4th Printmaking Fair

A banner of art, magic, beauty, and mysticism unfolds in late October and early November, preserving and commemorating the celebration of the dead in Mexican culture. It is also a time when homage is paid to the world-renowned master engraver from Aguascalientes, José Guadalupe Posada, who in 1912 created the iconic engraving in metal of La Calavera Garbancera (also known as La Catrina), symbol of the festival. The celebration of the Day of the Dead in that city is enhanced by the famous Great Parade of Skulls, which passes through Madero Avenue in the historic downtown area. The companies and the allegorical floats are the highlight of a festival that also features gastronomic delights (such as the traditional Pan de Muertos/ Deads´Bread), handicrafts, processions, concerts, theater and, of course, the already established Print Art Fair.

This fair arose in 2013 on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the Aguascalientes artist José Guadalupe Posada (Aguascalientes, 1852 – Mexico City, 1913), with the aims of promoting printmaking in Mexico at a national  and state level, in order to know the work being done in the state, and at the same time give other workshops the opportunity to present work. Thus, the first fair counted with the participation of 10 exhibition spaces-boths and the presence of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes. In this edition, the number has grown in 31 exhibition spaces-boths and the contribution of Monterrey, Coahuila, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Mexico City, as well as Argentina and the United States.

Through a generous invitation from the Cultural Institute of Aguascalientes, Mexico -which offered the exhibition space, air tickets and accommodations- we were special guests of the 4th Print Art Fair, which was hosted by the Víctor Sandoval House of Culture and the National Graphics Workshop . The invitation also included educative events in which the delegates of the Project delivered workshops and lectures having he recently inaugurated National Graphics Workshop as venue.

Among the Print Art Fair, ´ace exhibition space was located in the historic Víctor Sandoval Cultural House of Culture´s building, a seventeenth-century neoclassical construction – recently remodeled and located in the Old Historic Downtown- with large and beautiful colonial courtyards around which the fair’s kiosks were built and in whose center were the traditional “Altars of the Dead”. The Foundation carried the work of artists from our collection only for exhibition not for sale.