MENUART & DESIGNJorge Pardo: A World Of His OwnTecoh the artist’s most ambitious project to date Photographer: Martyn ThompsonJorge Pardo had never studied design or built a house when he undertook the creation of his first home on a hill high above downtown Los Angeles having been invited to present an exhibition at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) the then 30-year-old Cuban-born artist proposed instead that he would build his own house A horseshoe-shaped single-story redwood structure that curled in on itself Pardo’s 4166 Sea View Lane was closed to the street but open in the back and kitchen cabinets—was designed by Pardo visitors were led on tours by docents in a kind of play on the real estate agent/client tango the artist had installed his 110 hand-blown-glass lights borrowed for the occasion from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam Jorge Pardo sits beneath one of Tecoh’s Indian laurel trees His home was the first of his works to grab the art world’s attention though certainly not the last to confound viewers and critics Was Pardo scamming the museum to get a free place to live as one of its board members first wondered 4166 Sea View Lane was a sculpture that also happened to function as a residence—one that questioned traditional definitions about art he has long made functional “sculptures”—from a pier on a lake in Münster and a beach house in Puerto Rico to a sailboat Pardo’s art is useful: His lamps provide light but are also freestanding objects that change the viewer’s experience of the space around them the moment they are activated “What I do is shape space and play with the history that forms people’s sense of expectation,” Pardo says But historical tradition says paintings are not functional.” Utility he is interested in blurring boundaries between art and all of the media he employs so that we can never be quite certain where the artwork begins or ends or what Nowhere is that approach brought into sharper relief than at Tecoh and gardens that has consumed Pardo for the past six years It lies on 740 acres deep in the northern Yucatán jungle on the ruins of a 17th-century hacienda that made rope until synthetics wiped out the global market for agave fiber and plunged the surrounding villages into decline Pardo has combined Mayan culture and modern design local craftsmanship and computer-generated technology natural landscapes and fantastical interiors to produce a suite of kaleidoscopic experiences “It actually doesn’t have a beginning point,” he tells me as he leads me on a tour of the property one scorching afternoon in July pausing now and then to savor the sense of dislocation his layout provokes in me We amble up and down rocky paths buffered by lush vegetation You suspect that you’ve passed through a portal into an unnameable world Giant stepping stones laid out on a path of shallow water line the way to an outer building Pardo flicks a switch to reveal dozens of colored lamps suspended at varying heights from the orange ceiling and rows of hammocks above a floor tiled in brilliant blue At every turn there is something to provoke the eye and unmoor the visitor A terrarium on the bottom of a nearby swimming pool looks like a shimmering oval when you peer over it a swimmer can see plants growing beneath the glass “It’s like a procession you go through,” Pardo says “And there’s this sort of negotiation between the buildings and the place and the jungle.” with a tangle of wiry brown curls and a bushy gray beard that gives him the appearance of a satyr—or Father Christmas with a rapid-fire delivery that reflects his swiftness of mind the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) There isn’t much he’s satisfied with.” But when it comes to his clothes he’s totally laissez-faire: Today he’s dressed in flip-flops a lavender linen shirt soaked through with sweat and cotton pants in the bright shade of orange that runs through much of Tecoh Rigami-shaped light wells in the ceiling of the main house The commission to reimagine Tecoh came to Pardo from the Mexican banking billionaire Roberto Hernández and his wife who for some time had been buying and preserving haciendas in the Yucatán they met Pardo at the suggestion of Govan and his former Dia Art Foundation colleague Lynne Cooke until recently the director of the Reina Sofía National Art Museum in Madrid Both Govan and Cooke had collaborated closely with Pardo at Dia when he redesigned the ground floor of the institution’s building in New York’s Chelsea in 2000 with multicolored tiles as discussions with Hernández and Madrazo got under way Govan invited Pardo to install and redesign LACMA’s Latin American Galleries Despite their enthusiasm for Pardo’s ideas They were trying to create some jobs and invest in the landscape.” After touring several properties Pardo chose Tecoh because only a facade and a lean-to remained There was a vestige of the period and place but not enough to be restored “so he didn’t feel like he was wrecking an intact historic site,” Govan says The artist was given carte blanche—there was no agenda and no blueprint Hernández and Madrazo already had a home in the area and had converted many others into hotels (They also commissioned two works from James Turrell: an amphitheater and lighting installation in an ancient cenote the idea of living “inside a work of art and living a work as it was unfolding” was a fundamental part of the journey “I’m obsessed with exploring the relationship between life Pardo built all of the components of the site “It was this kind of perpetual riffing off things,” he says who first makes a model based on a specific set of needs (three bedrooms intuiting how things might unfold as he created a total artwork that draws on everything he knows how to do Inside the main room of the central building appointed with his colorful geometric benches the jungle appears to be reaching through the open doors and windows The philodendron-patterned mural on the walls is clearly inspired by the surroundings but you have to get up close to see what it is Most striking is the three-dimensional ceiling which brings to mind an origami sculpture because of the way that Pardo has carved it into pyramid-shaped light wells to let in light from different vantage points—and to reference the pyramids in nearby villages and your sense of scale alters dramatically: The ceiling you were just admiring is now the roof of a sculpture garden in which those same light wells look like strange pods plunked down from space you spy a smokestack shooting out of the jungle that Pardo has painted bright white with red flowers Now your eye is directed over the tops of the trees “His entire body of work lives on questions and reconsiders definitions,” Govan says so that you always have shifting viewpoints about what you’re seeing.” “I like when things collapse into one another,” Pardo tells me as he smokes one of the many American Spirit cigarettes he pulls from his shirt pocket you have to enter space and perception in a different way You’re just kind of floating and looking at the world.” he moved with his family to Chicago when he was 6 and grew up in a working-class Spanish-speaking household on the city’s North Side His father was employed at a staple factory; his mother was a bookkeeper; and his older brother became a mailman Their social life revolved around other Cuban families Pardo loved to tinker: He had his own handsaw and recalls remodeling his parent’s basement But when he went to the University of Illinois (the sole member of his family to attend college) after he took a painting course for fun and his teacher seeing what Pardo calls “my ambition to try things,” advised him to change direction and helped him find his way to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena “I had no idea being an artist was a profession,” Pardo a 2010 MacArthur “genius” fellowship recipient the anarchic conceptualist Mike Kelley was one of his advisers “I’m not interested in an aesthetic counterculture,” Pardo says “The only way things operate in a Mike Kelley is in a deep suspension of disbelief I’m interested in things that I can really lose myself in—and lose others in.” For his second show at the pioneering Los Angeles gallery Thomas Solomon’s Garage Pardo exhibited handyman tools he had tweaked—among them an altered wrench and a ladder with one leg made of a rare African wood Ask Pardo about his influences and he’ll talk about classic films and Los Angeles architecture “He always seemed to consider the problem of building for a specific site in very unorthodox ways so architectural form gets messed with pretty thoroughly,” he says of Schindler’s modernist houses which were groundbreaking in the way their flowing interiors opened up to their surroundings architecture is very influential for me because it’s the most intense and real cultural production the city has.” since shared meals and good wines are at the heart of any Pardo undertaking and I think everything interesting comes from figuring it out I’m not one of those artists who put ideas in a notebook and send them off to some crazy fabricator in Brooklyn.” Pardo sketches and manipulates forms using computer-aided design; for Tecoh he worked in tandem with his team and local craftsmen Many of his works are made by machine and finished by hand though he moves back and forth between digital and analog Pardo flew regularly between Los Angeles and Mérida (He has since bought a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron and plans to build his own.) He first stumbled on the sleepy Yucatán capital in 2000 In 2003 he started on a house-cum-artwork in Mérida’s historic center a commission from the now defunct London gallery Haunch of Venison Pardo recently relocated from Los Angeles to Mérida with his girlfriend a Mexican-born singer and artist best known for her performances with the art band Los Super Elegantes who lives with her mother in New York.) Lately with its last-frontier ambience and pastel colonial mansions and adventurers looking to salvage inexpensive haciendas as are Pardo’s close friends César and Mima Reyes contemporary art collectors and fellow foodies from Puerto Rico for whom he designed a house down the block from his (The couple also own a beach house Pardo made for them in 2005 in Naguabo Playa now that Pardo lives in Mérida (he is building a new complex to house a home and studios for both him and Muzquiz) his next marquee project will take him back to Los Angeles at least once a month He’s just beginning an art compound for the publisher Benedikt Taschen on 200 acres in Malibu but obviously it’s going to be a very different environment.” I can’t help but ask if he is conceiving the Taschen commission as a sculpture he’s hoping to fabricate a houseboat for his solo show next February at the Petzel Gallery in New York He was still thinking that one through and wondering if he could float it in some kind of pool “I always start with the pragmatic,” he says But soon I’ll start thinking about how to make it.” He recognizes that few are going to see what he has pulled off at Tecoh Not only are the owners “obsessed with their privacy,” but Tecoh “is in the middle of freaking nowhere,” Pardo notes with irony Hernández and Madrazo visit Tecoh and have used it for scholarly confabs it’s still like ‘What the hell is it?’ I don’t know what it is What’s most interesting to me was that they could sustain that kind of open-­endedness for so long We should probably bring it to a wrap,” he says on the drive back to Mérida “I think the reason I did it is probably more narcissistic than idealistic Interesting artists are like really generous narcissists They allow you to see through the things that they do—they lend you their eyeballs.” The jungle reflected in one of Tecoh’s lap pools The curving staircase that leads to the sculpture garden on the roof A former smokestack becomes a canvas for Pardo An external view of the Orange Room and Blue Room Mayan-inspired pavilions covered in hemp to integrate them into the landscape A woman from the Mayan community of Tecoh wades through the water in a flood caused by Tropical Storm Cristobal in the town of Tecoh We're likely to see an above-average hurricane season in the Atlantic this year according to the latest forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The agency predicts 13 to 20 named storms in the 2021 season in the Atlantic NOAA is forecasting six to 10 to become hurricanes Three to five of those storms are predicted to become major hurricanes ranked as Category 3 with top winds of at least 111 miles per hour The agency says there's a 60% chance of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season — but it's not expected to be as busy as last year's which set the all-time record with 30 named storms and they started taking the names of Greek letters "Based on our current data and analysis, we do not expect a 2021 hurricane season to be as active as 2020. However, we do update our seasonal outlook in August, as we do each year before we move into the peak of the hurricane season," said Matthew Rosencrans, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center The Atlantic hurricane season doesn't officially start until June 1. But there's a storm brewing already that could turn into a subtropical cyclone — and become "Ana," the first name on the 2021 list of cyclone monikers It's been common in recent years to have one named storm before the season's official start Rosencrans says there have been discussions about changing the June 1 date NOAA also said it's changing what constitutes a "normal" season based on the last two decades of hurricanes an average Atlantic hurricane season will have 14 named storms seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes The previous season averages were 12 named storms Since 1995, we've been living in what scientists have termed a "high-activity era" for Atlantic hurricane seasons, what NOAA explains is "a natural The new averages can't be directly attributed to climate change "Climate change does not have a direct impact on the number of named storms," according to the latest research "Most of the increase in storms is really a reflection of the better technology to detect the storms." That technology includes satellites that offer a better understanding of storm structure, lead more of them to be declared tropical storms. Specially equipped NOAA aircraft known as "hurricane hunters" also provide information on actual strength of storms But as NPR's Rebecca Hersher has reported some storms have turned into major hurricanes very quickly – and that rapid intensification is one hallmark of climate change So what does NOAA's forecast mean for the outlook in regions of the U.S The best information for specific areas is available about a week before a storm makes landfall Officials from NOAA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have urged those living in hurricane zones to prepare now, well before a storm comes. Guidance on how to prepare for hurricanes can be found at ready.gov/hurricanes "Regardless of the predicted seasonal activity it's important to remember it takes only one dangerous storm to devastate a community and lives," Rosencrans said Become an NPR sponsor Online Trade MagazineAlternative Energy from Solar If you do not have an AltEnergyMag partner account, please register - it's free Case Study from | Rolls Battery Tecoh is a small city south of Merida in Yucatán it is the municipal capital of the Tecoh municipality a region compiled of small rural communities and villages that are some of the most impoverished and disadvantaged in the country Residents in these remote communities are living in extreme poverty and do not have access to grid-connected power Many of the villages also lack basic resources such as education Families survive on as little as $1-4 USD a day relying primarily on agriculture for their income and spend an average of $10 USD per month on candles diesel and other hazardous and expensive fuel sources simply to provide lighting in their homes It is estimated that more than 500,000 families in Mexico are living in similar circumstances Illumexico was founded in 2009 by a group of engineers looking for clean energy alternatives Focusing solely on affordable off-grid installations inclusive and reliable clean energy solutions to improve the lives of 1 million Mexican residents by 2025 To address energy inequality in Yucatán Illumexico has initiated a “Green Autonomous Communities” pilot project clean and autonomous residential energy source in homes throughout the rural Tecoh region The off-grid systems include a 330W photovoltaic array (solar panel) inverter/charger and Rolls 24-volt S24-50LFP lithium batteries with 50 Amp-Hour nominal storage capacity generating 1.5kWh of usable power each day Eleven of these systems have been installed to-date providing access to reliable energy for 44 people A total of 150 systems will be installed by the end of the year and to maximize the impact on these communities a basic off-grid system with lithium battery storage has been designed to generate a modest but sufficient amount of power radio and other electronics such as laptops and tablets The off-grid system may be small but the impact for residents is substantial Generating and storing free solar energy each day removes a significant portion of their monthly expenses Families are able to save 2% of their monthly family earnings which would normally be spent to charge phones and 8-17% spent on inefficient and often hazardous fuels for lighting Reliable access to electricity also means families are able to increase the time spent together in their homes and afford an average of 2.5 hours additional hours a day for productive activities The long-term environmental impact is also substantial as the eleven systems installed so far will eliminate the transport and use of hazardous fuels and reduce CO2 emissions by 3.25 tonnes each year In addition to their work in Yucatán Illumexico is continuing their work by coordinating with partners and governments in other states where they will soon begin the design & deployment of 100 similar off-grid installations using Rolls LFP lithium batteries in communities in need You must be logged in before you can post a comment. Login now Revolutionizing Power Grids: The Essential Role of HVDC and FACTS in Modern Energy Transmission Gen Z and Millennials in the Renewable Energy Workforce Hyundai Motor and Plus Unveil Concept for Autonomous Hydrogen Freight Ecosystem MyGrid 10K Whole Home Generator Intersolar Europe Net Zero USA 2025 ACP CLEANPOWER hy-fcell Canada 2025 European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE) Subscribe | Search | Promote Products | Feature Your Company | Publish News | List Event Articles | News | Stories | Products | Companies | Events Yucatán Magazine has the inside scoop on living here. Sign up to get our top headlines delivered to your inbox every week Shops in Yucatan will be able to sell beer wine and liquor directly to customers starting Monday ending a series of dry laws that began April 10 Diario de Yucatan said alcohol sales will resume as normal: Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m More than a few applicants will likely be competing to be Cancun.com’s “Cancun Experience Officer.” Days of hot but tranquil weather will yield this afternoon to squalls and hail in parts of Yucatán Cold Front 51 will bring precipitation to the center Afternoon rain will continue through Tuesday and all day… Yucatan — After a public backlash for not choosing a native Yucateca as queen of the Xmatkuil Fair will not be the face of the “fair of fairs” after all Yucatecan beauty queen María Eugenia Nava del Río will preside… Yucatan — The first stages of an infrastructure project is well under way in the port city the city is being revitalized for the benefit of both locals and visitors Upgrades are both cosmetic and substantial Progreso’s notoriously unreliable drinking water supply system,… Tropical Storm Franklin made landfall at tiny Pulticub where it immediately weakened as it began its journey across the Yucatán Peninsula Advertise With Us 2022Photo: By Tamara UribeSave this storySaveSave this storySaveIt took almost 20 years for Jorge Pardo to ask Alexis Johnson out the artist did invite the partner at Paula Cooper Gallery out to dinner Her uncertainty was understandable: The two had long been friends first meeting in 1998 at the Los Angeles restaurant Lucques (His gallerist at the time dated the restaurant’s owner.) Alexis ended up becoming that gallerist’s assistant she worked with Jorge professionally as she rose up the art world ranks with no crossed wires: “This time we were both in agreement it was a date,” says Alexis Alexis never tried on a single wedding gown. It never even occurred to her: “I had a Pinterest board of dream dresses, none of which were wedding dresses. I knew I wanted volume and color,” she says. Her top pin? Zendaya modeling a sunshine-yellow Christopher John Rogers dress in a Bulgari ad the dress was a one-off for that advertisement—so if she wanted something similar Alexis took the fashion plunge: “I knew this was a major opportunity and so I proceeded I was getting married at 50 years old…if not now Afterwards, a reception was held amid Hacienda Tecoh’s jungle landscape. As a wedding gift, Roberto Solis—who co-owns the restaurant Huniik in Merida with Jorge—crafted a menu which included pork belly with grilled pineapple. As the music turned louder and guests hit the dance floor, Alexis changed into a Target x Christopher John Rogers floral dress. “It was the perfect contrast and complement to my wedding gown and great for dancing,” she says—which they did all night long, to the tracks of DJ Equal. “We danced in the jungle late into the night with a spirited abandon. We’ve all been cooped up for so long, you could sense everyone’s desire to connect, move their bodies and have fun!” Photo: By Tamara Uribe1/33Hacienda Tecoh is a magical project that Jorge realized for Roberto Hernández and Claudia Madrazo in the Yucatán jungle. He worked on it for six years. Claudia and Roberto have been preserving haciendas in the Yucatán with a mission of protecting the landscape.  Photo: By Tamara Uribe2/33The dress! I get excited just looking at it. I’ve always known I was never a white bridal gown type, but this—a custom gown by Christopher John Rogers—swoon! Photo: By Tamara Uribe3/33I lucked out with my makeup artist, Caro Mansabel. I did not spend much time on wedding preparation. There was no test run of makeup or hair. I sent Caro an image of me and one of Jessica Alba and hoped she could land somewhere in the middle. She was exceptional, she elevated my look without making me appear overdone. Photo: By Tamara Uribe4/33My birthday was about a month before the wedding. My dear friend Sade, who connected me with Christopher John Rogers, gifted me with the perfect pair of gold earrings that had a tropical feel with a touch of blue that perfectly complemented the dress and environment. Photo: By Tamara Uribe5/33Our daughter, Woodsey. She was the real star of the day. the wide-ranging work of Cuban American artist Jorge Pardo can be tricky to process the spaces he orchestrates routinely leave viewers wondering what they’re looking at An unapologetic fan of the eccentric and the decorative Pardo has a keen interest in follies—in other words ornamental structures with no evident purpose Long at play in his monumental outdoor sculptures the concept of folly has informed everything from the 130-foot redwood Pier he built on a manmade lake in Münster a series of 19 fanciful structures he erected on a 12-acre jungle plot in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula in 2012 The latest chapter in this ongoing investigation took shape in Folly itself Commissioned by the University of Houston System’s public art program (Public Art UHS) and situated on campus in a wooded area dubbed Wilhelmina’s Grove Folly lives up to its name as a curious point of interest while showcasing several Pardo signatures: angular architecture intricate light fixtures resembling jellyfish and abstract paintings that bring to mind non-figurative jigsaw puzzles “I like follies because they’re so ridiculously open-ended,” Pardo explained via Zoom from his home in Mérida Nothing needs to happen in them other than something visual so they free you up to do a lot of things that don’t have a clear purpose because that’s the notion that’s centralized in them—they’re visual objects.” Pardo studied biology at the University of Illinois but his gift for painting led him to pursue a BFA from California’s ArtCenter College of Design His first show after graduation—an exhibition of reimagined household tools held at Tom Solomon’s Garage in 1990—completely sold out he’s landed in the collections of the Whitney and earned a coveted MacArthur “Genius” Grant and design” is a nutshell writers and curators lean on to describe Pardo’s work But Pardo—who chiefly identifies as a sculptor—has no formal training in architecture or design but uses aspects of both disciplines to create work that challenges the confines of art the artist largely eschews narratives in favor of explorations into color relationships and the interplay of materials he speaks about inserting himself in a “problem”—one that’s eventually solved by what he creates his distinct use of color is a common thread He’s developed extensive palettes he considers “bulletproof” and strives to use them in ways that can be appreciated by both seasoned experts and the uninitiated “I think of color almost like a lure for fish,” Pardo said That use of color as lure is exemplified in his 2018 project L’Arlatan—a historic hotel he redesigned in Arles at the bequest of Swiss collector Maja Hoffmann Pardo tackled that problem from the ground up employing the 64,000-square-foot floor as a canvas for geometric tile that shifts in color and pattern as it snakes through the hotel he took L’Arlatan over the top by outfitting it with more than 400 paintings and what he admits is “an insane amount of lamps.” maximalist spirit that enlivened L’Arlatan is also on full display in Folly Housed in a 40-foot long structure fabricated in Italy it’s almost completely covered in paintings his abstractions are rendered with hundreds of images—from famous paintings he likes to photographs pulled from the archives of Miami’s Freedom Tower where Pardo and his family were processed as Cuban refugees in 1969 After digitally stacking and manipulating his source material Pardo creates vector graphics that function as maps for his paintings While the outlines get lasered onto wooden panels the colors are hand-painted by his team members Although Pardo displays the original collage on a TV for reference most of his painters snap a photo of the screen and work off their phones “It’s kind of interesting,” Pardo said of the process “Because it goes from something this big to something gigantic One of the reasons I call the palettes bulletproof is that as long as you get close to it I like to have people interpret the colors.” Some of those interpretations can be seen in Folly’s wall-to-wall paintings the carnival of colors becomes more organic upon closer inspection as brushstrokes and varying levels of opacity emerge five of Pardo’s signature chandeliers echo the colors on the walls—seafoam green Two of them have an ombré effect evocative of a fiery sunset narrow windows as reminders that Folly is essentially a public sculpture—despite having the appearance of a tiny house decorated by a mad scientist Another look at the multicolored walls and chandeliers of Folly when daylight stops flooding through the windows the jellyfish chandeliers come to life and the entire space begins to feel warmer and cozier the glow of the colored lights through the windows almost reads as stained glass But Pardo isn’t encouraging people to contemplate life or spirituality inside Folly the installation’s purpose is to inspire visitors to walk inside When Pardo’s Pier arrived at Münster’s Lake Aasee in 2007 it was meant to be a temporary installation (People strolled to its end and gazed across the water and the city of Münster ultimately fell in love making it a permanent landmark.) Although created as a Grove Commission—a temporary program under Public Art UHS—and scheduled to remain on view through 2023 University folk are eagerly bouncing around ideas for activating the space: yoga and cocktail parties are all possibilities an architecture professor promised to bring his entire class for a visit and another guest said he couldn’t wait to return with his young kids When asked what he plans to do with Folly if it comes down “I could put it at my house in Long Island or something like that