What should surely go down as one of literature’s great descriptions of a major urban area is unexpectedly tucked away in a recent My Art Guide booklet. Brett W. Schultz, cofounder and director of one of Mexico City’s prime art fairs, Feria Material, writes of the beloved metropolis, “It’s thirsty, it’s shaking, it’s honking, it’s dusty, it’s calling your mother terrible things, it’s bursting at the seams, and it’s one of the most vibrant, thriving, and life-affirming cities I’ve ever known.”
Also known as CDMX (an abbreviation of its official name, Ciudad de México), the city has a metro area population of an awesome 23 million, placing it among the world’s largest urban areas, and it boasts a rich and growing cultural scene. I dropped in recently during the city’s art week, featuring the Zona Maco fair (really a few fairs in one, with contemporary art, Modern art, photography, and design), founded by Zélika García in 2003, along with Feria Material and Salón ACME, both focused on contemporary art, and, for the design-minded, Unique Design X, which takes place right upstairs from Material, in the Juárez neighborhood. [...]
[...] But Zona Maco had more modest offerings as well, pointed out New York dealer Cristin Tierney in a phone conversation before art week. Unlike other art fairs, which she finds overstocked with figurative painting (and a sprinkling of abstraction for variety), Tierney approvingly said that at Zona Maco, you’ll find plenty of “weird conceptual shit that you have to stand there and be with for a while.” The lower price point for dealers than at major fairs like Frieze or Art Basel allows her to bring works priced in the low four digits.
“People in Mexico City still want to get together and talk about art, not just respond to a PDF,” she added.
The looming prospect of tariffs had her worried in the run-up to the fair, because of lack of clarity on how they would work, she pointed out dryly, saying (Department of Government Efficiency aside), “It’s not like I can just go online and find out, because our government is not working very efficiently right now.” [...]
[...] The city is also inviting to artists. Austrian-American artist Alois Kronschlaeger and his designer wife Florencia have had a studio in the city since 2019 (provided by real estate developer Enrique Téllez Kuenzler), and largely split their time between Mexico and New York. “It’s an exciting situation for an artist here,” he said in a phone interview in the run-up to art fair week. “Before coming to Mexico my work was very monochromatic, but now I’ve fallen in love with color.”
