Did I say anything about there being no new murals in my area? (Note: Indeed I did, here in my last post.) Well, as if it had read my post, the universe seems to have decided to do something about it. On the wall of the Cultural Center of the UAM University, located on the corner of Gob. José María Tornel and Gral Pedro Antonio de los Santos, right here in my neighborhood of San Miguel Chapultepec of Mexico City, a whole bunch of new murals just sprang up!
Too Long To Bunch All Together
When I first noticed this, it happened to be right at the painting event: at least half a dozen groups of artists (and possibly their supporters) were standing along this wall, painting their images. It was impossible to get all of them together into one photo, and as a result their wall paintings were also a number of various images, instead of one continuous mural. So I'm not even going to treat this mural as one, but instead take it piece by piece, starting on the right end.
Life, Death, and Rebirth
Here the imagery is a mix of candles burning around a skull, reminding us of our human mortality, and some growing vines, bringing to mind that life goes on, no matter what. The vines even take up the shape of a human-like face, holding a pencil. To its right we can see a piece of the Aztec Sun Stone, originally thought to be a calendar, but in fact it's a representation of the Méxica cosmology. In any case, it fits in quite well with the theme of life, death, and rebirth.
In the bottom right-hand corner there is a list of what must be the artist working on this section. Feel free to do a search on them, if you're curious. Compared to this very neatly painted mural, their names look awfully difficult to decipher. Are they students at the UAM? Were they commissioned by the university? Or are they more affiliated with the cultural center, run by the same organization? You may find out, or it may remain a mystery.
If you liked this, click on any of the thumbnails to see my previous Mexican Murals posts: