LatinaLista — Mexican storytelling and art have never been independent of one another. One genre that has long illustrated this symbiotic relationship is children’s literature. Last year, at the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum at Saginaw Valley State College in Saginaw, Michigan there was a special exhibit highlighting Latino folk tales.
In the 65-piece exhibit, “The Latino Folk Tales: Cuentos Populares — Art by Latino Artists,” original illustrations from bilingual Latino folk tales were showcased. Collected from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, the exhibit featured the works of 12 artists who used “their lively imaginations, distinctive styles and colorful palettes to bring the stories alive.”
The exhibit marked the first time that the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum hosted a showing comprised entirely of Latino artists.
The featured video does a good job of bringing viewers into the exhibit and appreciating the finely detailed and colorful illustrations. Unfortunately, the quality of the audio doesn’t match the expertise of the narrator or the video and could be a big turnoff — but the visual images themselves are worth sitting through the 15 minutes of semi-intelligible narration to learn more about the talented artists and the stories that have delighted both children and adults.
