The headquarters of the State Executive houses part of the artistic legacy of Fernando Castro Pacheco, it is the “History of Yucatán” collection, started in the early 1970s and which is made up of 27 oil on sheet murals, which currently specialists from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí and the University of the Arts of Yucatán restore it.
In the rehabilitation, which began in July, through the Secretariat of Culture and the Arts (Sedeculta), a team of five people participates, two graduates of the Bachelor’s Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Movable Cultural Assets from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP) including the person in charge Edgardo Esparza López, and three assistants with experience in that area from UNAY.
“We are practically at the end of the project, we have finished the Hall of History, we only need the part of the stairs. There are 27 murals, their technique is oil, and the effect that these paintings have is called chromatic fades,” said Esparza López, a specialist in the subject who coordinated these actions with Alexis Reynaldo Cruz Mendoza, operational manager of the Great Museum of the Mayan World.
In addition, he explained that the works made between 1971 and 1978 are distributed on the two floors of the building, the Hall of History, the upper and lower corridors, and the stairwell. Their importance lies in the fact that they evoke the evolution of the Yucatecan people since the cosmogony of the Mayan people. They are free interpretations of their creator, prepared with great skill.
“On the back, we vacuumed mechanically, and on the front, we cleaned it using soft hair brushes and later we did an aqueous cleaning where all the compressions on the front part were eliminated.”
“We removed rust in some parts that were very specific and the support was inhibited. We carried out a volumetric reintegration to level out some gaps that existed and then reintegrate them with varnish-based paint,” he specified.
Regarding the state of the pieces, he explained that some had leaks, and the paint was already detached from the support, so this attention was already required. Furthermore, due to the type of climate in our entity, it requires periodic reviews to maintain its optimal conditions. “Due to the concern of the current government, through Sedeculta, and the interest in preserving the murals, they ask me to make a diagnosis of how they are. Thanks to this we collaborate to carry out the project. From that ruling we were able to evaluate the murals a little more in-depth about the damage they had,” he explained.
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