National Institute of Anthropology and History<\/a>. <\/p>\nInvasive plant species had also grown in the crevices, prompting the need for a team of biologists to help with restoration. But preservation was paramount. \u201cThe project sought to preserve the former Templo de San Diego\u2019s historic character rather than alter its appearance,\u201d L\u00f3pez notes.<\/p>\n
LAA\u2019s curatorial team saw restoration as an opportunity to reframe the institution\u2019s focus. \u201cWe wanted to activate the museum as a laboratory for artistic creation,\u201d Arg\u00fcello says. \u201cThe restoration allowed us to explore the building\u2019s material history and its historic uses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rasgado, whose practice explores material history through large-scale projects, happily took on the challenge. Speculative archaeology guided his unique project. \u201cThis critical strategy allowed me to merge fiction with fact, expanding narratives while incorporating elements of the building\u2019s history,\u201d Rasgado says. This required constant adaptation. \u201cDuring the restoration, I witnessed the building\u2019s entrails and worked on site through various processes,\u201d Rasgado adds, noting that collaboration with the restorers was key. For example, they set aside part of the more than 13 tons of debris for Rasgado and his team to sort through and make use of.<\/p>\n
Beyond pentimento<\/p>\n
Rasgado draws on painting and restoration techniques, which he reinterprets and\u2014at times\u2014deconstructs. Central to his project is pentimento, a term derived from the Italian pentirsi (\u201cto repent\u201d) that refers to changes made during painting that later become visible through infrared reflectography, X-rays and pigment decay. Rasgado expanded this concept by creating fictitious pentimenti over digital facsimiles of 27 colonial paintings that once hung at the Pinacoteca Virreinal. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe stretchers and pine wood were subjected to different processes to simulate the original pieces\u2019 technique and age,\u201d Rasgado says. \u201cMy pentimenti create a new narrative while exploring the painting process.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Rasgado\u2019s Pentimento (2026) Photo: Felipe Huerta, courtesy Laboratorio Arte Alameda<\/p>\n
Some of these reveal historical tensions. One such example is a reproduction of Francisco Antonio Vallejo\u2019s large-scale painting Glorificaci\u00f3n de la Inmaculada (1774), installed where the church\u2019s altarpiece once stood, with the sitters\u2019 faces replaced by pre-Hispanic figures. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis pentimento refers to syncretism,\u201d Rasgado says. \u201cIt takes inspiration from the pre-Hispanic altars discovered behind religious images.\u201d But rather than offering an upfront critique, it lets viewers draw their own conclusions.<\/p>\n
Other pentimenti are abstract colour explorations. Instead of images, the holes made in one painting are placed on a window in the church\u2019s choir, illuminated by light. \u201cRestoration transformed the atmosphere from a dark space, where the vault was covered for safety reasons, into a luminous one,\u201d Arg\u00fcello says.<\/p>\n
Material memory<\/p>\n
As part of LAA\u2019s restoration project, archaeological windows into pre-Hispanic times at the city\u2019s historic colonial-era sites were also reinterpreted. In the temple\u2019s wooden floor, three rectangular-shaped cut areas reveal debris and mouldings recovered during restoration. The decorated tiles that once adorned the temple\u2019s vault, which could not be reinstalled due to their fragility and weight, are visible as well.<\/p>\n
These vestiges create a dialogue with Rasgado\u2019s pentimenti. \u201cThey follow the same logic,\u201d he says. \u201cRather than reconstructing, these archaeological and painterly gestures simultaneously open previously concealed spaces of memory.\u201d The artist has also created two benches made entirely from restoration debris and resin, which offer a contemplative space.<\/p>\n
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Rasgado\u2019s Pentimento (2026) Photo: Felipe Huerta, courtesy Laboratorio Arte Alameda<\/p>\n
The building\u2019s towering, 19m-tall walls also play an important aesthetic role here. Under Rasgado\u2019s guidance, restorers uncovered sections of paint from different historical eras ranging in colour from black to red to white, resulting in a kind of abstraction revealing layered timelines. In a reversal of the strappo restoration technique, used to remove frescoes, Rasgado applied images from his studio onto the museum walls. Here, again, the historic layers are easily confused with the artist\u2019s interventions.<\/p>\n
Rasgado\u2019s project is anything but static, and the artist plans to alter his work in August. \u201cThere will be a second Pentimento, in which I will add new images to the existing works,\u201d he says. Performances by the artists Gabriel Acevedo Velarde and Adri\u00e1n Bracho will accompany this second intervention.<\/p>\n
But the restoration job is not over yet either. \u201cAlthough the most critical issues have been stabilised, water infiltration, exposed tezontle masonry and deterioration of the bell tower remain key challenges,\u201d L\u00f3pez says. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, Pentimento marks a new chapter for LAA\u2014turning its building\u2019s restoration into an archive, a medium and a space for reflection.<\/p>\n
Pablo Rasgado: Pentimento<\/a>, until 18 October, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can restoration become art? The newly reopened Laboratorio Arte Alameda (LAA) in Mexico City\u2019s historic centre seeks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,191588,229,88,9543,26,3925,6359,313006],"class_list":["post-727961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-conservation-preservation","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibitions","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-museums-heritage","tag-national-institute-of-anthropology-and-history-inah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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