C-MONSTER.net » Mexico

The Digest. 10.11.10.

c-monster — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 08:20:17 +0000

Cocoon, by Kate Browne, in Mexico City. Part of a series of public cocoon sculptures she has constructed in various locations around the world. See the building of the Mexico City project here. (Image courtesy of Browne.)

The Starry Night bra.
New York Times, busted. Though, I have to say, this guy gives pretty good soundbite. (Art Fag City.)
Can birds fall in love?
New species discovered in New Guinea. Complete with awesome photos. (Cool Green Science.)
Border Bodies: Attempting to identify the remains of those who cross. Amazing piece. (Eyeteeth.)
Nut job attacks a piece by Enrique Chagoya with a crowbar at a Colorado museum. The work will not be returned to display.
“The exhibit is a mess, an extravagant hair ball of coughed-up references.”
Ignoring reality at its peril: An essay by Ben Davis on art in the time of austerity and the art world’s increasingly polarized economics.
Leather: The latest in important art collector wear. (Modern Art Notes.)
Slate does up MoMA’s Ab-Ex show in a slideshow. Plus: Look Into My Owl has some AMAZING close-ups of the paintings. If you can’t make it to the show, definitely check these links out.
Helpful advice to the internet generation, visual arts edition.
St. Mark’s Place, 1967.
The Day in Art Merch: The Yayoi Kusama Coke machine. I want, need, have to have…one of those dot cans.
Banksy’s Simpsons opener.
Today’s Graff: Hour and Horfe in Paris. Nice placement.
Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art. Definitely a worthwhile street art/intervention book to have. On a related note: Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Spaces is also good in terms of the comprehensive/experimental nature of the work it features.
Great if your stoned. Watch it full-screen. (Coudal.)

The Digest. 03.24.10.

c-monster — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:31:46 +0000

Nos han asesinado, by Arte Jaguar in Oaxaca, Mexico, 2004. (Photo by C-M.)

Murder weapons. (We Make Money Not Art.)
Eyeteeth interviews Izabella Demavlys, a fashion photographer who has devoted herself to chronicling victims of acid attacks in Pakistan.
Last Suppers gets super-sized. More here.
‘Cuz every institution could use some Cuzco School: Colonial Latin American art is finding a renewed interest among scholars and institutions. Fascinating story.
A literary arts magazine produced by museum guards.
And they’re off!! The NYT reports on the Art Handling Olympics. Find the photo essay here. (The flaming tape dispenser medals are a nice touch.) Get the full medal rundown at Art Fag City.
Christopher Knight analyzes the art in Obama’s room at the moment the health care bill was passed.
A Super Bowl of abstract artists.
Watch Jeff Koons’ assistants make his work. Speaking of which: Jeff Koons face spritzer. For reals.
L.A. cultural affairs department faces layoffs. But arts management internships manage to survive budget ax.
Preserving digital matter: Not as easy as it sounds. CDs and hard drives decay faster than paper.
MoMA adds the @ symbol to its collection, but what does it get?
Sorta related: A little man-on-the-street about what everyone thinks about all the nekkid people at the Abramovic show.
And the award for worst hotel bedspread goes to…
Rivers from space. (Coudal.)
Today’s Graff: Some abstract geometry courtesy of Selon in Brazil. More here.
Houses on rings.
Renzo Piano’s modern wing at the Art Institute of Chicago is now certified green. And it looks like it didn’t come cheap, ‘cuz the museum is raising admission…by 50%. (Correction: The museum announced the admission hike last spring. The hike has just now been approved by the city.)
Sorry, Minnesota: The world’s largest shopping mall. Whoa. (Steve Lambert.)
A building that looks like a fur hat.
Lazertits. ♥♥♥ (Dimensions Variable.)

Narchitecture: Real deal edition.

c-monster — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:31:49 +0000

El Partenón: This splendid piece of hillside real estate once belonged to a former Mexico City Police Chief and alleged drug trafficker. (Image courtesy of Alain García Gómez.)

Several years ago, my friend Bruce went birding in the hillsides above Zihuatanejo, on Mexico’s southern coast, and ended up stumbling into an abandoned narco-mansion. It had belonged to Arturo “El Negro” Durazo, a former Mexico City police chief (during the regime of López Portillo in the ‘70s) who was well known for maintaining a high-profile, high-rent lifestyle he couldn’t possibly afford on a government salary. The design of his expansive Zihuatanejo mansion (there were others) was inspired by the Greek Parthenon and contained, among other things, murals of battles, a full-blown discotheque (allegedly a replica of Studio 54), lots of jacuzzis and bedrooms with mirrored ceilings.

In the early 80s, Durazo ended up getting chased out of his job and was eventually arrested in Puerto Rico. He was charged, in Mexico, with smuggling, illegal arms possession and tax evasion, and was eventually convicted on some of the charges (but it is unclear from the clips I’ve read, which ones). For all the flagrant corruption, Durazo only ended up doing half a dozen years of jail time. During this time, however, his Zihuatanejo mansion was taken over by the municipality, and when Bruce found it, it lay unused and abandoned.

Bruce, unfortunately, wasn’t carrying a camera when he found the place, so there was no visual evidence of his adventure. With a bit of careful Googling, however, we managed to find an incredible blog post by Alain García Gómez on El Partenón, as the house is known, that contains an informative report, as well as a bunch of photos.

Bruce was excited to find the photos because he would finally have hard evidence that this place existed. I was thrilled because the pictures of this real-live narco-mansion proved that when a friend and I cooked up our theories of narchitecture last year, we were spot on in just about every description: Durazo’s house is massive. It has an abundance of Classical columns and gobs of Roman-style statuary. And in its day, I imagine that it also featured plenty of lithe young women in thong bikinis.

Further reading:
El Universal.
El Mundo.
Proceso.
Wikimaps.

Posted by C-Monster.