Vertical curtain
Mexico City, June 2021
Text by Gabriel Rosas Alemán
Photos by Sergio López
Celeste is a landscape and a story that extends to immersive formats.
This text accompanies a set of works that were photographed in the interiors of the place where we live: Edificio Victoria
.Mexico City, June 2021
Text by Gabriel Rosas Alemán
Photos by Sergio López
Celeste is a landscape and a story that extends to immersive formats.
This text accompanies a set of works that were photographed in the interiors of the place where we live: Edificio Victoria
How it began
(Indoors)
In the lobby of the building, a vast space that protects and isolates from the hectic life inherent to Downtown Mexico City. I see the pink marble walls and benches every day, on hot days I appreciate them. Fernanda and I fell in love with the building because of this space in modernist-style, aka Art Deco, authored by Engineer Ernesto Buenrostro. Edificio Victoria was inaugurated in 1938, four years after its neighbor, the Palacio de Bellas Artes. I imagine that Engineer Buenrostro visited that new space and decided to link his work to the impressive palace, volumes of pink marble can be found in the lobby of both buildings.
(Underground)
Below ground level, there are a couple of works where spherical bodies, perhaps containers, are ready to be occupied by flashes of light that other higher bodies emit. Facing each other, welcoming.
Did these bodies fall? Or where did they come from?
Are they resting or waiting to transform themselves?
When imagining a horizon line on a plane, the narrative of the above and below is opened.
We recognize these spherical bodies as part of what is below. Both works correspond to the colors of the marble.
Did these bodies fall? Or where did they come from?
Are they resting or waiting to transform themselves?
When imagining a horizon line on a plane, the narrative of the above and below is opened.
We recognize these spherical bodies as part of what is below. Both works correspond to the colors of the marble.
(Ascent)
We go through the lobby and up the stairs accompanied by the almost melodic design of circles and rectangles of a large window that on the third floor is finished off with a luminaire that descends from the ceiling. Translucent and amber glasses predominate in the composition. At this intermediate point, and sometimes unnoticed between above and below, we placed a «channel» work that brings the first spherical body closer with other upper ones. A friendly conjunction of shapes, spheres of different sizes and color emissions coincide here.
What are they up?
The geometry of the painting corresponds to the window framed by a sensual aluminum handrail and ironwork that accompanies the tour. We continue.
What are they up?
The geometry of the painting corresponds to the window framed by a sensual aluminum handrail and ironwork that accompanies the tour. We continue.
(Above)
What do you find when you look up?
We investigate this with a work in which we imagine the stars in the visible and invisible sky. We gather in a single awning the celestial bodies that we recognize as being close and those that are presented as a mystery.
Between the interior balconies of a space reserved for those of us who inhabit the Edificio Victoria, we hang Obra Parasol. The work is visible from the interior patio with the fountain of vegetal design covered with green and blue tiles. A space that makes me speculate if the original purpose of the building was not residential but something else.
Obra Parasol is a fleeting conjunction with the inner courtyard of balanced volumes, lines and colors.
We investigate this with a work in which we imagine the stars in the visible and invisible sky. We gather in a single awning the celestial bodies that we recognize as being close and those that are presented as a mystery.
Between the interior balconies of a space reserved for those of us who inhabit the Edificio Victoria, we hang Obra Parasol. The work is visible from the interior patio with the fountain of vegetal design covered with green and blue tiles. A space that makes me speculate if the original purpose of the building was not residential but something else.
Obra Parasol is a fleeting conjunction with the inner courtyard of balanced volumes, lines and colors.
(Inside)
It was in apartment 105 with its curved window where we began the talks to make this story possible: what do you contribute and what do I contribute. We decided to embed the works with our joint ability of making and inhabiting warm and orderly spaces, «good calibration» a friend calls it. Then we moved into a replica of our first apartment, but located in the third floor. Our new space is favored by natural lighting, from there the Telmex tower and the dome of the San José parish are visible, both in the San Juan neighborhood.
This apartment is the refuge, the space where the negotiations and agreements
of the everyday take place, exchanges that now extend into the works.
We spread the fabrics of Celeste like the drop of a curtain. We open a space/landscape where a horizontal line marks the top and the bottom, the sky and the earth. Now, the basin that receives the story we make each day appears, the house.
of the everyday take place, exchanges that now extend into the works.
We spread the fabrics of Celeste like the drop of a curtain. We open a space/landscape where a horizontal line marks the top and the bottom, the sky and the earth. Now, the basin that receives the story we make each day appears, the house.