Paisajes paralelos: Ruta de la Amistad

Arte Abierto invites you to participate in Paisajes paralelos: Ruta de la Amistad in the company of the Proyecto Escrituras Experimentales collective and Luis Javier de la Torre.

The Friendship Route, designed by Mathias Goertiz with the support of Architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, is the largest sculpture corridor in the world. In its 17 km. long, there are 19 stations (sculptures) built in concrete that were made by artists from the five continents. In this way, modern art took to the streets as a path of geometries and colors. At some point, it was completely abandoned for 25 years during which it faced damage from rapid urban growth. Since 1994, the Ruta de la Amistad A.C. Board of Trustees has dedicated itself to saving the Route, with the fundamental idea being a thorough restoration that considers not only the sculptures themselves, but also their surroundings.

This guided tour by Proyecto Esculturas Experimentales will be dedicated to exploring two key sculptures from the Friendship Route in Pedregal: SCULPTURE 13. “Articulated Wall” by Herbert Bayer, Austria, and SCULPTURE 7. “Man of Peace”, by Constantino Nivola , Italy. We will investigate the layers of time gathered at the site, from the potential of the surrounding ecosystem to the current recovery of the spaces with which the door to the return of nature is opened. Taking body perception as a starting point, we will enter the sites to test the possibilities of experimental writing and create a collective text that will be integrated into the public space. During the tour, we will also have the company of Luis Javier de la Torre, president of the Ruta de la Amistad A.C. Board of Trustees.

Proyecto Escrituras Experimentales (PEEX) It is an independent collective of artistic and pedagogical curation, formed in 2020, in Mexico City, by curators, writers, educators and artists Cristina Torres and Christian Fajardo. Her practice takes as starting points the intersections between contemporary art, critical mediation and experimental writing, to investigate, exhibit and promote the proposals and imagination of artists, educators and writers of women, non-binary people and the LGBT+ community who expand their fields. of action from experimentation. In October 2022, they inaugurated a project space to present a curatorial program of exhibitions, workshops and talks in the historic Romita neighborhood of Mexico City, taking as its headquarters the space that for decades housed the workshop of a printing press.

Luis Javier de la Torre is currently president of the Ruta de la Amistad A.C. Board of Trustees. He has dedicated himself to the field of management and communication, carrying out public relations projects in the advertising field and fund management in the cultural field. In 1992 he began his research around the La Ruta de la Amistad project, and in 1994 he created, together with Architect Javier Ramírez Campuzano, the Patronato Ruta de la Amistad A.C., an institution dedicated to rescuing, conserving and disseminating the cultural legacy derived from the Olympic Games in Mexico. At the same time, he creates and directs the De-construction project, and carries out urban ecological recovery initiatives, such as the restoration of scree.

Paisajes paralelos is a program of visits to four specific sites in El Pedregal within the framework of the Modthern Nature exhibition by Gabriela Galván. The visits are designed to generate new possibilities for understanding the landscape in transformation in the Pedregal environment.

Together with artists and different specialists from various areas – who contributed their experiences and knowledge to the Modthern Nature project – we will visit each of the proposed sites to find new ways of inhabiting and looking at this landscape within its current urban context.

Paisajes paralelo is a way of sharing part of Gabriela Galván's research no longer from the bibliographic text or the data, but from the gaze, the body and coming into contact with the people, environments and landscapes that nourished her field research.

— Arte Abierto

Register here | Limited space | For all audiences. Duration: 60-90 min. We recommend bringing comfortable shoes, water and a cap.