In 1949, the Cuban writer and ethno-musicologist, Alejo Carpentier (1904 – 1980), coined the term the “marvellous real” to describe a particular kind of magic realism that is manifest in the arts and everyday life of Latin America. Eluding the expected through bizarre amalgamations, improbable juxtapositions and fantastic correlations, the marvellous real is, as Carpentier said, “neither beautiful nor ugly; rather, it is amazing because it is strange.”
This exhibition features 55 artworks from Mexico that capture the idea of the marvellous real. Drawn from the FEMSA Collection in Mexico, the exhibition includes works by Dr. Atl, Leonora Carrington, Jean Charlot, Juan O’Gorman, Alice Rahon, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Juan Soriano and Rufino Tamayo, as well as a younger generation of visual artists like Carlos Amorales, Sandra Cabriada, Claudia Fernández, Adela Goldbard, Yishai Jusidman, Alejandro Santiago and Francisco Toledo.
Curator: Dr. Nicola Levell (Assistant Professor, Anthropology, UBC).