Casa Villa Antequera inaugurated with 20th-century Oaxacan avant-garde

Merry Macmasters

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, August 25, 2025, p. 5

Casa Villa Antequera is the new headquarters of Fomento Cultural Banamex in Oaxaca City, where three exhibitions representing its programs and interests have opened: Mexico of the Mexicans III, Great Masters of Popular Art of Oaxaca, and Oaxacan Vanguard of the 20th Century . The latter is located in a small space called the Vault and, as its name suggests, presents pictorial gems safeguarded by the financial institution.

The colonial building, whose history dates back to 1529, was opened as a branch of the bank in 1896, four years after Banamex was founded. It was the eighth branch to provide banking services in the country.

The 20th-century Oaxacan avant-garde includes works by Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo, Rodolfo Nieto, Rodolfo Morales, and Sergio Hernández, all owned by the bank. The oil painting " Pátzcuaro " (1921) by Tamayo (1899–1991) is on display. This early work was made during a trip to the Michoacan town and described as "a neo-impressionist or pointillist work in which the image is shaped with small chromatic strokes."

Toledo (1940-2019) is present with Bicicleta de los arquitectos (Oaxacan Bicycle) , from 1998, made with oil and marble dust. Its figures "give rhythm and movement to the compositions," while inviting us to "observe the objects mythically," since for the artist with "strong Juchiteca roots, the table, the tree, the shoe, the grasshopper, the bicycle, and the man all have the same spiritual category. Not just a pictorial meaning."

A “rebellious spirit,” Nieto (1936-1985), instead of pursuing a formal career, “chose Carlos Orozco Romero and Santos Balmori as his mentors and forged a strong friendship with Juan Soriano.” In 1959, he traveled to Paris, where he stayed for a decade, and discovered that fantasy literature would have a profound influence on his artistic language.

By Rodolfo Morales (1925-2001), born in Ocotlán, Morelos, two pieces from the Market Column series (2000) are shown, painted in oil on canvas. Made toward the end of his life, their forms are "more schematic and playful than his earlier work, although they retain the same creative universe in which femininity is the reason for life, a creative force, and the backbone of society."

The youngest of the group of exhibitors is Sergio Hernández (1957), a native of Huajuapan de León. In his triptych Insectario (2006), made with oil and sand on linen, he captures "the color and movement of the amorphous, limitless insects that change according to the light reflected in the room."

Insectarium is the favorite work of Soledad María Martínez Venegas, a heritage security guard in charge of safeguarding Bóveda, who loves art. “I loved this work because each of the insects has its own expression, movement, and costume.”

Soledad María Martínez has already analyzed each figure in the set. The pairs of eyes used by Hernández remind her of the children's program Burbujas , in which "there was a toad with the same expression." She points to a cockroach wearing slippers, tears streaming from its eyes. Could it be because the weight of the figure on top of it can no longer hold it up?

The three exhibitions will remain until March 2026 at Casa Villa Antequera (Armenta y López 106, Oaxaca).