The Indian and Little Red Riding Hood

What do a Mexican painter, Francisco Toledo, and Czech artists' group Che co Art have in common? Mainly the fact that nobody in the Czech Republic knows them.

Even though Toledo is an internationally respected artist and the association, founded in 1998 by cosmopolitan Petr Kotík, has been successfully exporting Czech culture to South America for a couple of years now. Moreover, the painter and Che co Art started a partnership which produced a very successful project in Mexico at the end of last year.

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Francisco Toledo, born 1940 in the Mexican city of Juchitan, is the creator of numerous paintings, graphics, lino-cuts, artistic objects and ceramics, all based on the traditions and artistic diversity of the Oaxaca region. He finds inspiration in the motifs of nature and Indian and European culture.

For example, his collection of paintings and lino-cuts inspired by Franz Kafka was a highlight of last year’s exhibition season in Paris. „My visit to Europe, where I lived between 1960 and 1965, was a very important period in my life. I was very impressed by the Italian renaissance and the Parisian artistic scene of the '60s. But I had to return home, back to my roots, the tradition of Mexican art - its use of colours, its temperament, restlessness and ability to capture the fear of the mystery and inconceivability of existence in a portrait of a man, an animal or in fragments of objects,“ he said in an interview…