La Jornada: Creativity, emotion and football come together in the Popular Art Cup

Stories, ideas and emotions around soccer, made by national creators in an extraordinary and imaginative range of techniques and materials, resulted in the Banamex Popular Art Cup. They will be exhibited starting tomorrow at the Banamex-Palacio de Iturbide Cultural Palace.

The exhibition brings together 145 pieces, among which 38 obtained awards and mentions, along with a part of the 877 creations registered in the contest organized by Heritage and Cultural Promotion Banamex, of which 471 were sent by women and 496 men artisans from 29 states of the Republic.

In a tour yesterday, the result of this initiative aimed at creating a dialogue between the popular art of our country and soccer, key elements of the national identity, was shown.

Almost simultaneously with the exhibition in the Mexico City venue, exhibitions will take place at the Regional Museum of Ceramics, in Tlaquepaque, from May 31 to September 4, and at the Museo del Noroeste, in Monterrey, from June 9 to August 9.

The capital site houses an example of the creativity originated over generations in the development of particular expressions, with characteristic materials, but to which the imagination and genius of people were attached.

The pieces inspired by soccer accounted for dozens of approaches to this discipline, among which is the feminine emergence in a traditionally masculine environment, memories and the challenge of translating a sporting event with roots in Mexico into its own universes.

The artistic expression in this artistic collection is as varied as the number of participating creators, who referred to their environments and memories, as well as the breadth of techniques, passions and materials.

There are pieces based on clay trees of life, in whose branches soccer scenes and figures are recreated, ceramic works that represent some regional teams of that sport, skulls in a ball game, colorful alebrijes carrying stylized soccer clothing and pre-Hispanic motifs, a work in shiny black with a plume and numbered shorts.

In short, cardboard, wood, vegetable fibers, leather, textiles and carved stone. The motif of the ball is repeated with variations in clay, various marbled materials and other ceramics.

For example, in the vegetable fibers category the piece was presented We did it, Mexico, which is inspired by the Azteca stadium and has a flower field. Monserrat Maricela Raymundo, from San Antonio Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca, recalled that her project reflects her love of playing soccer since she was a child.

One of the two main recognitions was given to the artisans of Chimalhuacán, state of Mexico, Jesús Buendía Reynoso and Marlene Pérez Valverde (Galardón Banamex) for their piece Threads of glory: Embroidering our passion, which consists of a charro costume for the town’s traditional carnival, which incorporates faces of soccer legends, such as Diego Armando Maradona.

Meanwhile, Brayan Hernández, from Jerez, Zacatecas, won the Young Banamex Award, with his Jerez earrings. Silver goal.

Youth participation

In a brief intervention, Natalia Pollack, director of Cultural Heritage and Promotion Banamex, highlighted the enormous and unexpected participation in the call, for which they received projects in “a great diversity of techniques, proposals, forms and materials from almost all states of the country and of different ages.

“We are very happy with the participation of young people. We were pleasantly surprised by their enthusiasm, with individual, couple and collective projects, with spectacular and mischievous pieces.”

For her part, Rocío Blázquez, Popular Art coordinator of the cultural entity and in charge of selecting pieces for the exhibition, acknowledged that for the jury it was “hard work choosing the 38 winning projects because the pieces are spectacular.”

He remarked: “We never thought that this combination of art and football would be so good. The artisans let their creativity fly and gave extraordinary results.”

There are two miniature pieces that seem to represent the spirit of the art exhibition: accessing the points in the heart of Mexico in a concentrated space. One is the creation of Marina Martínez Pedro from Guerrero, who painted scenes of life in her community on amate paper, many of them linked to soccer. It is a meticulous mural painted in no more than half a square meter.

The other example of the essence of the Banamex Popular Art Cup is the sculpture on a matchbox by Abel Ávalos, from Guanajuato. There he detailed a soccer stadium with human figures two millimeters high, titled The great thing about Mexico.

The exhibition of pieces from the Banamex Popular Art Cup at the Banamex Cultural Palace-Palacio de Iturbide (Madero 17, Centro Historico, Mexico City) will conclude on September 13, 2026.