Popular Geometry: Mexico City
23 May 2004
La Torre de los Vientos
Popular Geometry and Localismos are pleased to announce:
A celebration of Sebastian’s Caballito at La Torre de los Vientos
by Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle
organized by Pedro Reyes
Sunday, May 23, 4 – 6:30 pm
La Torre de los Vientos
Escultura de Gonzalo Fonseca (Uruguay)
Ruta de la Amistad – Mexico 68
Periferico Sur s/n casi esq. Zacatepetl Frente a Perisur.
contact:
pedroreyesalvarez@hotmail.com
Popular Geometry and Localismos are pleased to announce a celebration of a monumental work by the renowned Mexican sculptor Sebastian – Caballito (little horse). For this occasion a large-scale cake in the likeness of the famous work will be presented and consumed in the spacious interior of another public sculpture – La Torre de los Vientos, located at Ruta de la Amistad, Mexico, DF, on Sunday, May 23, 2004, from 4- 6:30 pm.
Among the social uses of modernist abstraction, none is more contentious than that of “public” art — the last bastion, it has been said, of modernist controversy. What happens when this type of abstract, utopic, idealized geometry is projected into a public/social space is something artists Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle have set out to record in a tabloid newspaper they call Popular Geometry, which is now available from Revolver (Archiv fur aktuelle Kunst). Initially conceived and put together for a workshop at the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul (2003), this publication is now in its third edition. Following the Istanbul issue, an Irish edition of Popular Geometry – produced in Limerick – is now available in Gaelic. A Spanish language version is currently in production in Mexico City in the context of a residential workshop entitled Localismos.
La Torre de los Vientos was created in 1968 by Gonzalo Fonseca as part of the sculptural complex Ruta de la Amistad designed for the Mexico 68 Olympic games. This complex of 19 monumental sculptures placed alongside the Periferico highway was conceived and organized by Mathias Goeritz, and amongst them La Torre de los Vientos is the only one that has an interior space. In 1995 Pedro Reyes started to work in the sculpture, first using it as a studio space and later collaborating with other artists. In 1996 the space was restored by the Patronato Ruta de la Amistad and Pedro Reyes initiated a series of site-specific projects inside this sculpture. To this date Pedro Reyes organized more than 35 exhibitions in La Torre de los Vientos, working with artists such as Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Enrique Jezik, Mauricio Rocha, Robert Chambers, Silvia Gruner, Terence Gower, Santiago Sierra, Felice Varini, Gustavo Artigas, Germaine Koh, Thomas Glassford, Sean Snyder, Claudia Fernandez, Paulina Lasa, and Hector Zamora amongst others.
Localismos, a project organized and curated by Perros Negros, is a residential workshop in which a group of 20 artists, Mexicans and foreigners, will work for a month in the center of Mexico City. At the end of this month, the artists will produce a series of works, which have as only condition, to be made with materials and craftsmanship available in the historical center so that from its conception, production and exhibition there is a coherent dialogue with the context. For more information please go to www.localismos.com
International and local editions of Popular Geometry are available from:
REVOLVER
Orders, Contact & Information:
Archiv fur aktuelle Kunst
Christoph Keller
Jacobystrasse 28
D – 60385 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)69 44 63 62
Fax: +49 (0)69 94 41 24 51
revolver@naiv.de www.revolver-books.de
