We are grateful to have crossed paths in life with the unique spirit that was the artist Jerónimo (Momo) Hagerman. Momo radiated love and affection to all the human and non-human beings that surrounded him. Taken on 24 September 2012, in this photo we see Momo gazing up at a special tree in the Polanco district of Mexico City that he took us to see as part of his day for
Incidents of Travel.
As he
wrote: “In 2003, Itala Schmelz commissioned me to create a piece for the façade of the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (
SAPS), to expand the project of recovering it as a public space. As part of the research, I walked through the neighbouring streets of Polanco, to understand how the local community, made up of upper-middle and upper-class residents, executives and domestic employees, related to vegetation in public spaces. One of the phenomena that caught my attention were the various cases in which people let creepers cover different elements outside or inside their houses, from fences or dead trees, to the gigantic ash trees which make Gothic cathedrals of vegetation, as in the case of a tree on Lamartine Street, next to the Colegio Ciudad de México. I don’t quite understand this phenomenon, but I’m interested in thinking of it as a reference that residents have of time and how it passes...” Safe travels, querido Momo.