“Mexico City is a bastion of public art in the Americas, with murals, mosaics and monuments lining its most important streets. Yet the city is also highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Currently Mexican historians, artists and architects are contending with a unique predicament: What do you do with historic public art, when an earthquake can bring it tumbling down in a matter of seconds?
When a massive earthquake hit Mexico City in September 1985, roughly 10,000 people died. Alongside this devastating tragedy, hundreds of buildings were also destroyed – among them, some of Guatemalan artist Carlos Mérida’s defining works.
‘I think to some extent it was fortunate that the maestro Mérida died before 1985 and did not see the destruction of the work that he was most proud of,’ wrote Alfonso Soto Soria, artist and curator, in his 1988 book on Mérida’s work.”
Read the full article on Thinking City.
