CauseConnect organized “Puro Muerto: Contemporary Imagery of Day of the Dead” for La Mano Press, an exhibition on view September 30, 2006 through March 4, 2007 in the Getty Gallery at the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library. A modern perspective on a traditional theme, the exhibition featured beautiful, strong, humorous, and ironic works of art with imagery inspired by the centuries-old sacred tradition of celebrating the lives of the departed. Puro Muerto defines this Mexican ideology in a language that we all can understand. Paintings of calaveras (skeletons) in party hats, luchadore outfits, and sombreros seem to say that death is here to stay; our possessions and outfits become comical after the grave. No matter what we do to death – mock it, embrace it, run from it, attempt to stymie it with overt sexuality – in the end, it’s coming. So why not celebrate it?
The exhibition included 23 paintings, 77 linocut and serigraph prints, 20 drawings, and eight mixed-media artworks.
