Saturday 28 August 2010 | 18.00 – 02.00
Venue: Martin-Gropius-Bau
Teotihuacan – Mexico’s Mysterious Pyramid City
1 July to 10 October
“Teotihuacan – Mexico’s Mysterious Pyramid City” is the name of an exhibition to be presented by the Martin-Gropius-Bau from 1st July to 10th October 2010. More than 450 outstanding objects giving a comprehensive insight into the art, everyday life and religion of this enigmatic culture will be on view in Europe for the first time. They include specimens of monumental architecture, filigree vessels and figures, costly stone carvings, masks, statues of gods and representations of animals as well as examples of highly symbolic murals which have retained their brilliant colours since their creation about 2000 years ago. Permission has been given for the first (and probably the last) time for the 15 large-format fragments of murals to be sent abroad. Numerous exhibits were only discovered in the latest excavations.
In its Classical Epoch (100 B.C. to 650 A.D.) Teotihuacan was the first, largest and most influential metropolis on the American continent. Some thousand years later, in the 14th century, when the Aztecs discovered the abandoned ruins of the city, they gave it the name of Teotihuacan – “the place at which men become gods” – and used it as the setting for their own creation myth.
In 2010 Mexico celebrates a double jubilee: the bicentenary of the beginning of its independence struggle in 1810 and the centenary of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution a century later. The exhibition “Teotihuacan – Mexico’s Mysterious Pyramid City” (1 July to 10 October) in the Martin-Gropius-Bau is part of the cultural programme that Mexico is presenting abroad within the framework of the jubilee celebrations.
The group Mariachi Internacional EL DORADO will guide the visitors to the musical world of Mexico at 8 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. Playing the music of love, aspiration, joy and passion EL DORADO will bring a touching part of Mexican tradition to Europe. The singing is accompanied by trumpets, violins, and the typical sounds of the Gitarrón and the Vihuela.