Mexico’s death museum lives up to morbid name
AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico - Dead men may tell no tales, but death itself is another story. In Mexico, the subject fills an entire museum.
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“Mexicans have death imprinted all over their art and culture,” Director Jose Antonio Padilla said. “So, why not a museum about it?”
It all came about because a Mexican art collector had a lot of skeletons in his closet: dozens of tiny calaveritas, or skeleton dioramas, along with hundreds of other death-related artworks he had acquired over 50 years.
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The collection includes statues of “Saint Death,” a grim reaper, which is increasingly worshiped at shrines and chapels in poor neighborhoods of Mexico.
Some museumgoers have tried to leave offerings for the grim-reaper statues, said Juan Manuel Vizcaino, assistant director of exhibits.
“We get some unusual people here,” Vizcaino said. “Sometimes, we have to remind them that it’s a museum, not a place of worship.”
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