At Mexico City’s Laboratorio Arte Alameda, restoration shapes artistic practice

Can restoration grow to be artwork? The newly reopened Laboratorio Arte Alameda (LAA) in Mexico Metropolis’s historic centre seeks to reply this query by way of a novel undertaking exploring the intersection of restoration and creative experimentation.

Housed in a former Sixteenth-century convent, the museum had been closed since 30 December 2025 for restoration. It reopened earlier this month with a site-specific undertaking by the Mexican artist Pablo Rasgado, who was in residence all through the restoration. Layers of wall paint from totally different intervals, reworked copies of colonial work and restoration particles all kind a part of Rasgado’s exhibition Pentimento (till 18 October).

The LAA, which opened in 2000, is housed one of many metropolis’s oldest buildings. Building of the Franciscan convent of San Diego, close to Alameda Central, started in 1591. The positioning was a major one through the Mexican Inquisition: between 1596 and 1771, the sq. in entrance of the convent served as an execution floor the place these condemned had been burned on the stake. Years later, the convent constructing hosted the Pinacoteca Virreinal (1964-2000), displaying 350 colonial work earlier than the gathering was relocated to the close by Museo Nacional de Arte.

Since opening, LAA has all the time emphasised experimental practices. Exhibiting works in an unlimited house with a layered historical past is a problem that the museum embraces. “The size presents artists a novel probability to work together with the house by way of site-specific tasks,” says the LAA curator Gemma Argüello, noting that previous tasks have engaged with the location’s historical past as nicely.

An extended overdue restoration

LAA’s restoration was a few years within the making. The constructing was broken by the 2017 earthquakes and suffered from water infiltration. “The restoration consolidated the primary nave’s vaults and dome, in addition to the Chapel of Sorrows, addressing essentially the most vital earthquake harm,” says Claudia López Cherres, a website supervisor on the Centro Histórico Belief, which oversaw the restoration alongside Mexico’s Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past.

Invasive plant species had additionally grown within the crevices, prompting the necessity for a staff of biologists to assist with restoration. However preservation was paramount. “The undertaking sought to protect the previous Templo de San Diego’s historic character somewhat than alter its look,” López notes.

LAA’s curatorial staff noticed restoration as a possibility to reframe the establishment’s focus. “We wished to activate the museum as a laboratory for creative creation,” Argüello says. “The restoration allowed us to discover the constructing’s materials historical past and its historic makes use of.”

Rasgado, whose apply explores materials historical past by way of large-scale tasks, fortunately took on the problem. Speculative archaeology guided his distinctive undertaking. “This vital technique allowed me to merge fiction with truth, increasing narratives whereas incorporating parts of the constructing’s historical past,” Rasgado says. This required fixed adaptation. “In the course of the restoration, I witnessed the constructing’s entrails and labored on website by way of numerous processes,” Rasgado provides, noting that collaboration with the restorers was key. For instance, they put aside a part of the greater than 13 tons of particles for Rasgado and his staff to type by way of and make use of.

Past pentimento

Rasgado attracts on portray and restoration methods, which he reinterprets and—at occasions—deconstructs. Central to his undertaking is pentimento, a time period derived from the Italian pentirsi (“to repent”) that refers to modifications made throughout portray that later grow to be seen by way of infrared reflectography, X-rays and pigment decay. Rasgado expanded this idea by creating fictitious pentimenti over digital facsimiles of 27 colonial work that when hung on the Pinacoteca Virreinal.

“The stretchers and pine wooden had been subjected to totally different processes to simulate the unique items’ approach and age,” Rasgado says. “My pentimenti create a brand new narrative whereas exploring the portray course of.”

A few of these reveal historic tensions. One such instance is a replica of Francisco Antonio Vallejo’s large-scale portray Glorificación de la Inmaculada (1774), put in the place the church’s altarpiece as soon as stood, with the sitters’ faces changed by pre-Hispanic figures.

“This pentimento refers to syncretism,” Rasgado says. “It takes inspiration from the pre-Hispanic altars found behind spiritual pictures.” However somewhat than providing an upfront critique, it lets viewers draw their very own conclusions.

Different pentimenti are summary color explorations. As a substitute of pictures, the holes made in a single portray are positioned on a window within the church’s choir, illuminated by mild. “Restoration remodeled the environment from a darkish house, the place the vault was lined for security causes, right into a luminous one,” Argüello says.

Materials reminiscence

As a part of LAA’s restoration undertaking, archaeological home windows into pre-Hispanic occasions on the metropolis’s historic colonial-era websites had been additionally reinterpreted. Within the temple’s picket flooring, three rectangular-shaped minimize areas reveal particles and mouldings recovered throughout restoration. The embellished tiles that when adorned the temple’s vault, which couldn’t be reinstalled because of their fragility and weight, are seen as nicely.

These vestiges create a dialogue with Rasgado’s pentimenti. “They comply with the identical logic,” he says. “Slightly than reconstructing, these archaeological and painterly gestures concurrently open beforehand hid areas of reminiscence.” The artist has additionally created two benches made solely from restoration particles and resin, which supply a contemplative house.

The constructing’s towering, 19m-tall partitions additionally play an necessary aesthetic position right here. Beneath Rasgado’s steering, restorers uncovered sections of paint from totally different historic eras ranging in color from black to crimson to white, leading to a form of abstraction revealing layered timelines. In a reversal of the strappo restoration approach, used to take away frescoes, Rasgado utilized pictures from his studio onto the museum partitions. Right here, once more, the historic layers are simply confused with the artist’s interventions.

Rasgado’s undertaking is something however static, and the artist plans to change his work in August. “There will likely be a second Pentimento, during which I’ll add new pictures to the prevailing works,” he says. Performances by the artists Gabriel Acevedo Velarde and Adrián Bracho will accompany this second intervention.

However the restoration job just isn’t over but both. “Though essentially the most vital points have been stabilised, water infiltration, uncovered tezontle masonry and deterioration of the bell tower stay key challenges,” López says.

Within the meantime, Pentimento marks a brand new chapter for LAA—turning its constructing’s restoration into an archive, a medium and an area for reflection.

Pablo Rasgado: Pentimento, till 18 October, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico Metropolis