Art in transit: How Mexico City’s metro doubles as a museum

“The Mexico City Metro is overmuch much than a nationalist transport system. It has go a microcosm successful changeless movement, whose regular beingness reflects the diversity, emotions and supra each the individuality of the radical who question successful it.”

— Quote from the photography accumulation “Inquieta Cotidianidad” successful the La Raza station

A “gusano naranja” — what Mexico City Metro users telephone the classical orangish trains that transport 3 cardinal passengers each day. (Peter Davies)

The opus “Sandunga” by Puerto Rican “King of Reggaetón” Don Omar blares from a tv to a captive assemblage of commuters lasting conscionable down an embossed yellowish line. 

Below the TV is simply a Maya stele from the Izapa archeological tract successful Chiapas featuring intricate bas-reliefs. This juxtaposition of civilization — the past and the precise modern — plays retired connected a level of the Bellas Artes metro presumption successful the subterranean bosom of Mexico City.

I fell successful emotion with Mexico City’s metro much than a decennary agone when I undertook a task to sojourn each presumption of the system (there are 163) and the surrounding neighborhoods. The pulsating vigor of the system, its incessant commerce and crush of commuters each enchanted me.

So did the astonishing and incredibly varied expressions of civilization connected display: underground municipality art, pre-Columbian relics, elaborate murals, unrecorded music, the skeletal remains of an extinct animal, photography exhibitions, performers of each stripes, and stained solid windows casting technicolor shadows.

All this, and much, overmuch more, is disposable to Mexico City residents and visitors alike for the bargain-basement admittance terms of 5 pesos (US $0.25), the outgo of getting done the turnstiles astatine immoderate presumption on the 12 color-coded lines.

I person enjoyed this ocular and auditory feast for years arsenic I traveled astir Mexico City, but until a caller Friday, I hadn’t specifically acceptable retired to acquisition it, to purposefully marque a time of it similar 1 does meandering done an expansive creation museum.

Line 3 wonders: The world’s largest creation assemblage and a pyramid — yes, a pyramid!

It was Friday greeting unreserved hr — champion avoided if imaginable — erstwhile I entered the División del Norte station, wherever legendary Mexican composers and musicians specified arsenic Agustín Lara, Juan Gabriel, Ana Gabriel and Consuelo Velázquez are honored in a imperishable exhibition.

I zipped up the olive greenish Line 3 to the Hidalgo station, location to the largest nationalist creation assemblage successful the world, according to the Sistema de Transporte Colectivo, the authoritative sanction of the metro system. The “Involuntary Mexico” gallery, curated by British artists Millree Hughes and Paul Conneally, was inaugurated present successful 2019 arsenic portion of the 50th day celebrations of the Mexico City Metro. It features creation by much than 300 artists from 50 countries, including a wide array of eye-catching photographs and eclectic, collage-style murals, immoderate of which picture scenes of municipality decay.

While determination is an planetary spirit to the aesthetic delights of Metro Hidalgo, the Bellas Artes presumption — conscionable 1 halt implicit connected the bluish Line 2 — is distinctly Mexican.

Here you volition find an extended postulation of pre-Columbian relics including the Maya stele mentioned above, a Toltec Chac Mool sculpture and a Huastec “feminine figure” carved retired of stone. You tin besides spot a wide array of painted artworks, including “El Mural de Bonampak,” a reproduction by Guatemalan-Mexican artist Rina Lazo of a fresco connected an interior partition of the imposing operation astatine the Bonampak archaeological tract successful Chiapas.

For a much surreal experience, instrumentality a locomotion done the Galería Metro (the metro gallery), replete with trippy Pedro Friedeberg murals and airy displays. The travel done the assemblage volition instrumentality you to the Line 8 broadside of the Bellas Artes station, wherever much precise Mexican murals await, including 1 featuring El Palacio de Bellas Artes (The Palace of Fine Arts), from which the presumption derives its name.

Perhaps the taste pièce de résistance of the Mexico City Metro is the Ehécatl Pyramid, located successful the Pino Suárez presumption successful the historical halfway of the capital. Uncovered successful 1967 during the operation of the station, the pyramid is dedicated to the upwind deity Ehécatl, 1 of the manifestations of the feathered serpent deity Quetzalcóatl.

The pyramid, portion of a larger ceremonial analyzable that is believed to person been built betwixt 1400 and 1521, is “Mexico’s smallest archaeological area,” according to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). And that’s not the lone superlative that applies to the structure. 

Above ground, the plaza surrounding the Pino Suárez presumption is simply a bustling mercado. Just beneath it lies the country’s “busiest” pre-Columbian pyramid. (Peter Davies)

The question work México Desconocido says that the pyramid, which is besides disposable from thoroughfare level, is “the busiest” archaeological tract successful the state fixed that 54 cardinal radical walk by it each twelvemonth portion utilizing the Pino Suárez station.

During my 15-minute visit, I didn’t spot anyone other halt to purposefully instrumentality successful the pre-Columbian operation built centuries agone by the Mexica people, but 1 amorous young mates utilized it arsenic a romanticist backdrop for their precise enthusiastic nationalist show of affection.

Find mammoth bones connected Line 4 and Olmec heads connected Line 6

After admiring the pyramid, I rode on the pinkish Line 1 — the metro system’s inaugural enactment — to the Candelaria station, located adjacent to the Chamber of Deputies, Mexico’s little location of Congress. A stained solid partition reminiscent of the De Stijl creation question greeted maine aft I ascended a formation of stairs, casting a multi-colored shadiness connected the presumption floor.

I paced done a broad, brightly-lit transbordo (transfer) passageway to get to Line 4 to instrumentality a bid up to the Talismán presumption successful the bluish Mexico City borough of Gustavo A. Madero. Mammoths were connected my mind.

Below a solid dome astatine the eastbound entranceway to Metro Talismán lies the skeleton of a mammoth recovered successful 1978 during the operation of Line 4 of the metro. Experts estimation that the four-meter-tall big specimen died betwixt 10,000 and 12,000 years agone “without the involution of man.” The beingness of the extinct animal’s bones successful the presumption is simply a testament that the Mexico City Metro is not conscionable an immense creation and anthropology museum, but a earthy subject 1 arsenic well.

Commuters besides travel face-to-face with the past (quite literally) successful the Tezozómoc station, wherever elephantine Olmec heads and different chromatic artifacts are connected display.

You ne'er cognize what kinds of passengers you whitethorn brushwood successful the Mexico City Metro. (Peter Davies)

These cabezas colosales (colossal heads) were recovered successful the southeastern Gulf portion of Mexico, wherever the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica — the Olmec civilization — erstwhile thrived. Located connected the reddish Line 6 successful the northbound of Mexico City, Tezozómoc is 1 of the farther-flung stations connected the metro system, but the travel to spot the Olmec heads is worthy it. These awesome fixtures signifier a striking juxtaposition with the so-called gusanos naranja (orange worms) arsenic they whiz into the station.

The Tunnel of Science

I ventured backmost on the reddish enactment to Metro Instituto del Petróleo, wherever lipid drums decorate the station’s interior. From determination I traveled southward to Metro La Raza, a dual-line presumption astatine the intersection of Lines 3 and 5.

La Raza houses 1 of the astir unsocial exhibits successful the Metro system: El Túnel de la Ciencia, oregon The Tunnel of Science.

Opened successful 1988, the passageway is considered the world’s archetypal “scientific-cognitive museum” successful a nationalist transport system, according to the Metro. There is simply a wealthiness of technological accusation successful the underground passageway, with a peculiar absorption connected the yonder beyond world — i.e. the universe. The tunnel’s centerpiece is simply a glowing practice of the celestial sphere, replete with the 12 constellations of the zodiac.

At 20 meters beneath ground, the metro’s Tunnel of Science whitethorn beryllium your champion changeable astatine seeing a starry entity successful Mexico City. (Peter Davies)

According to the Metro, the purpose of The Tunnel of Science is to bring subject and exertion to the masses, and successful particular, awaken an involvement successful those fields of survey among children and young radical who walk done the La Raza station.

Stars are not often disposable successful the nighttime entity of Mexico City due to airy and aerial pollution, but immoderate budding astronomer is guaranteed a wide presumption of the constellations astatine this spectacular Metro attraction.

Rock superstars and mundane metro riders 

Another worthwhile halt connected immoderate creation and civilization circuit of the Mexico City Metro is the London Underground-themed Auditorio station, located along Paseo de la Reforma, the capital’s astir celebrated boulevard.

After ascending a bid of towering escalators — orangish Line 7 is the deepest enactment of the subway strategy — I reached the expansive mural “Un Viaje por el Rock and Roll” by Mexican artist Jorge Flores Manjarrez.

As its sanction indicates, the mural is so a travel done stone and rotation history, featuring a who’s who of planetary rockers including Mick Jagger, Patti Smith, The Beatles, Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Bono and Santana.

The iconic musicians are seen enjoying the ever energetic and often chaotic streets of Mexico City, oregon successful the words of the muralist, making the metropolis “their own.”

The mural “Un Viaje por el Rock and Roll” (A Trip done Rock and Roll) by Mexican creator Jorge Flores Manjarrez awaits passengers arriving astatine Auditorio station, which is wide utilized by concert-goers connected their mode to spot a amusement astatine the National Auditorium. (Peter Davies)

In 2018, Flores told the quality tract Sin Embargo that the Auditorio mural task frightened him astatine archetypal due to the fact that helium had ne'er worked connected specified a ample scale.

However, the long-time stone and rotation instrumentality yet enjoyed the process of creating the colorful and colossal artwork — and countless commuters person enjoyed observing the mural implicit the past decennary oregon truthful since it was completed. Flores has different mural successful the Chabacano Station that features Mexican stone legends.

Another creator whose enactment is connected show successful the Mexico City metro strategy is Jason Schell, a autochthonal of Pennsylvania. Schell, besides an creation teacher, has two murals successful the metro system: “A Sunday Afternoon Under Mexico City” successful the Cuauhtémoc presumption (currently closed arsenic remodeling enactment connected Line 1 continues) and “The Three Workers” successful the Salto de Agua station.

I’ve enjoyed some artworks during my years riding the metro.

“The murals were inspired by the radical of Mexico City and creation history,” Schell told Mexico News Daily.

“There were nonstop connections to creation past with those pieces, peculiarly different nationalist pieces successful designation of the value of nationalist artwork. One was a notation to [Mexican muralist] Diego Rivera (pretty obvious), the different was Caravaggio (The Three Matthews),” helium wrote successful an email.

“There is thing astir the grittiness of the idiosyncratic pieces, and besides the rider pieces,” Schell said. “[They show] a emotion for mundane radical and the enactment they bash and the sacredness of each that.”

Schell said that “the information that Mexico City exhibits creation successful the subway should beryllium recognized … arsenic wholly unsocial and a testament to however it celebrates the arts arsenic a city.”

As for his ain accidental to show his enactment to the millions of radical who usage the metro connected a regular basis, helium said:

“Like a batch of things successful life, determination was timing and luck involved, and being acceptable to instrumentality an opportunity. Muraling and thoroughfare creation weren’t a saturated marketplace yet and my pieces looked unsocial capable to the metro authorities that they offered maine the gigs.”

Schell told MND that having his murals connected show successful the Mexico City Metro is simply a “huge honor” and noted that “public proscription continues to beryllium a root of inspiration for [his] paintings.”

“There’s thing truly fascinating astir it each from a compositional and aesthetic standpoint: perspective, shiny metal, hundreds of antithetic people. I conscionable emotion it from an creator standpoint,” helium said.

Schell besides said that “public art, peculiarly erstwhile it’s not embedded with excessively overmuch firm sponsorship, is incredibly important arsenic it brings aesthetic consciousness and thought, and each the vibrancy that comes with that, to the masses.”

Mexico City Metro users get that successful spades.

Other must-see sights connected the Mexico City Metro

Virtually each of Mexico City’s metro stations — if not each — person thing of creator and taste worth that volition request your gaze, adjacent conscionable for a infinitesimal oregon two. Many tin clasp your attraction for overmuch longer than that, provided you’re not successful a unreserved to get anywhere.

A magic infinitesimal connected Mexico City’s metro. (Peter Davies)

Want a Lacandon Jungle experience? Head to the Viveros presumption connected Line 3. Want to larn astir the Metro system’s past (and spot its present obsolete insubstantial tickets)? Pay a sojourn to the Metro Museum astatine the Mixcoac Station (Lines 7 and 12). Interested successful Mexico’s affluent past of caricature and governmental cartooning? Get disconnected (or on) at Zapata presumption connected Line 3, and catch a movie — escaped of complaint — portion you’re there. Feel similar immersing yourself successful the satellite of Mexican boxing history? Knock yourself retired at the Garibaldi/Lagunilla station (Lines 8 and B).

The database goes on.

The iconography of the metro — including pictograms for each and each presumption — is besides worthy checking out. Just look up erstwhile you’re connected a bid and you’ll spot the symbols of the enactment you’re traveling connected maps supra the windows. In the 1960s, American graphic decorator Lance Wyman led the inaugural to design icons to visually place the antithetic stations. They were (and inactive are) particularly utile for passengers with constricted literacy skills.

Toward the extremity of my caller time of metro traversing, I was treated to an in-carriage amusement by 2 young magicians, who performed a assortment of awesome tricks — their sleight of manus creation — and frankincense added immoderate exuberance and awe to an different mean trip. At the extremity of the show I handed implicit a ten-peso coin, treble the magnitude I paid to presumption each the different taste attractions successful the Metro.

But adjacent with the further outlay, my taste excursion successful the Mexico City Metro was inactive a bargain — and an enriching acquisition successful the depths of this enchanting and astonishing city.

By Mexico News Daily main unit writer Peter Davies ([email protected])