Museo Textil

By DAVID BIRDWELL
A long-abandoned colonial-style structure in downtown Oaxaca has found new life. The Spaniard who first lived here in the late 18th century never could have imagined that his home would be revived more than 200 years later as a testament to the craft that allowed him to build his fortune.

Angel Antelo became a wealthy merchant by exporting grana cochinilla, the cactus-plaguing insect that indiginous peoples have used since pre-Columbian times to dye rugs and garments. His former residence, at Av. Miguel Hidalgo 917, on the grounds of a nearly 500-year-old convent, fittingly is being reborn as El Museo Textil de Oaxaca.

Workers are laboring furiously to finish a multimillion-peso restoration project in time for a scheduled April 19 opening. A casual observer has difficulty seeing how they’ll pull this off on time, but Ana Paula Fuentes, director of what will be become Oaxaca’s newest museum, says she is confident that the doors will open on time.

Fuentes says the idea for the museum was hatched four years ago by the museum’s three major benefactors – famed painter Francisco Toledo, textile researcher Alejandro de Avila and Maria Isabel Granen Porrua, director of Library Francisco de Burgoa. The trio expected to house their dream in a building donated by the Oaxaca state government. When that fell through two years ago, the Alfredo Harp Helu Foundation stepped in, purchasing the former Antelo property and funding its restoration, overseen by architects Sebastian Van Doesburg and Juan Jose Santibaez.

Toledo, de Avila and Granen envision El Museo Textil de Oaxaca as a place that will educate, preserve and promote the art of textile manufacturing. All exhibits will be temporary. Visitors not only will be able to sample Oaxaca state’s treasures. They also can expect to see garments from elsewhere in Mexico and around the world.

For now, three collections totaling 4,000 pieces will provide the foundation for the facility. Granen has donated her collection, much of it covering the 1950-1980 period and purchased from Crispin Morales, a former vendor in Oaxaca’s central market. Toledo’s contribution came from his purchase of a collection owned by Madeline Humm de Mollet, a Puebla woman who amassed works from Mixtec, Zapotec and other ethnic groups, covering 1960 to 2000. De Avila, the museum’s curator, rounds it out with a 1930-1970 collection inherited from Ernesto Cervantes, the former owner of Casa Cervantes in Oaxaca.

Fuentes says the museum will be open every day except Tuesday and will be free of charge.
The first floor of the two-story facility will house three rooms of exhibits, plus a fourth room where visitors will be able to see the basic structures of looms. Larger, more complete looms will be available at the nearby Casa Centro de las Artes.

The second floor will be dominated by a library filled with documents and other research materials, as well as videos. Fuentes says there are plans for conferences and lectures, and workshops and trips to outlying villages will be offered.