New home for Mexico City's eclectic popular art

MEXICO CITY — Many a Mexican museum can be called interesting or impressive, with their extensive collections of giant stone Olmeca heads and pre-Hispanic hand tools. But how about whimsical? How about magical? How about fun?

That's where the new Museum of Popular Art comes in. It celebrates the art still produced by about 8 million Mexicans, with dream-world "alebrije" papier-mâché monsters and colorful embroidered tablecloths, tin soldiers and videos of popular celebrations.

Popular art often includes the best of the crafts sold in market towns in Oaxaca, Chiapas and Michoacan especially. But the museum showcases pieces from each of Mexico's 31 states.

Some of the inspiration is pre-Hispanic, but there is also religious art and pieces inspired by "the encounter of two cultures" after the Spanish conquest.

This is a great place for people interested in both Mexico's past and its present. There's also stuff kids will find cool, which is unusual in the rarefied world of Mexican museums.

Almost every imaginable material is used: wood, paper, metal, cloth, ceramics, straw, sawdust, coconut shell, bone and jewels.

I had seen part of the collection years earlier during a temporary exhibition at a more traditional museum, a colonial building with limited light and huge stone columns that are practically popular art in themselves.

But this is different. The Museum of Popular Art is housed in an old fire station that has been remodeled with an eye toward minimalism, which is perfect for the bright colors and varied textures of what is being exhibited.

Against a white wall, a huge wooden peacock spreads its tail in green, pink, purple, yellow and orange splendor. A collection of smiling or scary, red or brown, horned and unhorned devils, some with angel's wings or bloody fangs, stare tauntingly out of a glass case.

The fire station, built in 1928, has huge ceiling domes to allow natural lighting, and the building is large, with swaths of open space occupied by just one or two pieces.

Finding a permanent place for Mexico's popular art has been a goal for decades, but the museum was inaugurated only last year. It has individual and corporate sponsors, allowing free admission and the individual descriptions of the more than 2,000 pieces are in English and Spanish.