Thursday 17 July 2014

Sunday 6 July 2014

Respect to: Francisco Benjamín López Toledo

Francisco Benjamín López Toledo (b. July 17, 1940, Juchitán, Oaxaca) is a Mexican graphic artist. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca and the Centro Superior de Artes Aplicadas del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, where he studied graphic arts with Guillermo Silva Santamaria.

His social and cultural concerns about his home state led to his participation in the establishment of an art library at the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (IAGO),[1] as well as his involvement in the founding of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), the Patronato Pro-Defensa y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural de Oaxaca, a library for the blind, a photographic center, and the Eduardo Mata Music Library. Toledo works in various media, including pottery, sculpture, weaving, graphic arts, and paintings. He has had exhibitions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Japan, Sweden, the United States, as well as other countries.

Francisco Toledo painted his subjects as if they were x-rays. Salacious curiosity with the inner being becomes almost pornographic as his erotic and irreverent resurgence of Skull Art comes forward.

For his social and cultural commitment to the development of his home state, he received the Mexican National Prize (1998), the Prince Claus Award (2000) and the Right Livelihood Award (2005).

He is father of poet Natalia Toledo and artists Laureana Toledo and Dr Lakra
(source wiki)