Israel and Mexico recently celebrated 70 years of diplomatic relations with initiatives focusing on art and creativity.

For the first time, the two countries decided to issue a joint stamp, featuring a Nopal and a Zabar - a Mexican and an Israeli species of cactus.

The initiative was celebrated with events both in Mexico and in Israel. In Mexico, the ceremony was held at the Postal Palace of Mexico City, with the participation of Israeli Ambassador Zvi Tal, Director General of Mexican Postal Service Rocío Bárcena Molina, the President of the Jewish Community Marcos Shabot and Foreign Ministry’s officials Amparo Anguiano Rodriguez and Enrique Gomez Montiel.

“In 2022 Mexico and Israel celebrate 70 years of diplomatic relations,” said Ambassador Tal during the event. “Despite the geographical distance between them, these relations have developed over the years through reciprocal high-level visits, the signing of cooperation agreements in the fields of culture, academia and research and a free trade agreement that has led to a significant increase in the economic relations.”

Mexican Ambassador to Israel Mauricio Escanero and Director of the stamp Division at the Israeli Postal Service Shlomit Barzani took part in the event in Israel.

In addition, an exhibition featuring five Israeli artists was inaugurated at the Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro in central Mexico.

“Plenitude,” (fullness in English) was conceived as a cluster of solo exhibitions created by five artists exploring ideas of space, image and object-making. Artists Nadav Weissman, Keren Anavy, Guy Aon, Bat-Ami Rivlin and Tal Frank explored concepts of familiarity and alienation, product and material, landscape and image, object and mass, as well as function and futility.

“Folding Scenery, is a multi-layer installation of plywood sheets and digital projections snaking along the gallery walls and protruding into its space,” Weissman writes in his website. “Like a cut-and-pasted folded landscape, this jigsaw puzzle of physical and organic parts takes its forms from natural environments and the human body; creating a topographic view of invented territories. The work integrates projections of digital images with organic textures and materials, representing a psychological introspection that may disappear as soon as the light is turned on, as though to remind us of a delicate life lived in a temporary world.”