20 years ago, Guanajuato opened the doors of a space dedicated to transforming the way art and culture are experienced. Today, the Forum Cultural Guanajuato celebrates two decades as one of the entity's major cultural landmarks, with a special program that will bring together music, Guanajuato talent, and major figures from the national scene.
The Secretariat of Culture of the People's Government, headed by Lizeth Galván Cortés, is promoting this celebration as a recognition of two decades of history, but also as an opportunity to reaffirm the commitment to bringing art and culture closer to the people and to making cultural spaces vibrant, open, and accessible to everyone.
Today, the Forum Cultural Guanajuato is a complex that brings together various spaces dedicated to creation, training, reading, research, visual arts and performing arts. It houses the State Central Library of Guanajuato “Wigberto Jiménez Moreno”, the Guanajuato Museum of Art and History, the Roberto Plasencia Saldaña Bicentennial Theater, the Mateo Herrera Auditorium, the Academic Arts Unit of the University of Guanajuato, and the Calzada de las Artes, as well as its gardens and common areas.
More than just a collection of buildings, the Forum has become a space for meeting for diverse audiences, where reading, knowledge, exhibitions, music, theater, dance, and other artistic expressions are part of the daily life of Guanajuato.
Two decades of building culture
The project that would give rise to the Forum Cultural Guanajuato arose from the vision of creating a large cultural center that would complement the development of the then Poliforum and strengthen León and the state as cultural and tourist hubs. The architectural project envisioned a complex of nine hectares articulated by plazas and public spaces, with infrastructure dedicated to culture and the arts.
The State Central Library “Wigberto Jiménez Moreno” was one of the first spaces to join the complex and opened its doors on September 7, 2006, a date that also marked the inauguration of the Forum before the artistic, intellectual, business, government and civil society communities.
Designed by architect Didi Pei, the Library has become a space for reading, research, learning, creation, and gathering over these two decades. It currently holds more than 215,000 volumes and has seven specialized rooms, including the Infantil, Braille, Comicteca, Special Collections, and Digital Citizenship rooms.
Its history is also marked by innovation and inclusion: it was one of the first libraries to have a collection in Braille and a children's library, while in 2015 it inaugurated the country's first public Comicteca.
This project was joined by the Guanajuato Museum of Art and History, inaugurated on November 27, 2008, which expanded the complex’s focus to visual arts, heritage, and regional history. Its infrastructure includes permanent and temporary exhibition rooms, as well as spaces dedicated to Mexican sculpture, educational activities, and cultural events.
As part of this cultural infrastructure, there is also the Mateo Herrera Auditorium, a space dedicated to the dissemination of performing arts and the organization of cultural activities of all sizes, expanding the possibilities of the complex to receive diverse artistic proposals and bring them closer to different audiences.
The Roberto Plasencia Saldaña Bicentenary Theatre consolidated the Forum’s stage vocation with a high-end venue designed to host symphonic music, opera, ballet, theater, musicals, concerts, and other artistic performances.
Through the Calzada de las Artes, its gardens and common areas, the Forum has also extended the cultural experience to the public space, creating settings for outdoor performances and activities that allow people to take ownership of the complex and experience culture up close.
To commemorate these two decades, the Secretariat of Culture of the Government of the People He prepared a musical celebration that will take place on the Calzada de las Artes and that will bring together proposals from different generations and languages.
The celebration will begin on September 4 with Paté de Fuá, a group recognized for its particular fusion of genres, who will perform alongside the Orquesta Sinfónica de Vientos Musicales para la Gente, in a meeting that will bring together the trajectory of a consolidated group with the talent of young Guanajuato musicians.
On September 5 one of the central moments of the celebration will arrive with “Chavela and her women: a tribute to Chavela Vargas in the framework of the centenary of José Alfredo Jiménez”A concert that will bring together Ely Guerra, Eugenia León, Ximena Sariñana, Regina Orozco and Ofelia Medina, accompanied by Mariachi Gama 1000 and Los Macorinos.”.
The proposal will be an encounter of voices and generations around one of the fundamental figures of Mexican music, in a celebration that is also linked to the centenary of another of the great composers of our country: José Alfredo Jiménez.
On September 6, the celebration will come to a close with Juan de los Reyes and his Bandototota, a state musical ensemble led by Omar Córdova, composed of professional musicians and advanced students from different parts of Guanajuato.
With a proposal marked by versatility, energy and improvisation, the group combines different experiences and musical languages, making this performance a festive finale for three days dedicated to celebrating the music and history of the Forum.
The three presentations will be free and open to the public, as part of a celebration that seeks to make the 20th anniversary of the Guanajuato Cultural Forum a shared experience with the people.
A celebration that continues
The celebration of the twentieth anniversary will continue throughout September with a program that reflects the diversity of disciplines and audiences that have given identity to the Forum Cultural Guanajuato.
Among the activities are “HEROINES,” an opera told and sung for two sopranos, piano and narrator”, Vantablack, Jorge Moreno Jazz Ensemble with SyntheticsFunk with Sax and Mushamukas Ensemble of Double Basses.
This diversity of proposals reflects the Forum’s vocation as a cultural complex that, over the course of 20 years, has opened its spaces to different artistic expressions, generations, and communities.
The commemorative programming also represents an opportunity to recognize the history of a complex that for two decades has been the scene of encounters, learning experiences, exhibitions, concerts, works of art, readings, and experiences that are part of the cultural life of Guanajuato.
With the impetus of the Secretariat of Culture of the Government of the People, Led by Lizeth Galván Cortés, the Guanajuato Cultural Forum reaches its first 20 years looking to the future, with the commitment to continue strengthening access to culture, expanding its audiences and maintaining these spaces as places of encounter, creation and participation for the people of Guanajuato.