Ambassador Jorge Alberto Lozoya
Jorge Alberto Lozoya is the rarest of rare breeds— a lifelong cultural diplomat, who has brought his native Mexico onto the world stage through its art, architecture, literature, cuisine, and music. Ambassador to countries in Europe and Asia, he has also negotiated major arts exhibitions with the Metropolitan Museum, The National Gallery of Art, the British Museum, the Schirnkunsthalle in Frankfurt, and many other venues. As both educational and cultural minister of the State of Puebla, he has created many new museums, one of which I have called “the most important new museum in the Americas,” the Museum of the International Baroque in Puebla in an immense new building by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese Architect, Toyo Ito.
Jorge is fluent in many languages and is a cultural arbiter unlike anyone in the United States. He will be in Dallas to receive the second Brettell Award in the Arts, lecturing, meeting with small groups of faculty and students, both graduate and undergraduate. He will also help us conceptualize UTD’s imaginative new Athenaeum.
His public lecture on the formation and realization of the Museum of the International Baroque- now called simply “el Barocco” will be on September 24th at 4:00PM at Suite 4200 Trammell Crow Center.
We urge you to attend.
The Richard Brettell Award in the Arts at The University of Texas at Dallas recognizes a lifetime of excellence in the arts in all fields. Given biennially, its award is a $150,000 prize and a campus residency. The Brettell Award may be given to an artist working in any field or cross-disciplinary practice, including but not limited to architecture, design, visual arts, literature, dance, music, and theater.
Established in 2016 with an endowment from Mrs. Eugene McDermott, the Brettell Award honors individuals in any artistic field who have produced a body of work of lasting and international significance. One of the most generous arts honors in the United States, the Award is an expression of UT Dallas’s commitment to the arts as an essential part of creativity in the humanities as well as in the sciences and technologies, for which the University is already known. Every two years the Award recognizes a lifetime of achievement in a different practice within the visual, performing, or literary arts.
Like its inspiration award, the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, a distinctive feature of the Brettell Award is a campus residency that includes a celebration at which the Award is presented, a public presentation of the artist’s work, and significant interactions with students, faculty, and staff in the form of larger public presentations and smaller seminar gatherings. The goal of the residency is to provide the recipient with unparalleled access to the creative energy and cutting-edge research found in the UT Dallas community and to connect the recipient with departments, laboratories, and research centers throughout the University in ways that are mutually enlightening. Beyond the University, the residency allows the recipient to engage with and contribute to the growing community of artists and arts institutions in the city of Dallas.
Jorge Alberto Lozoya (Mexico, 1943) is a world-renown internationalist and historian. He graduated from The College of Mexico and Stanford University. As a Professor in important academic institutions such as El Colegio de México, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Universidad Iberoamericana, Lozoya introduced two generations of Mexican internationalists to the study of globalization and civilizations in China, Japan and India. He was vice-rector of the University of the Americas Puebla (2005) and professor emeritus of the National University of Malaysia (2009). In 1964 Lozoya designed the Chinese Hall at the Museum of World Cultures in Mexico City, after having been in charge of the ethnographic collections of the National Museum of Anthropology during the creation of its new facilities.
In 1975 he was appointed general secretary of the 30th International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa. As academic director of the Center for Economic and Social Studies of the Third World, in 1980 Lozoya coordinated with the Hungarian sociologist Ervin László the most extensive study to date on the future of the United Nations. He was executive secretary of the Mexican Commission for Cooperation with Central America and designer of the scientific-technological liaison network in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
In 1990, he coordinated the presentation and cultural events at the New York Metropolitan Museum of the exhibit Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries. He founded the Mexican Institute for International Cooperation and in 1999 he was unanimously elected to establish the Secretariat of Ibero- American Cooperation, based in Madrid. In 1986 he was appointed ambassador of Mexico, a rank that he retained until his retirement from the Mexican Federal Government in 2013.
For years he coordinated the cultural activities of Mexico abroad. Simultaneously, ambassador to Israel and representative to the Palestinian Authority (1996), ambassador to Malaysia (2007) and consul of Mexico in Seville for the 1992 Universal Exposition, was technical secretary of the Foreign Policy Cabinet of the Presidency of the Mexican Republic (1989). In the media, he directed the cultural supplement of the newspaper El Día, founded the international area of State TV Channel 13, for which he produced a large number of broadcasts. He was also director of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography, IMCINE (1996). Secretary of Public Education (2013) and executive secretary of the State Council for Culture and the Arts (2014), both of the State of Puebla.
He was most recently the director of the International Baroque Museum. He has been decorated by the governments of Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Venezuela and Argentina.
Join us for the following events open to the public.
Tuesday September 24th
4:00-5:30 PM Lecture by Ambassador Lozoya
“The International Museum of the Baroque in Puebla, Mexico”
Suite 4200 Trammell Crow Center
Wednesday September 25th
6:00PM: Brettell Award lecture by Ambassador Lozoya
“The International Museum of the Baroque in Puebla, Mexico”
Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center, UT Dallas
For more information, please visit our website or call (972) 883-2475.