SAN ANTONIO.- More than 1,300 people descended on the Museo Alameda, the nation’s largest Latino museum and first formal affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, for the opening of “Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art From Mexico City” – the second phase of the Museo’s current blockbuster presentation, MEXICO AT THE MUSEO.

Curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, “Escultura Social” spotlights Mexico City’s hottest artistic talent. It is the largest and most comprehensive collection of contemporary Mexican art ever shown in San Antonio.

“This exhibition is a real coup for us,” said Henry R. Munoz III, founding chairman of the Museo Alameda. “It demonstrates the impact our museum is having on national Latino art and culture only 15 months after we opened. Major U.S. and Latin American institutions are standing up and taking notice of our work and mission. It is an exciting time for us.”

“Escultura Social,” which will run through October 26, showcases the most exciting young artists who have made Mexico City one of the contemporary art world’s “hot spots” in the last ten years. Curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, assistant curator of the Museo of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the featured works are all “socially engaged.”

“They draw connections between people, animals and nature; they revisit conceptual practices/actions from the 1960s; and they promote a demystified and democratic idea of art-making,” Widholm said.

In addition to “Escultura Social,” MEXICO AT THE MUSEO comprises works from two other recent exhibitions which have traveled the world to great acclaim: “Myth, Mortals and Immortality: Works from Museo Soumaya de Mexico,” (which runs through January 6) and “The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present” (opening November 12 and running through February 22).