Galería Luis Nishizawa

The Galería Luis Nishizawa is the official gallery of the UNAM Faculty of Arts and Design (La Facultad de Artes y Diseño). Once known as the National School of Plastic Arts, the school took on the new name in 2014. The school has been on the Xochimilco campus since 1979 at some considerable distance from the main Ciudad Universitaria campus.

Dolores Olmedo donated the Xochimilco property for use by the school in the 1970s. A 20th-century arts benefactor, her former home is now an important art museum. It’s just north of the campus near the La Noria light rail station. The charming cobblestoned neighborhood of Santiago Tepalcatlalpan is one of the 14 original settlements of Xochimilco.

• The gallery is named for Luis Nishizawa Flores (1918-2014). A painter, he was born in Mexico State and began his studies at the National Academy of San Carlos in 1942. A museum dedicated entirely to his life and work opened in 1992 in his home city of Toluca, Mexico State.

The Galería Luis Nishizawa competes, on campus, with the student-run Galería Autónoma FAD.  A healthy competition between the two partly explains the lively atmosphere. But then, it’s one of the best art school’s in the country, and it’s in Xochimilco. That the atmosphere might be anything else could be wishful thinking. Most visitors will take in both galleries and perhaps a bit of the center of town.