Artist Francisco Toledo Mourns Mexico's Disappeared, Murdered in New Show Walker Simon - Reuters
go to original December 15, 2015

Mexican graphic artist Francisco Toledo attends an interview with Reuters in Oaxaca, Mexico, December 12, 2015. (Reuters/Jorge Luis Plata)

Bloodshot faces, baked into ceramic pots, grimace in pain. Gnarled fingers poke from ashen clay. A skull and hands, the only remains of a body, grip the top of a wall, trying to escape.

They are among more than 100 pieces created by Francisco Toledo, perhaps Mexico's most famous living artist, for his "Mourning" exhibit, a memorial to the country's recent mass killings and disappearances, including 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in Guerrero state who went missing in September 2014.



"Never before has there been such violence in Mexico as in recent years, really," he said in a weekend interview. "I wanted to leave a testimony of this violence."

The government said the 43 youths were incinerated by a drug gang in league with corrupt police who rounded them up in the city of Iguala in Guerrero after mistaking them for rivals.

The case and subsequent investigation sparked international condemnation of Mexico. To date, the remains of only one of the missing students have been definitively identified.

Toledo said "Mourning," on display at Mexico City's Museum of Modern Art through March, was inspired by ancient black pottery from his native southern state of Oaxaca, which borders Guerrero.

Read the rest at Reuters

Bottom Photo: Twitter

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!