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SFAQ // VIRGINIA COLWELL
It’s easy for us to forget in all our ever-present over-interconnectedness that even as recent as 10 years ago, much less 30 years ago, letters were the primary means of communication, especially between radical leftist movements. And that the life of those underground radicals was lonely and anxious and ambiguous, especially as they wrestled with what is a justified use of lethal or symbolic violence, and that the solidarity they sought in their struggle would only be available from other radical groups, perhaps continents away.
SFAQ // Material Art Flair
The art market in Mexico has long been a one-gun town on the art-fair front. That is, until three years ago when the Material Art Fair opened its doors and shook things up.
Each year since its inception, Material has seen pretty radical format and venue changes, but at their core they maintain a dedication to emerging practices with the ambition of attracting fresh new talent and vision to Mexico City. On that front, they are an undisputed success, attracting the young, fabulous, and broke, whose collective hustle builds a palpable and dynamic energy. Art Fag City even went so far as to call it the most important art event of the year for artists.
“For artists” is the key.
Art Review // Sangree
Sangree at SAPS in Mexico City
Momus // The Function of Gossip as Criticism in Mexico’s Artworld
Gossip is undoubtedly universal but in Mexico gossip – chisme – seems to exert an influence that distinguishes it from other international art centers.
Momus // Contemporary Art Writing in Mexico
“Hablar de corrupcion es tocar a Mexico en el corazón,” my mentor said. “Be careful.”
Tocar. Transitive verb meaning: to touch, to feel, to play, to have to do something, to ring, to sound, to touch on, to strike, to be one’s turn, and in some sense it has no direct translation.
I recently began writing reviews of exhibitions in Mexico City for an English-speaking audience. Quickly I started feeling like a remedial parakeet raised on a 24-hour news cycle. Almost every article I write seems to invoke questions of corruption, impunity, violence, or insecurity. Whether talking about a performance artist visiting from Spain, an established Mexican video-art pioneer, emerging artists, or even Michelangelo and Da Vinci retrospectives, there always seems to be a salient reason to somewhere reference rampant political corruption as context.
SFAQ // Fordlandia Fever Dream
Descriptions of Fordlandia—Henry Ford’s ill-fated urban development and rubber plantation of the same name, built in 1928 in Brazil’s Amazonian rainforest—sound alternately surreal, hilarious, and completely miserable.
SFAQ // ON BEAUTY IN MEXICO
It may sound like a dusty snooze through Intro to Art History for anyone living in London, New York, or Paris, but Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo have come to Mexico City, and it’s a very big deal.
The blockbuster conjoined-twin exhibitions have smashed museum attendance records in Mexico and the historical significance of bringing these two artists’ work to Latin America for the first time makes this a trophy event for Palacio de Bellas Artes, the nation’s most important cultural center.
SFAQ // SWIMMING IN SELF REFLECTION
The movie poster for the 1968 Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer features a portrait of the star’s face dissolving into a swimming pool wake, and asks in that Vaseline-around-the-edges-soft-focus-dated-movie-poster-way, “When you talk about ‘The Swimmer’ will you talk about yourself?”
SFAQ // OJO EN ROTACIÓN
Spinning (2006) is a logical beginning for a survey exhibition of an artist whose practice was galvanized by the 1985 earthquake that devastated Mexico City. Leveling buildings and killing thousands, the quake forced citizens to hodge-podge makeshift systems for survival when the government failed to rescue the shaken metropolis. Spinning first takes stock of what still stands in the city’s view, and then whirls it into oblivion.