Mérida, Yucatán — To Alfredo Romero Campos, the hand-painted Pino sign facing the street and fading away is art. And there’s a lot more where that came from. There are Coca-Cola murals or coffee shop emblems, for example. Or even some artful graffiti.
“Vestigios de nuestros tiempos” (Vestiges of our Times”) is made up of 45 works that everyday street images that draw from daily urban life.
“The exhibition is a project that was born with the intention of documenting the disappearance of the advertisements that are located on the facades of the streets, as well as of keeping them in the phase of deterioration in which they are,” he says.
The program will be inaugurated in the main gallery of the Teatro José Peón Contreras.
Organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Arts (Sedeculta), the ribbon-cutting will be held 8 p.m. Thursday, March 1. Admission is free, and the show will be on view until April 1.
The talent of anonymous sign-makers shows through. And the textures, old lettering and the layers of paint evoke a kind of pop art.
Visitors who have been here for decades may feel nostalgia from the fading street signs. Pino, for example, was a bottling plant that has been closed for years, and its famous chocolate soda is no more. The artist likely captured his image just in time. Its building collapsed last year and is due to be torn down.
The exhibition gathers 45 medium- and large-format pieces that took four years to build up.
Romero Campos, who is originally from Barcelona, Spain, has exhibited in Mexico City and Puebla, as well as the Sala gallery in Santa Ana.
Text and photos: Courtesy
