MONTERREY.- Explorations of time and territory are presented at MARCO through two new exhibitions: El tiempo entre las formas (The Time Between Forms), by Luis Figueroa in Espacio Uno, and Aquí empieza la patria (Here the homeland begins), by Carlos Vielma in the Patio de las Esculturas.

The new projects, curated by Brenda Fernández, MARCO's associate curator, will be on view until 15 June in two of the museum's emblematic spaces. In recent years, these spaces have been dedicated to projects commissioned by the museum for contemporary artists whose careers are gaining prominence on the art scene.

In the Capilla Legorriana, as Espacio Uno is known, El tiempo entre las formas is on display. The artist Luis Figueroa (Venezuela, 1993) focuses on the concept of time as a creative act, as well as on how it has served as a measure of movement and change -crucial notions for understanding the world.

The artist intervened the walls of Espacio Uno with the work No podía convertir en su ideal aquella calma que no existeía en ningún lugar (2025). Through colour, the artist uses blues, greys and earth tones and gradient effects without defined forms to suggest a landscape, resulting in an image that could be reminiscent of a night sky.

The mural is combined with sculptural elements made of modelled and polychrome paper. The main sculpture is Motivo vuelve a veces (2025), located in the center of the room, a kind of tower whose forms are inspired by snakes, alluding to mythological skeletal animals. The two sculptures that make up the work Ante el océano de tu amor, soy un río III and IV, have ambiguous forms, similar to those of a butterfly, although they are not. For the artist, the sculptures are associated with life cycles, transformation, and the sacred.

In both the mural and the sculptures, the artist explores the link and tension between time and the creative process, combining concepts such as transformation, as well as the creation of undefined forms that in their ambiguity, manage to refer to nature.

Located in Patio de las Esculturas is Aquí empieza la patria, an intervention in which the artist Carlos Vielma (Coahuila, 1982) questions the meaning of monuments today, based on a historical event: the loss of Mexican territory along the northern border.
In his work, Vielma employs construction materials that reflect his training and experience as an architect, finding in them discursive possibilities that connect spaces through the construction models that characterize each place, such as brick in Colombia or rock board in the United States.

For this unprecedented project, the artist uses rock and concrete to recreate structures derived from a public work: a series of obelisks that the U.S. government built to demarcate its new border with Mexico. This territorial boundary was established after two years of war, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)—a truce between the two nations that brought the conflict to an end, but through which the United States expanded its territory.

At the same time, the project questions the concept of borders and boundaries, which are both political and symbolic constructions. Returning to the traditional elements of the monument, Vielma included a series of plaques in the installation featuring phrases about land ownership, uprooting, and reflections on the meaning of nationhood. The texts were drawn from two literary works: José Emilio Pacheco’s poem “Alta traición” and Juan Rulfo's short story “Nos han dado la tierra”. Also, one of the plaques contains a fragment of Manifest Destiny, a 19th century doctrine through which the United States at that time established its ideals and policies of continental expansion and appropriation.

Leadership support for this exhibition is provided by the Government of the State of Nuevo León through its Ministry of Culture. Major funding is provided by Arca Continental, Cemex, Femsa, Cydsa, Frisa, Universidad Metropolitana de Monterrey y Xignux. Generous support is provided by Arte Expuesto, and V Media Group.