[E-rundbrief] Info 296 - RLA 2005 - Francisco Toledo (Mexiko)

Matthias Reichl mareichl at ping.at
Fr Sep 30 19:21:10 CEST 2005


E-Rundbrief - Info 296: Right Livelihood Award 2005 (RLA 2005) -  Right 
Livelihood Award Foundation (RLA): Francisco Toledo (Mexico). Honorary 
Award "... for devoting himself and his art to the protection, enhancement 
and renewal of the architectural and cultural heritage, natural environment 
and community life of his native Oaxaca." Interview. (Siehe auch Info 292)

Francisco Toledo

Mexico -

(Honorary Award)

"... for devoting himself and his art to the protection, enhancement and 
renewal of the architectural and cultural heritage, natural environment and 
community life of his native Oaxaca."

Francisco Toledo, a Zapotec, was born in 1940 in the Oaxaca region of 
Mexico. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca and the Centro 
Superior de Artes Aplicadas del Instituto de Bellas Artes, Mexico. In 1960 
he moved to Paris from where he travelled through Europe. In 1965 when he 
returned to Mexico he started to promote and protect the arts and crafts in 
Oaxaca.

Toledo's art is imbued with his Mexican heritage of history and mythology. 
He has exhibited in many galleries in Mexico, Europe, South and North 
America and Asia. He is represented in public and private collections 
worldwide.

     "Toledo's work is a seamless meshing of global and local culture and 
high art. Dream images from his childhood are fused with pre-Colombian 
symbolism and myriad references to the work of Dubuffet, Miro, Tapies, 
Klee, Tamayo, Blake, Goya, Ensor and Dürer, among other artists, and also 
to the writing of figures like Kafka and Borges. Snakes and turtles abound, 
as do rabbits and coyotes, bats and toads, crickets and dogs, as well as 
human figures from Mexican history, cycling from one work to another in a 
dizzying bestiary that is part ancient codex, part intensely modern 
graffiti. Toledo's work is based in part on the largely misunderstood 
shamanistic notion of the nagual, the belief that each human's fate is 
intertwined with that of an Aztec spirit in animal form."
     Christian Viveros-Faune

For more than twenty years Toledo has been concerned with the well-being of 
the Oaxacan community and has devoted much of his wealth to this purpose. 
He is an untiring promoter, sponsor and disseminator of the cultural values 
of his native state, turning its main town into a dynamic centre for the 
visual arts and literature. He has created children's libraries in Indian 
communities, and has founded a number of important artistic and cultural 
institutions: the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca, the Graphic Arts 
Institute of Oaxaca (which holds some 100,000 books on art and 
architecture), the Jorge Luis Borges Library for the Blind (which Toledo 
created, he says, after watching a group of blind folk visit a nearby art 
museum), the Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Ediciones Toledo (a 
printing house, which most recently published translations of the poets 
John Ashbery and Seamus Heaney), and the Centro Cultural Santo Domingo 
(botanical garden, art restoration centre and library).

In 1993 Toledo was instrumental in founding Pro-OAX (the Endorsement for 
the Defense and Conservation of the Cultural and National Heritage of 
Oaxaca) dedicated to the protection and promotion of art, culture and the 
built and natural environment of Oaxaca. Through Pro-OAX Toledo has led 
efforts to protect the architectural and cultural heritage of Oaxaca's city 
centre. By turning his own private aesthetic activism into a groundswell of 
popular civic awareness, he has prevented the construction of luxury 
hotels, four-lane road expansions and asphalt parking lots. He is also 
credited with stopping the construction of a cable car to the sacred Monte 
Alban, and preventing the establishment of a McDonald's outlet in the 
town's main square. Far from preventing Oaxaca's development, through this 
activism the town has been transformed into one of Mexico's major cultural, 
artistic and political hubs.

Contact Details:
Francisco Toledo
IAGO
Macedonia Alcalá 507
Centro Oaxaca
Oax C.P. 68000
MEXICO

Phone: +52 951 516 6980 Phone: +52 951 516 4523

http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip/2005/francisco-toledo.htm

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Interview with Francisco Toledo
on September 26, 2005

conducted by Ole von Uexkull,
Right Livelihood Award Foundation

Q: Why did you decide to spend your money on educational centres and 
cultural activities instead of using it for your own?

A: Well, during my artistic studies in Oaxaca, I found out that there 
existed neither libraries nor any art galleries which could help young 
people to get in touch with the things that were going on in Mexican art or 
in other places of the world.

Q: Why do animals play such an important role in your art?

A: I try to express one peculiarity of my community, of the Zapotec-isthmus 
culture in which I was raised.

Q: What is the biggest challenge for your region today?

A: Today, I think it's to try and make peace, because there's a lot of 
anxiety brought about by social changes, globalisation, kidnappings, 
poverty and the general instability of the country.

Q: What does this award mean to you?

A: It's very important because the government and the media have strongly 
disregarded me and this helps me in a sense that they have to take an 
interest in my work and that mine and Pro-OAX's proposals hopefully will be 
considered positive


Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
     Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Bad Ischl, 
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305    BIC: SKBIAT21XXX





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