A Grand Altar de Muertos in the Spanish Capital: “Cabaret El Recuerdo” Celebrates Life from the Stage

The Casa de México in Spain presents one of its most striking installations of 2025: “Cabaret El Recuerdo”, an altar de muertos designed by architect and visual artist Guillermo González, who transforms memory into theatrical experience. Inspired by the Mexican cabarets of the Golden Age, the altar reimagines tradition through light, rhythm, and an aesthetic that celebrates life through art.

The installation comprises twelve life-size catrina vedettes, crafted in cartonería and arranged as though starring in a cabaret scene. They are flanked by a tzompantli featuring more than sixty acrylic skulls, sixty-two hand-blown glass spheres that multiply the light, and over a hundred fresh flowers in shades of purple, yellow, and orange cascading across the main façade. The result is a fusion of the artisanal and the theatrical — of the traditional altar and an emphatically contemporary vision.

Guillermo González @negroniggf

For Guillermo González, the work represents “a celebration of those who have gone, and of those who remain.” His vision draws from theater, architecture, and Mexican popular tradition, achieving a rare equilibrium between solemnity and spectacle. Each figure, each neon reflection, each glint of glass becomes a symbol of life’s permanence in collective memory.

“Cabaret El Recuerdo” is on view through November 9 at the Casa de México in Madrid, as part of a broader cultural program championed by the city. It is a staging that proves what Mexico has always known — that here, even death knows how to dance.

Cabaret El recuerdo

Cabaret El recuerdo