Authors: Scott Skinner
Date Submitted: March 31, 2009
Article Type: Discourse

There is no doubt that influential Mexican artist Francisco Toledo is taken with kites! After last fall’s successful Toledo-inspired kite exhibit in Oaxaca, Mexico, for which the Drachen Foundation contributed over 50 art kites created by international kite makers, Toledo exerted his influence to exhibit the kites in Puebla, Mexico, a town two hours south of Mexico City.

Under the direction of Cesar Gordilla Aguilar, director of the Museo Erasto Cortes, over 300 kites were installed in Puebla’s Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. This included two Drachen Foundation exhibits – Skyart, featuring the kites of Jose Sainz, Nobuhiko Yoshizumi, and myself, and The Artist and the Kitemaker by Greg Kono and Nancy Kiefer – as well as almost 200 kites from Oaxacan artists, and another 40 or 50 original Toledo kites. The site, a beautiful factory building from the early 1900s, was secured through Maestro Toledo’s urging that this space be made available for papalotes.

Drachen Foundation Administrator Ali Fujino and myself were invited by the government of Mexico to present kite workshops to Puebla artists and local “at risk” children. Pueblan artists, along with several artists from Argentina, contributed almost 150 additional kites to the exhibit. Many of these were finished in the workshop environment, while others were finished by Scott and the installation crew. The final installation included nearly 500 kites, the majority from Mexican artists.

Page Number: 86
PDF Link: Discourse Issue