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Fuente Guardianes del Futuro, Chapultepec

The Fuente Guardianes del Futuro is among the lesser-known of the many fountains in the Bosque de Chapultepec. The work is has a twin standing on the famous Costera, the main street, in Acapulco. That one is at the intersection with Cristobal Colon and was placed there at about the same time as in Chapultepec (1997).

The work’s provenance is difficult to determine. Many online sources date it to as early as the original design of Chapultpec Section 2 by architect Leónides Guadarrama in 1964. Guadarrama more likely designed and built a fountain of some sort here when the artist was but 14 years old. The sculpture, which dates from 1997, was donated to the park sometime thereafter. Artist Jesús Ricardo García Ortiz designed both Guardianes sculptures in the mid-1990s. He had also worked earlier on the Orquesta del animalitos, a 1985 work placed within the Parque Cri Cri. That project of 15 animal musicians cast in bronze had been led by sculptor Luis Strempler.

The fountain was rehabilitated in 2011 with new water pumps and extensive work in the surrounding gardens. In the center of a pyramid of children’s bodies, a blue sphere represents a planet. Presumably the mesh of tiny space-child bodies will protect this planet.

The fountain is well received by those who think about it at all in the way of Mafalda or Peppa Pig. The “all the little children of world” ethos can’t be entirely dismissed as in so much of the public sculpture that followed. Still, this same ethos likely explains the perception that the work is 30-some years older than it really is. As Guardians of the Future go, these ones seem to have been at it for much of the past.

The fountain and sculpture are both plainly visible from passing, and busy, Fernando Alencastre street. But visitors are more likely to encounter the two when passing the monument to George Washington, just up the hill.

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