Swung by the Met this afternoon, and was captivated by two Mexican works from different centuries in different parts of the museum, each revealing worlds beyond worlds. This Anglo-Dutch desk-on-stand by José Manuel de la Cerda (c. 1760) is inspired by laquerware works from China and Japan which came to colonial Mexico through the Philippines. It appears in a pop-up of works showing global cultural flows in the Asian wing. From two centuries later, Spanish-born Remedios Varo's trippy painting "Bordando el manto terrestre (Embroidering the Earth's Mantle)" (1961) appears in the "Surrealism Beyond Borders" exhibition.
