October 16, 1999 - November 28, 1999
El Color de la Muerte: Altars and Offerings for the Days of the Dead
History Special and Breuner Galleries
Presented by the Education Department

This sixth annual exhibition featured ofrendas, altar installations created by artists, community groups and students in observance of the annual festival of Nov. 1 and 2. This exhibition also included a special exhibit of Mexican Days of the Dead folk art. Trained volunteers from the community served as guides to the exhibition. Public programs included a workshop on how to celebrate Days of the Dead, a community celebration on Oct. 24, family workshops and gallery talks by the altarmakers.

Ernesto Olmos. Painting from Altar (detail)

The gallery of altars and offerings for Days of the Dead features installations by artists, including a group from San Francisco's Galería de la Raza, and school groups. A folk art gallery displays Day of the Dead artifacts from various regions of Mexico, dating to the 1950s, from the extensive private collection of anthropologist, artist and educator Yolanda Garfias Woo. Traditional Days of the Dead foods, flowers, toys and ritual objects are displayed in this celebratory gallery.

The exhibition's theme, El Color de la Muerte, emphasizes the ways that the Mexican people have "colored" death in their belief systems and art. While Europeans and North Americans of European descent have traditionally cloaked the image of death in black, the color of non-being with associations of the sinister, the peoples of Mesoamerica have portrayed death wearing the trappings of life and celebration. The Mexican concept of death is manifested in the joyful spirit of the rituals of Days of the Dead, reflecting the belief that death is not a termination but an elevation to another level of existence.

The exhibition is guest curated by Bea Carrillo Hocker and Yolanda Garfias Woo. Hocker, formerly Associate Curator of Education at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, is now a consultant specializing in Mexican art and culture. She has been the guest curator for five of OMCA's Días de los Muertos exhibitions. Yolanda Garfias Woo, co-curator of the folk art component of the exhibition, has an extensive background in multicultural education and is a textile artist specializing in Mesoamerican textiles, and an ethnographer who has concentrated her research in Mexico's folk customs and art.

Three school groups have been invited to create altars for the exhibition. The third grade students of Jeff Westergard and Cora Catangay at Oakland's Garfield School will work with Oakland artist Daniel Camacho to create decorative elements to be used in their altar installation. Students of art teacher Susan Witka at George Washington High School of San Francisco will create an installation highlighted by large, brightly painted skulls and skeleton figures portrayed participating in athletics and other activities of daily life. Robin Lovell, Director of the Bilingual Department of Webster Academy in Oakland will lead K-5th grade classes in creating an ofrenda for the exhibition.

Rubén Guzmán-Campos. Tree of Life.

Four California artists have been invited to create altars. Ernesto Ismael Hernandez Olmos, a native of Oaxaca, Mexico, is a painter, musician and award-winning altarmaker whose work reflects his interest in pre-Hispanic mythology. Carol Marie Garcia has an M.A. from Yale University in Christian iconography and liturgical art with an emphasis on the spirituality in 20th century image making. Much of her work centers on site-specific installations, often dealing with the theme of Days of the Dead. Mia Gonzalez is a Chicano Studies expert and arts educator actively exhibiting in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose altars center on California personalities and heroes. Rubén Guzmán Campos is a widely exhibited graphic artist who was born in Mexico City and resides in Oakland. His current work focuses on creating death imagery using the medium of papier mâché.

A group from the (Re)Generation Project for emerging artists and cultural workers at San Francisco's Galería de la Raza has also been invited to create an altar for the exhibition. Participating in this project are Raul Aguilar, Olivia Y. Armas, Yesenia Cardona, Robert L. Garcia, Robert F. Karimi, John LeAños and Seline Quiroga Szupinski.

Made possible with support from the California Arts Council

La Flor y la Calavera: Altars and Offerings for the Days of the Dead, 2000

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