MUREF opens new show and bilingual aids

Yesterday MUREF (Museo de la Revolucion de la Frontera), showed off its new bilingual audiovisual guides, its new bilingual informational signs for its permanent collection and used the occasion to open an interesting new show called De Torreon a Torreon 1913-1914. You might all be falling asleep by this point, but the new guides enable visitors to take a comprehensive two hour tour of the permanent collection and learn about the exhibits in either English or Spanish. The funds were contributed by Friends of the MUREF and  will be available starting next week.

The long needed bilingual signs for the permanent collection were funded by the US Consulate in Juarez. Most of the museums here have information only in Spanish which is a hindrance not only for visitors from the region who do not speak Spanish, but also for the  fair number of European and Asian visitors who often speak at least some English but not Spanish. Before they could  only wander around the museums and look at photos and artefacts without understanding their significance. Now at least at the MUREF they can understand the importance of what they are being shown. As Juarez is something of a gateway to Mexico and therefore attracts international visitors, this is a crucial help.

The show De Torreon a Torreon 1913-1914,  curated by Miguel Angel Buruman ,brings together a huge selection of photographs and other artifacts from private and institutional sources showing the political and miltary battles which occurred during that turbulent time in the north of Mexico. Sources include the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California at Riverside among others. They focus mainly on Pancho Villa and his rise to political power, as well as the US fascination with him. There is a hand written letter from John Reed containing an attempted sketch of Villa as well as a complaint of hangover from a night of enforced drinking. There are a series of US newspaper reprints showing their increasing fascination on Villa, and photos of him with military and political leaders. But there are also lots of other wonderful photos from the period( some 92 in all) detailing the battles and political turmoil in that continuation of the Revolution.

This was part of a three-day program of lectures films and conferences by the MUREF exploring the revolution, fittingly happening this week when tomorrow November 20 is the day we celebrate the Mexican Revolution.-david sokolec