Art Agenda // Gallery Weekend CDMX 2018
On the eve of Gallery Weekend 2017, at 11 a.m., sirens blared and a city of 22 million dutifully marched outside, allowing emergency team leaders to check and count them.
Mexico holds an earthquake drill yearly on September 19, both a preparedness measure and a memorial to the 1985 earthquake that killed 5000 residents of the city. Two hours later, a rumble sounded like a passing jalopy semitruck. As it grew louder, the ground began to tremor, visibly churning the asphalt in the street. Those who could, ran outside into the roil. Electricity lines and lampposts lazily swayed, incongruent with the collective seethe of adrenaline. For a society accustomed to immediate information, the reality of the force of the earthquake was eerily delayed. The improbably perverse coincidence of a second devastating earthquake on the anniversary of the 1985 one remains diabolically astounding.
Image credit: Pablo Vargas Lugo, Cenote (Mandala), 2018. Cast iron, excavation on site, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Labor, Mexico City. Photo by Daniela Uribe.
