Secretaría de Cultura de Querétaro throught Museo de la Ciudad, in collaboration with the Manuel García Gallery of Oaxaca and the kurimazutto Gallery of Mexico City, presents a sample consisting of graphic work, wood and bronze sculpture by Dr. Lakra, as well as a collection of masks and sculptures for ceremonial use of very different cultures made by René Bustamante.

Many of the works, both contemporary and ritual, contains symbols and concepts that seek to show the invisible. Its strength and visual and aesthetic impact come from this symbolic load, precisely because they convey ideas and concepts that go beyond the everyday and utilitarian. The vitality of the aesthetic proposal of Dr. Lakra lies in the juxtaposition of icons of very diverse cultures, creating a dialogue that questions our perception of the sacredness of ritual objects. The cultural and geographical diversity contained in this exhibition, and its many aesthetic possibilities, both contemporary and traditional, convey the unlimited human capacity to create and contain ritual, decorative and utilitarian objects, each one laden with a rich symbolic and aesthetic vocabulary.

Many of the sculptures and masks exhibited here appeal spontaneously and directly to sensuality. Naked bodies, facial deformities due to the use of substances or diseases, or just as a result of decoration, together with faces that express the very different states of mind of human beings ...The sample includes figures of women and men who open their bodies and faces to the joy of sex and fertility. Sister sensuality, creating unexpected dialogues.

The artistic language and creative capacity of Dr. Lakra forces us to question certain assumptions and canons and precepts deeply rooted in Western culture. This language makes a mockery of the rigid world of ethnography and anthropology by creating objects that refer us to those that permeated European consciousness through collections created as a result of conquests and colonizations. Traditionally, ethnography refers implicitly to the study of other cultures, the conquered and their remote and original places.

Needless to say that everything, the original cultures, their religions, their cosmogonies, their lives and death, were explained from the point of view justifying the European. The cultural objects of the other non-European and Anglo-Saxon cultures were not even considered as objects with artistic qualities and aesthetic considerations until well into the 20th century. The public is confronted with a lack of consideration and will not find any categorization or limit between scientific work and artistic creation. This lack of consideration questions the parameters as well as the anthropological and ethnographic definitions that have been arbitrarily imposed on non-Western cultures.

The exhibition can be seen from Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 19:00 h. Admission is free.