Three decades of art at the airport

For three decades, the galleries of the Mérida International Airport have been a meeting point between art and world travelers. Since 1995, this cultural space, promoted by Héctor Navarrete Muñoz, director of Regional Airports of Grupo ASUR, has hosted 575 exhibitions that have given voice and color to the great masters of Yucatecan art, consolidating itself as one of the longest-running and most representative art programs in the Mexican southeast.

To celebrate three decades of art on the walls of the air terminal, last Thursday morning the opening of the exhibition “30 Painters, 30 Years of Exhibitions” took place in the Fernando Palma Burgos gallery, located in room C of the national boarding. This is a selection of works by artists of different genres and styles, united around art.

Throughout these 30 years, the rooms have witnessed the artistic evolution of creators who found here a showcase to share their sensitivity, their identity and their vision of the world. Generations have lived together on its walls: from young talents to established artists who today are a fundamental part of the history of art in Yucatán.

Project pioneers

Among them are names such as Manuel Lizama and Fernando Palma Burgos, pioneers of this project who, with their example, discipline and passion, inspired countless artists to follow the path of creation. His legacy remains alive in each exhibition that opens, remembering that art is a way of flying.

“30 Painters, 30 Years of Exhibitions” celebrates not only a figure, but a shared history between art, community and airport: a space where each work becomes a welcome and farewell, a testimony of the talent that distinguishes Yucatán before the world.

Héctor Navarrete Muñoz, director of Regional Airports at Grupo ASUR, explained that when he took office 30 years ago, from the first moment he had the challenge of giving the Mérida air terminal something different that would distinguish it from all the others. In this sense, Yucatán being a land rich in culture, traditions and art, it understood that it should become a place where travelers would take home a souvenir of the things that give identity to our state.

“Manuel Lizama and Fernando Palma looked for me around 1995 to explain to me that Yucatecan visual artists did not have spaces to present their work, and therefore they considered it important to take advantage of the space that the Mérida airport could provide them to become a special, high-flying gallery. That’s how history began to be written,” he said.

Navarrete Muñoz stressed that Yucatecan artists find in the airport galleries – three strategically distributed spaces – the showcase to publicize their artistic proposal and allow travelers to take in their minds and memories a small sample of the artistic and cultural wealth that the state offers.

This collection of works on display, which will remain until mid-December, is made up of works by Alberto del Villar, Beatriz Brow, Alicia Alonso, Enrique Trava, Carol Acereto, Mariela Romero, Rubén Calderiuz (+), José Góngora Collí, Lorena Medina, Beatriz Kuri, Malena Peón, David Mex, Emilio Vera Granados (+), Luisa Erales, Ariel Guzmán, Alonso Gutiérrez, Martha Domínguez, Genoveva Faller, Sandra Nicolai, Reynaldo Bolio Pacceli, Sara Millet, Fernando Palma (+), Víctor Argáez, Manuel May Tilán, Eduardo Puerto, Yordan Yan, Alfredo Lugo, Yanina Castellanos, Karina Arceo, Genoveva Kelleher and Juan Pablo Bavio.

There are also two photographs: one by Raúl Cámara Zavala, provided by the Palacio Cantón Regional Museum of Anthropology, and another provided by the Neptuno 8 diving collective.

Themes and techniques

The works evoke various themes and traditional, abstract images, landscapes, places, buildings, Mayan deities, nature and animals. Techniques range from photography to oil on canvas, acrylic, mixed media, painting on linen, rice paper and metal sheet.
Juan Martín Pacheco, representative of the hoteliers of Yucatán, promised that the Los Aluxes hotel in Mérida will open to the exhibition of works by Yucatecan artists in its spaces.

Sandra Nikolai and Manuel May Tilán thanked, on behalf of the artistic community, the opportunity for the works of local artists to be exhibited in the air terminal.
The ribbon cutting was witnessed by, in addition to the head of ASUR, José Ignacio Carrera Rivero, AFAC commander of the Merida airport, and Óscar Carrillo Maldonado, administrator of the air terminal.

Also attending, representing the Yucatecan Song Museum, were Elena Fernández del Moral and Pilar Ibarra Patrón, general director of Impulso Universitario AC— Emanuel Rincón Becerra

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