12 May CARLOS RODRÍGUEZ – ART AND ARCHITECTURE DERIVES 🗓 🗺
Nonoalco in the cinema, shadow of modernity
Carlos Rodríguez
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Nonoalco in the cinema, shadow of modernity
Conversation with Carlos Rodríguez
- Saturday, May 31st, 2025
- 13:00h
- At Arte Abierto | 2nd floor ARTZ
- Free admission
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No registration required.
In this Derive, Carlos Rodríguez explored the Nonoalco area in Mexican cinema before it was transformed under the precepts of the modern movement. Several films show how Nonoalco was a disorderly, hidden, dirty, and extremely poor area, contrary to the orderly political and social ideal of the mid-20th century. For some, it was a place of transit; for others, it was trapped by the tracks and the passing of the railroad. Films such as A la sombra del puente (Roberto Gavaldón, 1948), Dos almas en el mundo (Chano Urueta, 1949), Vagabunda (Miguel Morayta, 1950), Víctimas del pecado (Emilio Fernández, 1951), and Del brazo y por la calle (Juan Bustillo Oro, 1956) portrayed Nonoalco as a gloomy place that concealed a threatening side of the city. These works offer an aesthetic and architectural framework for exploring this site, which was transformed and razed as part of the urban and architectural regeneration plan for the Nonoalco Tlatelolco Urban Complex, a landmark of modernity in Mexico.
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Carlos Rodríguez (Mexico City, 1984)
He is a cultural journalist, film critic, and literary translator. He currently writes for the Mexican magazines Letras Libres and Arquine, and the Argentine magazine Otra Parte. He also writes for Literal Magazine, which is published in Mexico and the United States. He is one of the translators of Las mariposas beben las lágrimas de la soledad (edited by Édiciones Del Lirio, 2024) by Quebec writer Anne Genest. In 2023, he completed a translation residency in Seneffe, Belgium, where he translated Hall de nuit (1992), a play by Chantal Akerman, into Spanish.
IG @comamamand
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
April 26: Lorena Botello / A Museum Designed for a Modern Art Collection
May 31: Carlos Rodríguez / Nonoalco in the Cinema, Shadow of Modernity
