The transformative power of art, the idea that guides the Helga de Alvear Museum in Cáceres

▲ The venue houses some 3,000 pieces of contemporary art, including series by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco. Photo by Joaquín Cortés

Jorge Caballero

Sent

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, July 25, 2025, p. 5

Cáceres. Nestled between the historic and modern parts of Cáceres is the Helga de Alvear Museum of Contemporary Art, which offers visitors a space for reflection, learning, and community development through a dialogue with contemporary art.

The museum opened in 2021 to house the collection of German collector Helga de Alvear, considered one of the most important in Europe with more than 3,000 pieces. According to Clara Paolini, head of the communications department, it is a cultural space that fulfills its promoter's dream: to transform people's lives through art .

Visitors are greeted by a large-format work, Descending Light, by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. It consists of a rickety 12-meter chandelier at floor level. Paolini reports: Helga de Alvear acquired this piece and wanted it to be in the lobby. It's a gem of contemporary art that has been in the gardens of the Prado Museum and other venues in Madrid and Barcelona; now it's back in its natural habitat .

Of all the works housed in the Helga de Alvear Museum, only 11 percent are on display, but it serves as a driving force for educational and social development, as well as economic development. Helga's dream was that everyone would fall in love with art like she did. Since its opening, we've seen this begin to happen; we've done many activities with children, and now those hidden artists who were in the city are changing the mentality of all of Cáceres de Extremadura , shares Clara Paolini.

With more than 3,000 square meters of exhibition space and almost 8,000 square meters of floor space, the Helga de Alvear Museum has an extension adapted to the needs of the gallery owner's vast collection. She donated the works she acquired throughout her life to Extremadura, reflecting her commitment to contemporary art. The international projection of the Helga de Alvear Museum is also boosted by the election of its first director, Sandra Guimarães (Porto), who joined the museum in September 2023. The Portuguese curator and manager has a 20-year track record.

Helga de Alvear, the main driving force behind the museum that bears her name, was born in 1936 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The gallery owner's origins date back to 1967, when she met Juana Mordó. At that time, she came into contact with the artists of the Cuenca and El Paso group and became increasingly interested in the Spanish art scene. Her first acquisition was a painting by Fernando Zóbel, paid for in installments; from then on, she continued acquiring works, to the point that she was thought to be an art speculator who bought pieces to create a market. "Now we know that her entire collection, acquired over the years, is here ," Paolini commented.

Regarding the relationship with contemporary art in Mexico, the interviewee points out that there is work by Gabriel Orozco , such as Palmplate I and II, in addition to the photographic series Cementerio I, II, III and IV.

Currently, the museum houses 2,068 teeth, The Maelström, Archive, and Black Flag by Santiago Sierra, which together comprise “a major exhibition that underscores the relevance and presence of his work. It brings together historical works, others produced especially for the occasion, and the archive donated by the artist to the museum. The exhibition pays tribute to his gallery owner and patron, Helga de Alvear… Well, Sierra isn't Mexican, but it might as well be, because his wife and children are.”

In 2,068 Teeth, Sierra displays photographs of the teeth of migrants stranded on the U.S.-Mexico border as tools of power, as genetic imprints, and as a sign of unchanging identity. Our teeth are the protagonists, because we all show them when we feel attacked .

In these few years of work, at the Helga de Alvear Museum of Contemporary Art, "we are convinced that this venue is changing the mentality of the people of Cáceres.

The transformative power of contemporary art is transforming this society and will surely do so for anyone who visits it , Paolini believes.

From the Editorial Staff

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, July 25, 2025, p. 5

After three centuries of being abandoned and devoured by the jungle, the lost land of the white jaguar , Sak-Bahlán, is once again on the map. Using a predictive model based on the use of geographic information systems (GIS), Josuhé Lozada Toledo, a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), developed a map for its location. This allowed the Sak-Bahlán Archaeological Project, co-directed by Drs. Brent Woodfill and Yuko Shiratori, from the University of Winthrop in the United States, and Rissho University in Japan, to make progress in locating what is considered the last city of the rebel Lacandons of Chiapas.

This book is about an ethnocide , thus begins The Peace of God and of the King (1988), a text by the historian and researcher Jan de Vos (1936-2011) about the colonial system that annihilated the Lacandones-Ch'olti'es, the last rebel Mayans of Chiapas, whose definitive stronghold, Sak-Bahlán, was spotted in 1695 by Friar Pedro de la Concepción, and which would soon be subdued and renamed Our Lady of Sorrows.

The search for the site in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve would have been fruitless without researcher Lozada Toledo's predictive model.

The researcher explains that in this place, the Lacandon-Ch'olti' maintained their independence for 110 years, after their capital, Lacam-Tún (Great Rock), was taken by the Spanish in 1586. Then, in 1721, it was abandoned and devoured by the jungle.

Using GIS, the specialist reconstructed the pre-Hispanic and historical communication routes of the Mayan groups. "I took data from the chronicle of Friar De Rivas, from 1698; for example, it tells of how that year, he and a troop of soldiers left Sak-Bahlán and walked four days to the Lacantún River. They sailed for two days and arrived at El Encuentro de Cristo, where the tributary joins the Pasión River, and left their canoes to then walk to Lake Petén Itzá, in Guatemala.

From those sites, which I had georeferenced, I made a conversion of the four days mentioned, from some point on the Lacantún River to Sak-Bahlán , he explains.

He explains that he considered variables such as the territory; that is, the altimetry and vegetation layers; the layer of water bodies and the weight of the cargo per person, which when combined helped develop the proposal on the map and obtain an approximate range of where Sak-Bahlán could be located .

This experience, in which Mexican archaeologists Rubén Núñez Ocampo and Socorro del Pilar Jiménez Álvarez also participated, is the most arduous fieldwork I have ever had in my life, but, finally, we found the archaeological evidence, right at the point I had marked , he noted in a statement issued by the INAH.

The site's location, near the Jataté and Ixcán rivers, is the beginning of a story that will intertwine viceregal chronicles and material evidence. To date, the archaeological project has conducted two field seasons to map the site and construct test pits to define its temporal occupation. The site was registered as a Sun and Paradise site by the research initiative, which has the endorsement of the INAH Archaeology Council. Probably Sak-Bahlán , in the Public Registry of Archaeological and Historical Monuments and Zones.