernism, while giving them a Mexican flavor.  "Impulsos Modernos" takes us through these trends in chronological order.

It is an empty exercise to think of many of the post-revolutionary artists without thinking of their political affiliation. The Syndicate of Artists and Engravers formed during the Mexican Revolution stated that to be truly revolutionary, art must include a social statement in addition to being something of beauty -- a statement usually reflecting the member artists' Mexican Communist Party affiliation.  Easel art had much less obvious social statements than murals -- sometimes none at all, or just a subtle inclusion of a red star as Jesus Guerrero Galván (1910-73) did frequently. 

Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991) and Gerardo Murillo (1875-1964), better known as Dr. Atl, were notable exceptions.  Tamayo was quoted saying "art only needs to be something of beauty," but in his last years frequently said he had been a socialist all his life. 

Dr. Atl embraced the other end of the political spectrum -- fascism.  Shunned for years by other artists, he has made a strong comeback based solely on the quality of his work -- especially his aerial views of his favorite subject, volcanoes.  In order to work quickly in cramped helicopters or single engine planes, Dr. Atl developed Atl Colors that give his paintings in "Impulsos Modernos" a  sweeping fresh texture quite unlike the other artists work on display around them.

The last room in the exhibit features surrealism and includes paintings by an adopted Mexican, Leonora Carrington. Curator Cervantes chose to end the period with surrealism, stating “surrealism led directly to abstract art.”  The advent of abstract art seems to be the end of the nationalist period of Mexican art. 

I hope word of this exhibit -- open through August 25 -- leads you to the Dolores Olmedo Museum. The Olmedo Museum reflects Lola’s passionate love of Mexico and the arts.  Her impressive pre-Hispanic collection, beautiful gardens and menagerie of living animals create a vibrant museum.  You won’t be disappointed with your visit.