Fabiola Talavera‘s all-consuming guide to Mexico City’s art (and food) scene.
It is the first week of February and the ecosystem of art fairs, inaugurations, events and parties has expanded exponentially. What used to be for the elite is now mainstream. Crowds of tourists, not only buyers, flock in expecting some sort of cultural entertainment. Booths with crammed works under blinding white light are really not the best place to contemplate art. But is anyone looking attentively? The focus is on the encounters around it. For the last shedding of the Year of the Snake, I explore the cannibalistic qualities of the social gatherings on the agenda by journaling that which comes in and out of my mouth.
MONDAY
The main hall of El Castillo holds more than 200 artworks in a French Salon arrangement for its annual auction. Sales go live with actress Ariane Pellicer and curator Torrivilla as auctioneers. The portrait of gallerist Fernando Mesta painted by Marco Aviña honoring his representation captures his sweet smile, rosy cheeks, and like the real one, sports a golden Jordan Jumpman earing. They’re appropriately serving tamales on Día de la Candelaria, which you give out after finding a baby Jesus hidden in a Rosca de Reyes. For the second time, 10% of the auction profits direct towards “El Banquito Solidario” an alternative economy experiment. This system of loans at no interest for artists comes in time of need, when some have denounced not being paid on time and going into debt producing works. Some galleries take better care of their artists than others.
Rosela del Bosque and Adriana Flores, curators at Museo Jumex, invite me for a walk around galleries in San Miguel Chapultepec. We chat about experiences with institutions. Museums too, plan their programs around this week. It’s not only about the market, still, everyone markets themselves. At Croma’s terrace, Rodrigo Red Sandoval is showing a white-collar attached to a metal cup with holes in it. A tool for perpetual thirst. I ignore my no-booze rule and have a little mezcal.
TUESDAY
Right on schedule at Museo Anahuacalli for the brunch in honor of “The rebellion of objects”, the exhibition of Rafa Esparza & Beatriz Cortez. I bump into artist and writer Carla Lamoyi at the entrance’s queue. The sun blazing over the black volcanic rock is pure torture. Not that we’re afraid of pain or anything, we’re into it. The power dynamics here are blunt, both her and artist Rubén Ulises whisper the same question “You know most people here?”. Under her editorial project, Fiebre, she published a book with Cortez on the Kaqchikel community’s relation to archeology. They believe an encounter between a person and an ancient object is predestined, a union of energies that reveals the past.
Over breakfast, Beatriz shares how Carla’s dad had taken her to the pyramids and climbed them up before it was banned. We finish our drinks and ascend the steep steps of this temple envisioned by Diego Rivera to host his Prehispanic collection. In the studio hall these objects are set free, reunited in an assembly on top of Esparza’s adobe bricks. With the help of the museum’s conservator, they filmed a stop-motion video of the human and animal clay figures stepping out of the glass vitrines, some still open and empty, gathering for the congregation.
A pit stop at La Americana, Cata Berarducci’s bookstore-café-bar, before hoping around Roma Norte. An endless flight of stairs leads us to 4am gallery. Artist Luis Muñoz curated the work of La Esmeralda graduates Natalia Berzunza and Emanuel Juárez. After opening project Luis Galería in Guadalajara, Muñoz built a following for himself he channels into art consulting for galleries and looking for new talent as in a faux reality TV show uncovering the idol of the moment. Discussion ensues between friends. Is the younger generation too market-oriented? At their age everyone was making exhibitions as an excuse to have some beers, sales, “success”, came later. The fixation on youth and the fear to be forgotten persist.
Alejo, a collector, drives past me. After peeking at Catherine Mulligan’s eerie female characters at an offsite project by General Expenses, he picks me up with his girlfriend Josefina. We gorge on greasydelights at Xel-Há. He confides they married yesterday. They role-played it by going out to a restaurant in a tux and a white gown. Honeymoon never ends. He’s upset to not have attended my wedding, but we hadn’t met yet. Thought about joining the Christie’s dinner in Polanco, but the traffic on the way there seems hellish. The Uber gets a ticket on the way home doing a forbidden turn. With 1% phonebattery I step into the dark street and call another car.
WEDNESDAY
The flyer of “The joy of living”, a group show curated by Annuar Maauad and Roger Muñoz, portrays a mouse eating a cheese in the shape of the world. The timeframe of 9:00 – 13:00 announces its “all week brunch”. A guillotine at the entrance welcomes us. The European-type rooms exhibit dead and alive artists as eclectic as Teresa Margolles, Francisco de Goya, Paul McCarthy, Motero Tranquilo, Benjamin Orlow, Andrea Ferrero, Miguel Ventura and John Way Gacy. Furry corpses of rats dance in the coin-operated strip club of Magdalena Petroni and garments made of skins from stray-dogs by Berenice Olmedo sit in a mannequin. It’s a sinister funhouse with beautiful natural light. Roger never arrives for the guided tour so we assume brunch is a self-serve situation.
My husband and I browse a book of Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib series sitting at the kitchen-top. I lick the chocolate off my fingers when Maauad arrives with a group of foreign collectors and a deadpan stare. I scram as if caught red handed.
Roger texts us while eating at La Tonina, my go-to spot for tacos norteños. We bring him a gordita de nata and gossip in his studio about the state of the world and the shattering of symbols. Interesting times we live in, as Latin Americans. So far from God and so close to USA. None is willing to take the long drive to Zona Maco for the preview. I’d like to see some friends there, but in any case, they don’t want to be held hostage in conversations when they should be making deals. Instead, we get a soft serve ice cream at Glaciar, a cute bookshop a few blocks away that recently expanded.
THURSDAY
Cata had given me a selection of books by art critics and authors of the autofiction genre for me to read. A small group rounds up for our morning talk in Soho House on the subject. We discuss writing as world building, a blurriness of borders between reality and fiction. It’s possible that I just lack healthy boundaries between life-work-art. Attendants share about themselves with bloody marys on hand. One reviews films on TikTok and another publishes a magazine every full moon.
At the lunch table, Tino Sehgal asks me if I’m an artist. My instinct is denial, but my gut says otherwise. I’ve found that my gut has a voice of its own and it squeals loudly at me in response to some arguments. Acknowledging my artistry feels like acknowledging my marginality. Well, this position allows the writing to stay undercover. I sing for him while scouting locations later, “The many jobs of a curator”, Sam Ozer, founder of TONO, adds. I think more of it as an acting role.
FRIDAY
Oversized sunglasses and a throbbing headache make me look and feel like a fumigated bug on the dizzy hour-long journey to the opening brunch for the exhibition “Groups and Other Artistic Uprisings” at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC). The condition worsens when encountered with the line to the buffet, only to eventually arrive to some salad and cornbread. I take refuge on a cigarette with my best man, Pepx Romero, staying incognito behind a bush. As everyone leaves, l lurk around.
The Metrobus ride back to the city’s center is bumpy and unglamorous. House of Gaga, in Roma Sur, has turned this week into Café Gaga. I reach this oasis after a myriad of dusty streets being repaved. The plushy toys and lack of self-seriousness of Cosima von Bonin’s show “The Ritz” soothe me. Almost easy to miss, as the surreal nature of this city is, a recreated electric pole is placed inside the gallery. It is as if taken from around the corner with its tangled wires on top and a San Judas Tadeo sticker at the bottom. At the terrace a waiter brings tea sandwiches, pan dulce, and coffee. This is the closest thing to what I picture a safe space to be.
LA gallery Murmurs hosts a dinner at Marmota to celebrate Karla Ekaterine Canseco’s solo booth at Zona Maco. I’m curious about the sculptures she’s showing; they have a ritualistic quality to them, a melding of matter. Crude oil is the source for many of her reflections. But we’re not doing geopolitical talk, as relations with the Northern country here are warm. There’s a big table and plenty for everyone. Canseco shares over a cigarette the advice Rafa Esparza had once given her, “find your community”.
SATURDAY
Day spent in bed for a large part. Cruda, the Costa-Rican Mexico City-based shoe brand has a party for their first printed newsletter. I pick out one and get a poster of Lic. Sniffany (Roger Muñoz’s transvestite alter ego) in a pink leopard print dress and a beehive hairstyle. Interviewed, she reveals her biggest fantasy is to marry for love. Minni, his IRL husband who has a much-feared Instagram account beefing the local art world, is selling printed shirts of both. I follow the busy online pen-fight between artist and founder of Biquini Wax, Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, and two others, after a letter he wrote to his past self. A question of who’s being authentic, who’s getting paid by whom, who uses subversion as a tool. Overall, it’s a great performance.
SUNDAY
Back home in Chinatown. KurtKubin, an independent space in Centro with no socials, is open for the last days of Ryan Campos and Pascal Schneuwly’s exhibition. Painting variations of a guy pointing a gun at the spectator and a video of broken dreams of big leagues. Neighborhood pals are hosting Oso Club, a party for #friendsandfamilyandloversandexes at a nearby pulquería. On their first edition last year, I ended art week with a raspy voice after performing with my band. We arrive just in time to watch Bad Bunny’s super bowl performance. I chug down a strawberries & cream pulque, I enjoy the thickness of it. The crowd cheers as Benito names different countries of America. It may all be a simulacrum, but here and now, foreign affairs are friendly.
