List: Art on an Empty Pocket

Perhaps you arrived in Oaxaca on a peso and a prayer. Perhaps you’ve spent your last centavos on the Mexican state’s distinctive hand-woven textiles or its renowned lodo negro, black pottery. Or perhaps you just want to get a taste for the rich cultural offerings in this capital city more often associated with its recent political struggles than its artistic traditions. Penniless or flush, you can’t go wrong with these six attractions, each of which, either through government or private largesse, offers free admission.

1. Museo De Filatelia de Oaxaca – Filatelia may sound like Philadelphia, but don’t expect exhibitions on cheese steaks and Quakers. No, we’re talking about Philately: the study and collection of postage stamps. And while precious few people get up in the morning excited about stamps, if this museum does not make you a believer, it will at least impress you with its stylish effort. Play a Memory-like game with a friend on the floor of the exhibition hall using large wooden-backed stamp models. Puzzle your through the poetical musings in Spanish on the ways we communicate, painted, refrigerator-magnet style, on the walls of one salon. Pause for a moment at a table in the lush central garden. Visit the children’s room—with kids or without—for the illustrated guide to stamp collecting and the light-up map—which might just help you to your next destination.

2. El Pochote Cineclub – Situated beside the old stone aqueduct that once carried water to the city, El Pochote is one of a handful of public projects of Oaxacan artist Francisco Toledo. As such, it bears all the standard marks of the minimalist aesthetic favored by the reputedly fastidious painter. A single jacaranda tree towers over the stone and red-dirt courtyard—which fills with venders and mostly out-of-towners on Fridays and Sundays for an organic market. A pond level with the courtyard is adorned with just a few shoots of bamboo and a handful of fish. In all, the open air takes up more space than the theater itself, set on the far end of the lot. The eclectic film selection includes titles like “The Saint vs. the Vampire Women” and “Disintegration Loop 1.1”, and is presented in monthly cycles with themes like Surrealism or Post-Human. Offerings start at 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, but you can’t always bet on the second showing: if not enough people show up, the veteran caretaker may shut the doors early. Ultimately, where else can you watch a movie from Czechslovakia, subtitled in Spanish, then talk about it in English with your new friends from Germany?

3. Galería Arte de Oaxaca – When I first visited the Galería Arte de Oaxaca on a Saturday afternoon, ducking in from streets busy with slow-moving tourists. Yet despite the day, the glass-roofed central courtyard was filled not with visitors, but construction workers assembling what was presumably a new exhibit. In the salons, the exhibits were also in transition, with one set of paintings hanging on the walls, another leaning against them. Perhaps just as El Pochote is reflective of Toledo’s preference for simplicity, perhaps so too this gallery reflects a rather relaxed attitude of its deceased benefactor, Rodolfo Morales. After all, the gallery offers a fascinating selection ranging from glass work to painting to pottery. Housed in a colonial building four blocks from the city square, the gallery has long been a staple of the Oaxacan art world, counting more than 20 years in existence. In whatever state you see it, you’ll quickly see why.

4. Casa De La Cultura Oaxaqueña – There may be no water in the fountain in the central courtyard of this ex-convent, but it bubbles nonetheless with color, creative energy and the awkward first efforts of beginning musicians. Beyond offering classes on everything from chess to the cha-cha-cha, the community center displays a variety of work by local and national artists. Recently, exhibitions included photographs of ballet dancers in flight, vibrant abstract paintings and a collection of somber surrealist photographs—unfortunately located in a poorly lit corridor. But while may have to squint at whatever is next hung in that space and getting there will take a roughly eight-block hike from the main square, in doing so you’ll be taking a trip not just to a museum, but a real city institution, where residents—and not just tourists—take some time out for art.

5. Casa de La Ciudad and the Biblioteca Andres Henestrosa – Admittedly, an urban development center and a library, each stocked with only Spanish resources, don’t seem to top the list of Oaxaca’s top stops. Yet, the pair—which occupy the two stories of a crisp and long-ago subdivided 19th century church building—are not what they seem. Each has spaces devoted to either art or architectural exhibitions, with recent offerings including a series of photographs of Oaxacan shrines to the Virgin in the downstairs library and an exhibit on themes in Mexican architecture upstairs. One of the few permanent exhibits, and which demands no language skills, is a fascinating floor display of two sets of aerial photos of downtown Oaxaca, one dating from within the decade, the other approximately half-a-century ago. For Spanish-reading bibliophiles, however, the 40,000 book collection—which spans Cervantes to dictionaries on Modern Spanish slang—could also be entertaining. Before you leave, take a breather in one of the peaceful reading rooms off the broad main courtyard.

6. Templo de Santo Domingo de Gúzman – Housed in a compound sprawling over nearly six-square blocks at the head of Oaxaca’s historic downtown, the church of Santo Domingo is hard to miss. First opened for worship in 1608, the church is considered an exemplary example of the Mexican Baroque style. Outside, the thick and mostly bare twin bell towers couch a rather ordinary carved frieze. Passing through the doors, however, takes you into a gold-drenched interior, stunning for its intricate carvings and sheer extravagance. Perhaps most notable is the main altarpiece of the church, three stories of statues and paintings of Biblical figures backed by gold leaf. Despite the church’s age, the locally made altar dates only to 1959. Visitors with money to spare may wish to check out the botanical garden, library and museum on the site, all pay-to-enter.