History
The Museo
Experimental El Eco was built in 1953. It was designed by the German artist
Mathias Goeritz, who had moved to México in 1949. The project was sponsored by
the entrepreneur Daniel Mont. He commi ssioned the artist to create a structure
in the spirit of
the avant-garde. Goeritz envisioned a multi-disciplinary
space, inspired by the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk or ̈total artwork, ̈ that
would combine visual art with dance, music, poetry, theater, and architecture.
Other important references for the artist were the Cabaret Voltaire, German
Expressionist film and the architecture of his colleague Luis Barragán. He
wrote a manifesto on ̈Emotional Architecture, ̈ published in 1954, which
outlined his conception of the building as a critique of European Functionalist
architecture. The project opened on September 7, 1953 and included murals
by
Carlos Mérida and Henry Moore, as well as a large sculpture by Goeritz, ̈The
Serpent, ̈ in the central patio. The project was short-lived, closing less than
a year after it opened. The posterior lives of the building included a
restaurant, gay and lesbian bar, Elizabethan theater, anarchist theater, and
underground music club. In 2004 the National Autonomous University of Mexico
bought and restored the building and re-opened it as an experimental art space
in 2005.
Museo Experimental el Eco
Misión
At Museo Experimental el Eco, artistic practice is activated around site-specific reflection, historic engagement, and critical speculation from an expository viewpoint. With Mathias Goeritz’s legacy as a point of departure, El Eco builds a sounding board and tension between modernity’s artistic heritage and issues emerging from contemporary art practice. As a university setting, El Eco is a platform for knowledge that favors experimentation, freedom, and diversity of thought.
Visión
Museo Experimental el Eco seeks to expand on different processes of enunciation of the artistic event. A platform for learning, knowledge and dialogue, its programs and activities generate community and impact a complex fabric of political, social, and cultural relationships. As a model that articulates artistic projects, El Eco is a point of reference in Mexico and Latin America.
Vocación
As a university institution, Museo Experimental el Eco researches and disseminates the multidisciplinary legacy of Mathias Goeritz, taking the museum’s “emotional architecture” as a starting point for fostering meaningful exercises that begin with the artistic process. Through its programs, El Eco promotes exchange in a plural community, thus producing the configuration of a territory of social interaction based on artistic experience.
Programas
Proyectos de exposición
Through dialogue with like-minded artists, curators and guests, the central concept of the Expositions and Events program at Museo Experimental el Eco is developing projects that articulate possible discourses from an expository perspective, which contain narratives that are site-specific, related to historical outreach or critical speculation, and are based on its contextual circumstances as a university space.
Barra Eco
Barra Eco revives Daniel Mont’s social spirit and is an allusion to the museum’s history as a restaurant, bar, and cabaret, as well as to Dadaist influences on Mathias Goeritz and to the legendary Cabaret Voltaire. Seeking to preserve its avant-garde spirit, the museum welcomes people related to the arts as hosts, organizers or actors in these private reunions in the museum’s bar. The result is a performative evening and an environment that evokes fleeting experiences and where ideas are exchanged.
Pabellón Eco
Pabellón Eco was launched in 2010 with the mission of offering a platform for architectural production, emphasizing experimentation and spatial reflection. Starting as an invitation-only, Mexico City-based contest, over the course of the past decade the project began to call for entries throughout the country, established a selection framework, began inviting curators to define research lines, and, finally, established an alliance with the UNAM’s Faculty of Architecture for implementing joint programming, known as Pabellón Eco: Panorama.
Pabellón Eco consists of a temporary intervention on Mathias Goertiz’s emotional architecture, specifically the museum’s courtyard, which over the span of two months holds a public program with activities combining visual and performance arts, music, and conversations derived from the form and subjects proposed by the winning design and the program’s curator.
Pabellón Eco is a collaboration between Museo Experimental el Eco and Buró-buró.