Teatro del Progreso (Theater of Progress), 2018. Illuminated sign.
Autor sin identificar, “Teatro del Progreso. Incendiado”, Ca. 1890, Monterrey, N. L., México. D. R. © 18653 Fototeca Nuevo Léon – CONARTE, Fondo Carlos Pérez-Maldonado.
Eugenio Espino Barros, “(Theatre of Progress) Zaragoza Street”, 1930, Monterrey, N. L., Mexico. No. of photo 351. D. R. © Fototeca Nuevo Léon – CONARTE, Eugenio Espino Barros Archive.
Teatro del Progreso (Theater of Progress), 2018. Installation view. Sea container and fluorescents lamps.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
We are all ghosts, 2018. Digital image.
Teatro del Progreso (Theater of Progress), 2018. Installation view. Sea container and fluorescents lamps.
Progress Theater
This project was presented as part of the public art festival Árido/Cálido (Arid/Warm), part of a city called festival Santa Lucia, in the city of Monterrey, from September to November 2018. The project was organized by the gallery Heart Ego and Las Artes Monterrey. This public art installation evokes the first theater of the city of Monterrey, the Progress Theater, that opened its doors for the first time the 8th of September of 1857, in the city center, and it was the first public space in the whole country to celebrate a public event with electric light: a ball, in September of 1882.
The Progress Theater went through many accidents and transformations, but in its last shape, with the name of the famous Elizondo Cinema it was destroyed to build the “Macroplaza” (the macro square) in 1982, this mega project erased a great part of the city center to build a giant concrete plaque and destroyed the historical memory of the most antiques houses of the city.
Using an electric light montage of 70 fluorescent lamps inside a maritime container, this piece remembered that ball of 1882, presenting the spirit of the Progress Theater as a phantasmagorical presence, found very near its original location. Viewers were invited to form part of the history and destruction of the city to have their portraits taken inside the container, as if they were actors, also phantasmagorical, of that great theater that progress has played in the city.