Reaction Paper to Alejandro Magallanes Exhibition

To: From: Subject: M. Gerasimchuk, Instructor Billy Johnson My Reaction to the Mexican Artist Alejandro Magallanes Poster Works from 05-10.

In viewing Alejandros work, I felt as though I was in some surrealist world where Mexico is something other than a desolatewar-torn country that everyone has abandon; instead it was a new face of Mexico containing a wealth of abstract beauty. The works ranged from the beautifully illustrated to the cleverly organized and you could really feel a sense of versatility in his methods. His surrealism was largely in part defined by his method of shabbily constructing his pieces like: painting outside the lines, exaggerating figure, personification of machines, and the ol cut-and-paste collage technique on a few as well. The piece that really took my interest was a picture of a fox holding a pasted fork in his mouth with the phrase TE VER EN EL DESAYUNO? under his jowels. It was a great piece of comedy because that phrase means Will he see you at breakfast? which I take to mean everyday we feed the beast of our ego, but in actual relation to the exhibit its advertising I cant draw a concrete connection. A few of his other pieces had a great impact on me just purely based on their raw artistic nature, like the Tradition of Seduction piece that he did with either watercolors or acrylics. It was a captivating piece for me because its form of trasnparency between the orange and violet pigments was nearly seamless even though he managed to maintain inconsistent saturation level throughout the figures. Another piece entitled Cooking Companies really got my attention for its well synthesized concept of a hand and a fork overlaying into one symbol as a hand-fork. Some of his work was very rudementary, and kind of just made me feel a sense of contempt towards Alejandro for being able to use crude methods to complete a painting (like in The Ultimate Heroes) where as when I try such methods in my classes they are unacceptable. Im sure this fact will also change over time as I actually progess to classes where surrealism is proprieted but as for right now those are my feelings. Anyway, I digress, Alejandros exhibit was for the most part an interesting look into abstract graphic design that turned out to be legitimately profitable, albeit these were in Mexico, and they made me appreciate the less soluable side of organization, so to you Alejandro I say, Gracias hombre.