The Lobby of El Castillo de Chapultepec

The lobby of El Castillo de Chapultepec, of multiple, shifting, and undefined authorship, is the first artwork of administrative integration,1 and it serves as foyer, reception, waiting room, cloakroom, bag check, information desk, and meeting room for El Castillo de Chapultepec.

This work is an exercise in institutional imagination, resulting from the practical investigations of several collectives and artists connected to the local community. It consists of ashtrays, a back bar, Ballet Parking, a baseboard, beers, a bookend, bottle openers, a bulletin board, burro, a calendar, clean-out covers, a clock, coat hooks, coasters, coffee, a coffee maker, a complaints and suggestions notebook, a cooler, cornices, a counter, cushions, cups, dish soap, a door, a doorbell, drains, a draining mat, a drawing, ElectromEzcal, emergency signage, a faucet, a fire extinguisher, the floor, flowers, a ghost, glasses, haire, an illuminated sign, internet, an invitation, a jukebox, a keepsake, a ladder, light fixtures, light switches, a map of the Fifth Section of Chapultepec Forest, a mini-fridge, a mixer, mosaics, murals, a niche, outlets, a painting, a plaque, a pole-dance pole, a portrait, a postcard, a postcard rack, pumpkin seeds, receptionists, a retable, screens, shelves, shot glasses, souvenirs, stools, Su Servilleta, a tip jar, tiles, a translation, trash cans, uniforms, water, windows, etcetera, all in sync.

The lobby of El Castillo de Chapultepec exists because, after 70 years, the Museo Experimental El Eco still doesn’t function as a bar.

- Administration: El Castillo de Chapultepec
- Anarchist baseboard: Guillermo Santamarina
- Architecture: APRDELESP
- Artesanales del Sur coffee
- Ashtrays from Biquini Wax EPS
- Axión dish soap
- Back bar: Iván Ramírez Ordoñez
- Ballet Parking: Avantgardo
- Bookend: Cowbitel
- Bulletin board: Andrés Villalobos
- Bunn coffee maker
- Burro: MISCELANEA MARI CHELY
- Carpentry: Iroha Endo, Naoya Sakaguchi
- Clock: Relojito (Ediciones Hungría)
- Coasters: Newton
- Complaints and suggestions notebook: Andrés Villalobos
- Cooler from Víctor Costales
- Cornices: Colectiva, Luis F. Muñoz, Víctor del Oral
- Corona beers
- CRISA shot glasses
- Cuprum ladder
- Cups from Biquini Wax EPS
- Cushions: Wendy Cabrera Rubio
- David Alfaro Siqueiros illuminated sign: Enrique López Llamas
- Decorative details: Gustavo Díaz, Josué Mejía
- Doorbell: Juan Caloca
- Draining mat
- Drawing: Juan José Gurrola
- DUNA stools
- Electrical installation: SOLUCIONES TÉCNICAS INGENIERÍA APLICADA
- Electricity (CFE)
- ElectromEzcal: Irak Morales
- Emergency signage: Catest
- Fire extinguisher: LINEA DE FUEGO PROFESIONAL
- Flowers: Andrea Peltier
- Ghost: Juan Pablo Villegas, Susana Iglesias
- Glasses: La Violeta
- Haire con holor a Colonia: Mauricio Marcin
- Hydro-sanitary installation: Carlos Díaz Rojas, Carlos Díaz López, Ricardo López
- Inbursa bank terminal
- Internet (izzi)
- Invitation: Jorge Bobadilla Vargas
- Jukebox from La Pipí
- Keepsake from Sierra Hermosa Community Museum and Reading Club: Francisco Lara
- Map of the Fifth Section of El Bosque de Chapultepec: Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba
- Masonry: Abelardo Rayón Rojas, Carlos Díaz Rojas, Carlos Díaz López, Damián Rivas, Noé Castillo
- Materials library: APRDELESP
- Metal doors and windows: PROYECTOS “D”
- Mirror: DIMAVYA Cruz del Sur
- Murals: Biquini Wax EPS, Cráter Invertido, José Eduardo Barajas, RRD, Yope Project Space
- Niche: Karla Kaplun
- Perpetual calendar: Íñigo Malvido
- Plaque: Galia Basail Mulcahy
- Pole-dance pole: 360 Pole Dance Studio
- Portrait of bruno darío: PJ Rountree
- Postcard from La subasta de arte por Pame
- Postcard rack: Iván Ramírez Ordoñez
- Pumpkin seeds
- Receptionists: Íñigo Malvido, Santi Marín, Juan Arana, Monserrat Cortés
- Retable (curator: Roselin Rodríguez Espinosa): Pablo Helguera, Zyanya Arellano
- Salón Tenampa painting: Burgos
- Sanyo mini-fridge
- Souvenirs: Various
- Su servilleta: Víctor del Oral
- Telephone (izzi)
- Tip jar: Marco Aviña
- Tongue tip: Víctor del Oral
- Trash cans: Artículos de lámina “El Amiguito”, Sablón
- Uline sign holders
- Uniform: Chintete
- Unpublished translation of Mathias Goeritz’s plastic poem: APRDELESP, Jorge Bobadilla Vargas
- VIZIO screens
- Water (SACMEX)
- Window: Julián Madero Islas
- Et cetera

Inaugurated on February 3, 2025 by Newton

1.

Muralism sought a plastic integration of the work of art through the collaboration between architecture, sculpture, and painting, following a modernist logic that considered only those elements traditionally deemed “architectural” (such as walls, floors, and ceilings). In contrast, administrative integration aims to expand this universe of elements to conceive everything that happens in a given space as a single work of art. In this way, the person drinking coffee and the receptionist, the beer, the coaster, the mural, the lighting, the cellphone, the bill, the fly, the outlet, the clock, and the sound, etc.—what the authors can control and what they cannot—are all part of the artwork in that moment.

For example, “in the 1920s in Mexico, all the pulquerías were painted; they were places where Mexican popular artists created important mural paintings, both on the exterior and interior walls. Later on, painting on the exterior was prohibited.” After this prohibition, the pulquería remained the same pulquería, just like when a painting is removed from the living room wall of a house.

See O’Gorman, Juan. Autobiography. Mexico City: DGE / Equilibrista, 2007, pp. 81–82.

El Castillo de Chapultepec