Fine Art Is a Many Splendored Thing...
Written: Dec 09 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Art deco decor, salas, and the "Ballet Folklorico"
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: See it for the art galleries, see it for a live performance, see it for it's classic art deco styling...just SEE IT!
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) |
What the Kennedy Center is to Washington D.C., the Palacio de Bellas Artes is to Mexico City. A place where the arts come alive through performances of world class theatre, symphony, and dance. In the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the building also represents the embodiment of architecture as a fine art, it represents a showcase for some the nation's great muralists, and it represents a museum showcasing some of the country's finest masters of the fine arts. It's an amazingly beautiful place, and something that every visitor to Mexico City should see at least once.
The Architecture...
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is a spectacularly beautiful building with one of the most stunning art deco style interiors that you've ever seen!
The interior is filled with polished marble surfaces, stained glass and leaded glass windows, and ornate gold fittings everywhere, from the bars across the ticket windows to the thick handrails down the wide staircases. Every detail of the building is a thing of beauty and a testament to cutting edge design, 1920s style.
The building was designed by Italian architect, Adamo Boari, who incorporated the most advanced technology available at the time into the building, from its "floating foundation" to its cavernous triple cupola grand hall. Being Italian, Boari specified that the exterior be built of Italian Carrara marble.
The Murals...
Ahhh....the murals. Mexico City without its magnificent murals would be like New Orleans without beignets and Mardi Gras. There's got to be a hundred places around the capital to see world-class murals, and somewhere near the top of the list would have to be the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
There's buildings that have more murals than the Palacio de Bellas Artes. There's places that have better murals than Palacio de Bellas Artes. But what Palacio de Bellas Artes has that most of those other places don't have is a perspective on the place of murals in the world of Mexican art. Personally, I'm a big Diego Rivera fan, so I tend to favor visiting the National Palace, which has a stunning variety of Rivera murals, especially his infamous series depicting the history of Mexico. But the National Palace is really a showcase for only Rivera and like a painter's palette which has more than just one color on it, the rogue's gallery of great Mexican muralists runs quite a bit broader than just Rivera. That's why I think anybody delving into the world of murals must visit the Palacio de Bellas Artes -- because they have murals from many of the country's great muralists -- not just one.
The murals span a range of eras as well. Rivera really stands for an era of modern artistic thought that spans the first half of the 20th century. It was a prolific time in Mexican arts, and a time filled with huge themes -- from the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution, to the idealistic Communist revolutions that were sweeping Russia and Eastern Europe. It was a time when philosophies and social upheaval were inspiring arts in Europe as well as in the Americas. While the Palacio de Bellas Arts has several murals that are representative of this tumultuous but productive artistic time, they also have more contemporary murals, including some from the 1960s and even one done just 3 years ago. Murals continue to be an important form of serious artistic expression in Mexico...
Major works in the Palacio de Bellas Artes include:
* Birth of a Nation by Rufino Tamayo
* Catharsis by Jose Clemente Orozco
* Man Controlling the Universe by Diego Rivera
* New Democracy by David Alfaro Siquieros
* Liberation: Humanity Free of Misery by Jorge Gonzalez Camarena
* The Stone in the Desert by Manuel Rodriguez Lozano
* Angel of Peace by Roberto Montenegro
Catharsis cries out to me with the most visual impact and immediacy. It's a vibrant work that screams out with themes of hell and damnation coming on the heels of conflict and war, which carries with it an obscene orgiastic ecstasy. Brilliant reds and yellows contrast starkly with the greys and black to create a powerfully unsettling image.
Rivera's Man Controlling the Universe is a work with a funny story behind it. This is a recreation of a mural that Rivera originally did in 1933 under commission from John D. Rockefeller. If you saw the movie Frida, you might recall the scenes in which Rivera and Kahlo spent several months in New York City as Rivera worked on a grand mural that was to be the centerpiece in Rockefeller Center. The mural portrayed the evil of capitalism, as industrialists suck resources away from the people, leaving them in dire poverty. Fortunately for humanity, Lenin is there to save the day. Capitalism bad, communism good -- such was the barely veiled political message behind Rivera's mural.
No big surprise, Rockefeller hit the roof when he saw what Rivera was painting. In no uncertain terms, he told Rivera that some changes were to be made. Rivera refused to compromise his artistic integrity.
Rivera evidently forgot the Golden Rule: "whoever has the gold, makes the rules". It was Rockefeller's building, and the dude had boo-coo cash, along with armies of minions ready to do his bidding. Rockefeller made his point by having the wall torn down before Rivera's eyes, and then booting his big butt out of the building. So much for artistic integrity...
Dejected, Rivera returned to Mexico City, but he didn't abandon his controversial vision. Although he was given a smaller wall in the Palacio de Bellas Artes than he had in Rockefeller Center, he re-created his work as Man Controlling the Universe -- a piece whose mechanical precision reminds me in some ways of Leonardo da Vinci. It's a piece with vision and impact...I can only wonder what it would feel like on an even grander scale.
The Galleries...
Besides the murals, the Palacio de Bellas Artes is a museum in its own right, with a series of galleries on the second and third floor. Each of these galleries is dedicated to the works of a single significant Mexican artist, and it presents a retrospective on that artists life and work. There's a gallery for Tamayo, another for Rivera, another for Jose Clemente Orozco, and so forth. The galleries are each interesting in their own right, but in my opinion, none of them are particularly significant nor do they present the best works of any of the artists.
Mexico City is full of great museums, and almost every significant artist has his own dedicated museum somewhere else in the city. In the case of Diego Rivera, there are at least 3 that I know of that have better collections or that have deeper perspectives on the artist's life. In the case of Jose Clemente Orozco, the artists' best works are in the Instituto Cultural Cabaņas in Guadalajara.
It's nice to stroll through the Palacio de Bellas Artes and see the galleries together. It provides a nice introduction to the various artists and their works, but hopefully, you'll take it as just the tempting appetizer before the real main course, and you'll delve a little deeper into Mexico City's amazing wealth of excellent museums and art galleries.
The Stage...
The galleries are all fine and good, but the stage is really the thing at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. I've heard the place referred to as "an opera hall", and while countless operas have been performed in this august building, so too have symphonies, theatrical productions, and of course, the incomparable Ballet Folklorico.
In my opinion, visiting Mexico City without seeing a performance in the Palacio de Bellas Artes is no lesser sin than visiting New York without taking in a Broadway show. It's just not done.
In recent years, the longest running and most famous stage draw in the capital has been The Ballet Folklorico de Amalia Hernandez. It's an incredible production that examines national history and national identity through the unblinking lens of interpretative dance and music. Amid swirling skirts and prancing guitar players, you'll see reflections of regional flavors and themes. You'll go back in time to an era long before the arrival of the first Europeans -- and you'll see the development of the nation through intricate choreography and masterful sequencing.
For fifty years now, the Ballet Folklorico has dominated the stage at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. It's a show with amazing staying power, but then, it's also a true world classic and a performance whose impact is magnified by the opulence and history of its home stage. Of course you can see the Ballet Folklorico in other venues -- after all, the company tours internationally almost every year. They've done more than 50 trips through the United States, more than 20 through Europe, more than 20 through South America, and more than a dozen through Asia. But in my opinion, nothing is quite like seeing the company at home, performing on its home turf in front of its home fan base.
The main theatre is an amazing cathedral to the performing arts. It's opulent beyond belief, and of course it's big, seating about 2,000 patrons across three major levels. The curtain across the main stage is a work of art in itself -- it's Tiffany stained glass showing a panoramic view of the Valley of Mexico, with its twin snow-capped volcanoes, Popo and Itza, towering over the landscape. The design was done famous muralist Dr. Atl (whose mother calls him Gerardo Murillo). The curtain is constructed of more than 1 million individual pieces of crystal and took over two years to make.
I highly recommend taking in a performance and buying tickets ahead of time, if possible. Tickets are available through TicketMaster or at the Palacio de Bellas Artes box office. Tickets cost 400 pesos (US$40) for orchestra seating, 350 for amphitheatre (2nd level), or 240 pesos for gallery (3rd level). Performances are generally Wednesday and Sunday evenings at 8pm, or Sunday mornings at 9am.
The Plan...
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is open to the general public Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 6pm. It is closed Mondays.
Getting to the Palacio de Bellas Artes is easy. Take Metro to the Bellas Artes station -- the exit is right next to the building. If you're hoofing it, it's located on Lazaro Cardenas next to the Alameda. It's about 3 blocks off Reforma. The best hotel close to the Palacio de Bellas Artes is probably the Melia Mexico Reforma (about a five-block walk), although the Hotel de Cortes (now run by Best Western) has a quaint historic feel to it, and it's closer than the Melia.
Note that the U.S. State Department web site says that tourists have had problems using the taxis outside the Palacio de Bellas Artes. I'm not surprised. You can avoid the rogue taxis by using Metro, or by doing the Sunday morning performance of the Ballet Folklorico so that you're not trying to catch a cab in the evening. Sunday mornings and afternoons are beautiful, popular (and safe) times to walk around in central Mexico City -- you'd have zero problems walking back to a hotel after a Sunday morning show.
The Bottom Line...
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is one of the most unique performing arts venues in the world. It's a place of unspeakable grandeur and elegance and a place that's a tourist attraction in its own right. The series of art galleries is a bonus, and if that weren't enough, you can also experience the grand hall in all its majesty by seeing a first-rate performance, like the Ballet Folklorico. All in all, the Palacio de Bellas Artes is unquestionably a solid five-star attraction and something that should definitely not be missed on any trip to Mexico City. Thumbs up! WAY up!
Until next time, see you on the road. As always, I'm the happy gringo who is smiling broadest when I get the biggest discounts. They don't call me "The Worlds Cheapest Traveler (tm)" for nothin'!
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Friends
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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