Chapultepec is ready to attend to the present and face the future: Orozco

The Chapultepec Forest is ready to attend to the present and face the future, he assured The Day the Veracruz artist Gabriel Orozco, who concluded his work as coordinator of the Chapultepec: Nature and Culture project, whose fourth section, already remodeled, was inaugurated a few days ago.

The emblematic lung of the country’s capital “is much better prepared (to receive visitors), because it was stuck. The future of the third section was not clear, nor could we conceive a future for the fourth, like the one it now has. The first and second sections were more or less on track, although work was needed on the second, but they already have a future projection, among other things, with the creation of the Environmental Culture Center and the gardens that were planted.

“The third and fourth sections, with the planting, the fertilization of the soil and the creation of accesses and paths, in addition to the new facilities, are no longer static, stagnant or isolated from the course of history and the community that lives in around that area, nor of visitors.

The future is hopeful in the sense that people can now enjoy their trees, their trails, the outdoors, activities of all kinds, and cultural and family destinations. Chapultepec is designed as a large cultural and environmental campus so that it begins to be inhabited by users; to the forest, instead of being impacted, we managed to get it out of its stagnation. It was very dry, especially the third section; There were fires, let’s hope that doesn’t happen anymore; Previously abandoned areas are now accessible. Yes, you are ready, then, for a better future.he detailed.

Appointed at the beginning of the six-year term as coordinator of one of the priority initiatives of the current government, Orozco reiterated that the little more than 10,500 million pesos that were allocated to that initiative It’s a pretty low investment. for the benefits it will bring.

If you compare it to what it costs to remodel another cultural center in the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the prices and benefits per square meter, as well as in environmental terms, it is a quite productive investment. It is not easy for many people in the cultural world to understand that an investment in the ecological part or in ecological culture, to plant and fertilize the soil, is as important or more important for the future of art. In our time of youth, political art was that which tried to talk about a better future; Political art is now unthinkable if it is not ecological; That is, one of the political reasons for art is its commitment to environmental culture, climate changehe stated.

My work has been very involved in ecological issues for a long time. I hope that now Chapultepec, as a public space, as a piece of public art, generates a message of ecological awareness, ecological politics and also ecological cultural politics.

Among the aspects that were left in the pipeline of the master plan of the original project, the creator highlighted a tunnel-bridge that would connect the third and fourth sections of the forest in a pedestrian way, as well as the contemporary art pavilion planned for the first area, which from the beginning generated controversy among certain sectors of society, considering that it was his personal whim, and which was finally canceled.

He clarifies that Line 3 of the Cablebús – also inaugurated a few days ago and whose 5.5 kilometer route connects the four sections of Chapultepec – was not initially part of the project; It was managed as a separate item, but it was integrated as the mobility policy of the Mexico City government developed.

“In the master plan there was a project for a tunnel-bridge to cross from the third to the fourth section, because it was important to have accessibility to it. We will still have to work on this accessibility, especially due to the influx that the fourth section will have; In our studies, the forecast is that it will occupy second place in number of visitors, after the first section. So, that bridge or that accessibility is going to have to be implemented; We had several proposals.

The Cablebús is spectacular, very nice, I think people are going to use it a lot; Surely, demand will increase, but the project is prepared to grow. The master plan is made in such a way that the projects that we were not able to finish in this first stage can survive, be sustained, grow, and will begin to demand the continuation of access, interconnections, maintenance and other things. For now, to finish this phase of the project, we are good.

Considered the most international of Mexican artists, Gabriel Orozco maintained that with the contemporary pavilion in the first section of the forest he sought interconnect better the museums in the area and form a circuit with those venues.

“No ‘personal museum’; The pavilion was a space for the arts of contemporary Mexico, which already have an international presence. One of the country’s attractions at a contemporary level is its art; So, having that walk of museums, from Anthropology to the contemporary, passing through the Chapultepec Castle, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tamayo, would generate a very wide circuit and a very rich, historical and artistic walk.”

He considered that this space could not be achieved due to political reasons. a little absurd. He insisted that now that the results of the other nodes have been seen, perhaps it can be understood that it was not a bad idea: “it was not going to be the ‘Egobriel’ Orozco museum,” he concluded with a laugh.