Estanquillo presents the production that resulted from the Toledo-Arvil artistic duo

The Estanquillo Museum presents the five folders of engravings that Francisco Toledo (1940-2019) made over almost three decades together with the Arvil gallery in the exhibition Engraved in enigmas, which includes the project New catechism for reluctant Indians, which consists of the copper plates intervened by the Juchiteco artist that were donated a few months ago to the Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca (IAGO) on the occasion of Arvil’s 55 years.

The first folder, Toledo/Sahagún (1974), It brings together eight pieces made with aquatint and roulette; the second includes the texts Omens and ablutions, translated by Alfredo López Austin.

There is also the series Toledo/Chilam Balam, which includes the work that the painter carried out at the request of Armando Colina (director of Arvil) and his partner, Víctor Acuña, in 1975, and Toledo/Guchachi’ (1976), executed with etching and drypoint, an exceptional work, because it contains 23 engravings: eight large format and 15 in texts printed on Arches paper, French, in silkscreen. These at the same time were bound in iguana skin (guchachi, in Zapotec).

In August, a part of this collection was presented at the San Agustín Arts Center (CASA), in Oaxaca, around the graphics project New catechism for reluctant Indians, in order to show the copper plates from the colonial era that Toledo intervened and that were donated to the IAGO, for the anniversary of the Arvil gallery, whose foundation, in Mexico City, was an initiative shared with the artist, manager cultural and activist. The engravings were accompanied by texts by Carlos Monsiváis (1938-2010).

At the CASA, the exhibition was held in the space known as El Chalet, whose dimensions are small, so the museographic script focused on New catechism for reluctant Indians (1981); Of the remaining folders only a selection was shown.

Now, the public will have the opportunity to appreciate almost all of the production that Toledo made for Arvil Gráfica, a company created by the gallery owners, because We realized that our sponsors did not understand that a graphic work is a serialized, signed and numbered original.

The central point of the exhibition at the Estanquillo Museum continues to be the project New catechism for reluctant Indians, which enjoys great display.

The gallery owners say that an antique dealer offered the plates from that series to Acuña: “There were 75 of them, coming from popular chapels in the mountains of Puebla and Tlaxcala, from the 17th and 19th centuries, and we bought them. We asked the Nunik Sauret engraver to clean them, because they were rusty, and to print them to see their content and condition.

When we showed them to Toledo, he went crazy and chose nine to work on. The same thing happened when Monsiváis saw them, who said he would write the text. Now, visitors to the exhibition will be able to hear the chronicler reading those words.

Portraits and self-portrait

The backbone of Engraving in enigmas It is the work of the four folders; however, there are new sections. For example, Freedom to Víctor Yodo, which refers to the copper plate worked by Toledo, named Freedom for political prisoners (Freedom for Víctor Yodo), made around 1978. Using audiovisual material, the 10 interventions that the artist made of the same plate are shown through superimpositions, whose central figure was always a horse.

As in Oaxaca, two portraits that Toledo made of Colina in the mid-70s of the last century are shown, which had never been exhibited. The first, done with ink and watercolor on paper, is My exterior; that is to say, energywhile the second, painted in oil, is equivalent to his nahual, or alma animal.

This section also includes a Self-portrait of Toledo, Made in 2017 and little known, made with ink, gouache and silver leaf on paper.

The visitor might ask, how did you do all this? The answer is in the video Introduction to the engraving of Francisco Toledo, 18 minutes, with music by Rubén Luengas, courtesy of the IAGO, which shows how, with a minimum of incisions, the artist portrays himself on a small plate, while maintaining an extremely illustrative dialogue with his printer Fernando Sandoval, owner of the workshop where it was filmed.

The Toledo/Arvil binomial produced a total of five folders. The last one, which is exhibited digitally in the exhibition, was Thirteen ways to look at a blackbird (1981). The gallery’s collaboration with the artist continued until his death, with works on different themes, totaling 12 pieces, including engravings and lithographs, in addition to a wide range of projects.

Francisco Toledo: Engraving in enigmas It will remain open until May 2025 at the Museo del Estanquillo (Isabel la Católica 26, Centro Historico). Admission is free. The official opening ceremony will be on January 16, but you can visit now.