Book Description
"Ciudad Moderna is the title of an exhibition by Terence Gower presented at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda (México City, 2005). It is also the title of the exhibition's central video work. This 6:20 minute video is a montage based on the 1966 Mexican movie, Despedida de casada (Hen Night for a Bride), directed by Juan de Orduña. The film itself--a manic but mediocre comedy of errors--is typical of the period, down to its choice of jazzy locations amid the emblematic works of modernist Mexican architecture: the Museum of Anthropology, a home in the Pedregal development, a functionalist building on Avenida Reforma, the Hotel Presidente in Acapulco. Gower brings background architecture and design to the fore, isolating them from the narrative flow. Through editing and digital manipulation, images are pared down to essentials, the architecture is stripped of ornament, and the superfluous, random, everyday signs of human habitation are removed." --page 71.