February 2025

POETRY TO GO

Guided visit + Charms Workshop

Through his rainbows in advertisement format, Ugo Rondinone rescues popular phrases, book titles, and fragments of songs or poems so that we can project our own desires, reflections, and everyday complexities.

In this guided visit + workshop through the long last happy exhibition we will talk about the artist’s work and his interests around poetry, and we will compose a Poem to Go in the form of a bracelet, charm, necklace or keychain. We will make a portable poem that seeks to free the word from the confines of paper, taking it to a world in motion.

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long last happy by Ugo Rondinone is an exhibition that invites visitors to a luminous world inspired by the celestial forces of the natural world: the sun, the moon and the rainbow. Through monumental sculptures and an ongoing public participation project, Rondinone explores the themes of consolation, regeneration and spiritual connection.
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POETRY TO GO
Guided visit + Charms Workshop

  • SAT.MAR.15.2025 + SAT.MAR.22.2025
  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
  • For teenagers and adults
  • Limited capacity | Free
  • Arte Abierto Pedregal | 2nd floor, ARTZ

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PUBLIC PROGRAM | long last happy

ART & ARCHITECTURE DERIVES

Architecture and museum: The transformation of the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo

Ximena Apisdorf

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Architecture and museum: The transformation of the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo

Conversation with Ximena Apisdorf

  • Saturday, March 29, 2025
  • 13:00h
  • At Arte Abierto | 2nd floor ARTZ
  • Free admission

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No registration required.

To start the Art and Architecture Derives of 2025, our guest is Ximena Apisdorf.

The Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo (CC/AC) was a fundamental space in the cultural scene of Televisa, not only for its exhibitions, but for the way in which its architecture influenced its museum function. Designed by Juan Sordo Madaleno as the Press Center for the 1986 World Cup, its industrial structure and strategic location near Chapultepec facilitated its conversion into a museum under the direction of Robert Littman.

This Derive will explore how the design of the space allowed for innovative exhibitions and how the relationship between architecture and museography was reflected in key exhibitions such as that of Emilio Ambasz in 1994.

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Ximena Apisdorf Soto (Mexico, 1981)
Apisdorf is a communications expert with a background in arts and culture management, with a solid track record in critical analysis and production of content specialized in contemporary art. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Communication at the Universidad Iberoamericana, researching the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo.

She has developed her career in Mexico, the United States and Guatemala, collaborating in museums, galleries, cultural publications and dissemination platforms. She has extensive experience in radio, participating in opinion and analysis spaces. In addition, she has worked in content production for digital media, visual communication analysis and cultural dissemination strategies.

IG @ximenaapisdorf

Arte Abierto continues with its new public program Derivas de Arte y Arquitectura (Art & Architecture Derives), which seeks to renew our gaze on the architectural legacy of Mexico City. From a series of talks focused on rescuing the parallel stories of emblematic architectural projects and public spaces that have witnessed the variable intersection between art and architecture. In this first stage, the program deals mainly with modern architecture, based on a series of talks given by invited curators, architects, artists and urban planners.

With this program, ways of returning to architecture part of its public, experiential, collective character and close to those of us who inhabit the city are tested, recognizing in it its condition as a living archive. From these talks, circumstances, contexts and anecdotes are revealed that have been part of his sensitive memory and that complement his material memory, a relationship that often escapes documentary narratives and academic accounts.

The objective of the Derives is to generate experiences of spatial rediscovery, which allow us to renew our gaze on the legacy of certain emblematic architectural and artistic works, as well as those that have been forgotten.

The derives will be carried out free of charge on the last Saturday of each month, at 1:00 p.m. with a limited capacity.

Arte Abierto Derives :

February 26: Tania Ragasol / Entorno urbano, cotidianidad y arte: La Torre de los Vientos by Gonzalo Fonseca

March 26 : David Miranda / Del Animal Herido y otros eventos escultóricos dentro de la arquitectura moderna

April 23: Gustavo Lipkau y Xavier Hierro / Integración plástica de los edificios del campus central de CU: sus murales

May 28: Marisol Argüelles / La casa-estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo. Del espacio doméstico a la dimensión de lo público

June 25: Luis Javier de la Torre/ La Ruta de la Amistad MÉXICO68… más allá de 1968

July 30: Aldo Solano/ Architecture for playing in 20th Century Mexico City.

August 27: Christian del Castillo/ Tracing the modern in the architecture of the Historic Center of Mexico City.

September 24: Juan José Kochen/ The Ideal of the Multifamily Apartment cComplex.

October 29: Tania Candiani/ Quantum Prelude. Sound activation by Tania Candiani.

March 25: Ana Garduño/ Cultural Geographies: The invention of museum circuits in 20th century Mexico City.

May 27: Rebeca Barquera/ The Plastic Integration Movement México: More than murals on buildings.

June 17: Julián Arroyo Cetto/ Max Cetto in the beginning of El Pedregal.

July 29: Peter Kriegel/ The eco-aesthetics of El Pedregal and constructive botany in the megacity of Mexico.

August 26: Arturo Rivera García y Roberto Bustamante Castrejón/ Jardines del Pedregal Legacy: Memory and Identity.

September 30: Tonatiuh Martínez/ The garden as an extension of nature.

October 21: Lorena Botello/ Clara Porset’s Design: Between Tradition and Modernity.

March 23: Alejandro Ochoa Vega y Francisco Haroldo Alfaro Salazar/ Cinemas in Mexico in the 20th Century: Distant Spaces in Memory.

April 20: Rodrigo Torres Ramos / Pictorial Functionalism: The proposal for plastic integration of Mario Pani and Carlos Mérida.

June 22: María Bustamante Harfush / Public work and collective housing by Abraham Zabludovsky.

July 27: Veka Duncan / El Art Déco en México. La nacionalización de la modernidad.

August 31: Balam Bartolomé / Visiones del Altépetl caído: Un relato de Tlatelolco desde el arte.

October 19: José Ignacio Lanzagorta / The sixties and the christening of the Zona Rosa.

November 23: Eder Castillo & Arturo Ortiz Struck / GuggenSITO beyond the unfolding cube. Public art and interactivity.

March 29: Ximena Apisdorf / Architecture and museum: The transformation of the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo

UGO RONDINONE

long last happy

   FEB.09.2025 – APR.27.2025

long last happy is an exhibition by Swiss contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone featuring works inspired by the principles of three celestial forces of the natural world: the sun, the moon, and the rainbow. Through these large-format sculptures and the activation created by 1600 children from diverse backgrounds, Rondinone explores the natural world and leads us to a reflection on human spirituality: solace and regeneration.

long last happy

“The natural world has held a place of great importance for my artistic practice across several decades. During the AIDS crisis in 1989 and after my partner Manfred Welser died of AIDS-related illness, I turned away from grief and found in nature a spiritual roadmap for solace, regeneration, and inspiration. In nature, you enter a space where the sacred and profane, the mystical and the mundane, vibrate against one another.

 

The exhibition at Arte Abierto is built upon the principles of three celestial forces from the natural world: the sun, the moon and the rainbow.

 

the sun and the moon (2022), are formed with delicate circles fashioned from castbronze tree branches, one gilded and the other silver leaved. The twin sculptures are both over sixteen feet tall. Installed parallel to one another, the sun and the moon are aligned along an east-west axis of Arte Abierto’s space, resembling portals or apertures.

 

Like the cycle of day and night, these two archetypes represent contradictory, codependent and complementary values. We can think of the sun and the moon as our metaphorical eyes. When the two principles marry, visions become binocular; that is; two visionary bodies of being integrate into one mysterious whole. Based on each one’s unique vision, the sun and the moon bring in different information that contributes to the vision guiding this exhibition and our own wild life.

 

These two sculptures are accompanied by two interactive artworks; your age and my age and the age of the sun (2013–ongoing) and your age and my age and the age of the moon (2020–ongoing). The visitors will find, behind a magic door, two rooms filled with thousands of images of the sun and the moon painted by children from all over Mexico. When I visited the space of Arte Abierto, I determined that public engagement would be one of the key aspects of the exhibition.

 

Acknowledging the Foundation’s interest in developing country-wide networks, I asked that my project should be far-reaching. Assisted by Arte Abierto’s Public Program department, I engaged 1,600 children from diverse backgrounds, including children with physical and developmental disabilities, and others from a range of socio-economic realities. Each child was invited to create a drawing for the installation with the promise that there would be no curatorial intervention and every sun and moon drawing produced would be presented.

 

Outside the exhibition space, on the rooftop, stands LONG LAST HAPPY (2020), a tenmeter-long neon, whose rainbow-striped letters spell out a poetic statement addressed to passers-by. This message of eternal bliss is timeless and unites people over millennia and continents. A rainbow is a bridge that unifies everything with everyone.”

– ugo rondinone december 2024

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Thank you to all the children from: AMPRE A.C. – ARTelier – Cedros International School: Taller de Artes Plásticas – Centro Educativo EXEA: 1ro, 2do, 3ro, 4to, 5to, 6to – Centro Urbano Presidente Alemán: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 6A, 6B – Colegio Akil Bilingüe: 1ro, 2do, 3ro, 4to, 5to, 6to – Colegio del Valle: Prefirst, 1ro, 2do, 3ro, 4to – Colegio Giocosa: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 6A, 6B – Colegio Junípero – Elementary School: PFA, PFB, PFC, 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B, 3C, 4A, 4B, 4C, 5A, 5B, 6A, 6B – Colegio Junípero – Preschool: PKA, PKB, PKC, KA, KB, KC, PPA, PPB, PPC, PPD – Colegio Montessori Itkan Ikal: Taller 1 y Taller 2 – Colegio Sagrado Corazón: 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 6A, 6B – Colegio Suizo de México A.C.: 3A, 4A, 5B, 6B – Estudio Nómade – Fundación Hogar Dulce Hogar I.A.P. – Green Gather: Squirel, Bengal Tiger, White Tiger, Bears, White Wolf, Black Wolf, Woodpecker Blue, Woodpecker Green, Black Puma, Golden Puma – Hogar “Las Nieves” A. C. – La Salle Pedregal: Taller de Arte y Diseño – Liceo Franco-Mexicano: CPE, CPF, CM1C – Más Arte Academia – Nahualita – Adriana Segura (Madre de familia) – Taller de Arte Infantil Club France.

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Visit long last happy by Ugo Rondinonefrom Tuesday to Sunday from 12 to 7 pm at Arte Abierto located on the 2nd floor at ARTZ (Periférico Sur 3720 Col. Jardines del Pedregal, CP. 01900 Mexico City.

Free admission.

UGO RONDINONE

long last happy, 2020

Neon, acrylic glass, translucent foil, aluminium.

Ugo Rondinone uses poetry and language as a basis to explore emotions that deeply impact human beings. LONG LAST HAPPY (2020), a ten-meter-long neon sign made up of rainbow-striped letters, is part of his Rainbow poems series. The title of the piece refers to a collection of short stories by the writer Barry Hannah.

For Rondinone, this piece is a poetic statement addressed to passersby, a message of eternal happiness that is timeless and unites people across millennia and continents.

A rainbow is a bridge that unites everything with everyone.

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UGO RONDINONE

(Switzerland, 1964)

Recognized as one of the major voices of his generation, Rondinone is an artist who composes searing meditations on nature and the human condition while establishing an organic formal vocabulary that fuses a variety of sculptural and painterly traditions. The breadth and generosity of his vision of human nature have resulted in a wide range of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects, installations, videos, and performances. His hybridized forms, which borrow from ancient and modern cultural sources alike, exude pathos and humor, going straight to the heart of the most pressing issues of our time, where modernist achievement and archaic expression intersect.

Ugo Rondinone was born in 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland. He studied at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna before moving to New York in 1997, where he lives and works to this day. His work has been the subject of recent institutional exhibitions at Belvedere, Vienna (2021) Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Petit Palais, Paris, Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia, Venice (2022), The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Storm King, New York, The Städel Museum, Frankfurt (2023), Museum SAN, Wonju, Museum Würth 2 and Sculpture Garden, Künzelsau, The Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Switzerland and Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2024). In 2007 he represented Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale.

ugorondinone.com/
@ugorondinone0