A Rescued Mural

 About two miles down Insurgentes Avenue from where I live is the Torre Manacar, a striking 29 story office building with an adjacent shopping mall.  The complex was completed in 2017,

The new pyramidal-shaped building stands on the site of what used to be one of the city's premier movie theaters... Cine Manacar.  When the movie theater was opened in 1965, Carlos Mérida, a Guatemalan artist, was commissioned to paint a mural inside.  The painting, called "Los Danzantes" (The Dancers) was painted on twelve foldable wooden panels.  It served as the theater curtain, and the panels folded back before the screening of a movie.

I found this photo of the interior of the old movie house on the internet.

The building suffered damage in the 1985 earthquake, and in 1995 it was purchased by Cinemex, one of Mexico's major cinema chains.  The theater was converted into a multiplex, and the mural was removed and put in storage.  After a fire in 2013, the movie theater was torn down.

I had read that the mural had been restored and reinstalled in the new office tower.  I went to the Torre Manacar, and entered the lobby.  I asked a fellow at the desk if the mural was accessible to the public.  He pointed above and said that the mural was up there covered by blinds.  The bright sunlight coming through the east-facing windows would damage the painting, so it is covered from morning to mid-afternoon.  He said to come back later in the day when the sun has moved to the west.  A couple of days later, I returned around 4:30.  The sun was no longer shining through the windows.  Sure enough, the blinds had been raised, and there was Carlos Mérida's mural gracing the lobby.

If you would like to learn more about Carlos Mérida, I wrote a blog entry about the artist when a special exhibit of his work was held at the National Museum of Art in 2019.