The Only Magazine for Children's Art
Oct 12, 2026
On view now at Museo Jumex
Spanish artist Alvaro Urbano was born in Madrid in 1983, and currently calls Berlin, Germany his home base. Yet he began to garner significant attention in North America with his 'The Great Ruins of Saturn' exhibit at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2021 (which used shadow puppetry to truly magical effect), followed by his much buzzed about 2024 'Tableau Vivant', at Long Island City's SculptureCenter.
Now Mexico City's venerable Museo Jumex is presenting his first major exhibit in Latin America, titled 'Helen', which officially opened October 16. Urbano has become well-known for transforming spaces in captivating, thought-provoking ways - for instance his strikingly meditative 'La Eterna Adolescencia' at TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes in 2023. What is uniquely fascinating is that his installations most often refer to historic architectural wonders and masterpieces.
He himself describes his practice as an “archeology of desires and past intentions”.
In this case the 'Helen', specifically, refers to Helen Fowler O’Gorman (1904-1984), an American sculptor and more importantly acclaimed botanical illustrator, who notably studied with legendary muralist Diego Rivera. She developed a fascination, or possibly even obsession with the distinctive flora of Mexico, with her wonderful 1961 book 'Mexican Flowering Trees and Plants' acting as virtually a love letter to the country's vast horticultural richness.
Between 1948 and 1954, she and her husband, Mexican-Irish artist-architect Juan O’Gorman, together designed and built Casa Cueva (the Cave House) directly into a volcanic lava field in Mexico City's Jardines del Pedregal district. With its enigmatic gardens and mythical looking mosaics, it quickly became an architectural landmark, before it was controversially destroyed in 1969, after being purchased by artist Helen Escobedo. Urbano uses its story as a visceral and visual touchstone for the exhibit.
What he has achieved with 'Helen', as has been his manner of working with his previous exhibitions, is to elucidate something about the narrative, the meaning and the memory of a place that once not only represented the limitless of the ingenuity and inventiveness of its creators, but that also captured the imagination of the wider general public. Fittingly, accompanying the exhibit is a companion book, published by the Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, which contains archival photographs of Casa Cueva, complemented by excerpts from Fowler O'Gorman's above-mentioned text, and essays by researchers Adriana Sandoval and Ph.D. Gina Cebey, the latter whose own work regularly delves into the relationship between art and architecture.
Alvaro Urbano's 'Helen' will be on view at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City through February 7, 2027.
Click on the below YouTube video for a fascinating digital re-imagination of Casa Cueva.