Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio.

To showcase the best in the arts inspired by Mexico, Tequila Don Julio announces its partnership with The Mexican Museum to present Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio, an exhibition featuring new works by some of today’s most innovative Mexican and Mexican-American artists.

Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio highlights contemporary and original artwork by talented artists selected by Tere Romo, curator of exhibitions at The Mexican Museum, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization with one of the most extensive collections of Mexican and Latin-American artwork in the country. To augment the museum’s permanent collection with artists whom are not currently represented, Tequila Don Julio is gifting Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio to The Mexican Museum.

Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio will travel to the following art venues in 2007:

— New York City: White Box, January 12th – February 3rd
— Houston: New World Museum, March 15th – April 9th
— Chicago: Aldo Castillo Gallery, April 26th – May 26th
— Los Angeles: Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, June 13th – August 19th

This national traveling exhibition will help raise the national profile of the museum, which is currently “dark” while it awaits the construction of its new building in the Yerba Buena arts district near downtown San Francisco.

“This collection captures the cutting-edge vitality and original content of contemporary Mexican and Chicano artistic expressions,” Romo says. “The museum is excited to collaborate with Tequila Don Julio to offer art enthusiasts around the country a taste of The Mexican Museum while we await our new building.”

Artists selected for the collection were those whose works portray the highest quality of art symbolizing the creative production of contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American artists through a variety of media–from teacups to hubcap drums and blown glass to painted canvas. Highlights of artists in the collection include Dr. Lakra’s culturally-inspired piece Dentadura Expuesta, a pin-up model reincarnated with ornate tattoos; Franco Mondini-Ruiz’s La Mojado a delicate, porcelain teacup accented with cookies that look good enough to eat; and Julio Morales’s conceptual installation, Lowrider Mambo, which pays homage to the trans-cultural legacy of bandleader Pérez Prado.

“From forging new paths of artistic expression to capturing authentic traditions in a new light, creativity and innovation are surging out of Mexico,” says Joel Henry, vice president Tequila Don Julio, Diageo Reserve Group. “Tequila Don Julio, the most popular luxury tequila in Mexico, is pleased to support both rising and well-known Mexican and Mexican-American artists with Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio.”