“We need the city to burp art to regain optimism after this confinement due to the pandemic,” says Rodrigo de la Sierra, architect and sculptor recognized by Timoteo (Timo), the character who since 2008 has become almost omnipresent in Mexico City and in others in the country.
The artist thinks that this city needs more urban art: “It’s never enough,” he says. “We have a large number of public spaces and urban furniture that can be intervened: the walls, the streets, the squares, the parks, the sidewalks, the Metro, and even the roads”, but he regrets that no one is thinking of creating new spaces public cultural.
“If people can’t go to museums right now, you have to bring art closer to people,” he points out, “that’s what I’ve wanted to do all this time, that people can have contact with art through through a window ”.
He adds that urban art, in addition to beautifying the landscape, increases capital gains, mobilizes citizens to seek more beautiful and harmonious spaces and generates a sense of pride and belonging.
He points out that it is necessary to create and invest in urban art in the peripheries, to beautify them and give them value, because a work in a public space contributes to urban improvement and to turn conflictive places into spaces for social coexistence. “Art helps the continuous transformation of a city,” he says.
Regarding the Bosque de Chapultepec Cultural Complex, a sculptural and museum space par excellence in the Mexican capital, for which 10,000 billion pesos will be allocated in the coming years, Rodrigo de la Sierra expresses that “it would be phenomenal to rehabilitate many spaces”, with a Comprehensive project that makes art and nature coexist in safe conditions, with museums that are not invasive but that are integrated into the environment and respect it.
About his work, Rodrigo says that it is not necessarily embedded in touching a single theme: “The connotation of my work can be applied to many circumstances and many moments, such as the ones we are experiencing, but he always tries to provide a point of light and hope “, He says.
Timothy, in particular, is like a reflection of each one of us, a kind of alter ego. “Timo is the frame of a door where the spectator stops and everything that is inside is his own story.”
Despite his good-natured and playful image, Timoteo is deeply introspective. It is the human being in constant search. Like everyone else, he faces doubt, fear, nonsense, failure, selfishness, boredom, nostalgia and love, but without losing optimism and “without taking himself too seriously.”
Its presence is varied in themes and multipurpose in meanings, but in these times of pandemic it acquires a singular motive and refers us to the drama of death, confinement and resilience. We can appreciate it in El paón, Timo defeating death in a game of chess; Memento mori, a contingent of Timos fleeing the Grim Reaper; The nomads wearing gas masks; Exodus, Thimos encapsulated in resin spheres; What was left on the road, which shows Timoteo on the stern of a boat, and Horizonte, which is precisely the sculpture that a few days ago replaced El vigilante in the sculptural space of El Economista.
A new horizon
Horizonte represents a boat about to be sunk by several Timos grouped in the stern, but one of them protrudes in the prow. And although it was created in 2017, the sculptor points out that at the moment it acquires a very particular meaning: “It can represent resilience, the ability to separate yourself from adversity and look towards the horizon.”
It can also mean “getting out of mediocrity, monotony; distancing oneself from the collective discourse that stuns and lethargic the masses; and if you have the ability to shake off that, to separate from that and take the first step, you have the opportunity to look ahead, towards the horizon, that’s what the piece is about. “
The Scams in the stern “can represent a person, with their fears, their problems and situations that try to sink their life, and the Scamp that is in the bow represents that ability to separate yourself, contemplate the horizon and overcome adversity,” he said. Rodrigo de la Sierra.
Horizonte is a sculpture made of lost wax bronze that measures 5 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2.5 meters high, and is covered with a resin that protects it against the elements.
He will be a guest on Avenida San Jerónimo 458, in Jardines del Pedregal, sharing space with El Animal, by Mathias Goeritz, for the next six months.
The guard, for his part, was transferred to the confluence of Boulevard de la Luz and Paseos del Pedregal, and will form part of the urban landscape of the Álvaro Obregón mayor’s office.
Who?
Rodrigo de la Sierra (Mexico City, 1971) studied architecture at the Universidad del Valle de México and after exercising his career he studied plastic arts for 4 years in sculpture workshops at Círculo de Arte, modeling courses, wood carving, molds and casting and figurative sculpture at the Universidad Iberoamericana and continues his training in a self-taught way. In addition to Mexico, he has managed to exhibit in countries such as Italy, China, South Korea and the United States. In 2016 he received the Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, which named the Plaza del Arte Rodrigo de la Sierra “Timoteo” in his honor.
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