The Pillar of Light in Mexico City and the Precariousness of Transparency

• In Event: Precarious Materialities and Artistic Production

Abstract

Part of a research which develops a critical reading of public art and democratic culture, in this paper I discuss one of the most politically significant Mexican public monuments of the ‘new millennium’: built to celebrate two hundred years of independence and the end in 1994 of seventy years of one-party rule, ‘Estela de luz’ (Pillar of Light, 2012) is situated in a long corridor of public and corporate glass buildings located on the upmarket avenue Paseo de la Reforma. In December 2012 rumours circulated about a presumed hacking of the Estela, as informal messages such as ‘I love you Lupe’ and ‘Hi, what’s up?’ were projected on the 104 metre tall pillar made of translucent white onyx. The messages turned out to be part of a digital installation by Mexican artist Alejandra de la Puente (who was herself ‘democratically’ transmitting messages sent by a ‘participant’ spectators). Yet these fast moving rumours of the intervention of a public monument by digital activists, deemed more powerful than the State, are symptomatic of a general distrust in the latter’s capacities. Having cost three times its allocated budget, from its inauguration the ‘Estela de Luz’ (conceived of as a celebration of ‘transparency’, democracy and independence from colonial rule) has made visible the fragility of these notions in the Mexican context. The history of this monument therefore invites reflection on the ways that the visible projections of a ‘transparent state’, presumed accountable, may lead to the creation of a mere simulacrum of democracy.

Author

• Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra, University of Cambridge