This past weekend saw the arrival of artists from all over the world for Art Week Mexico. The week’s lineup included a number of art expos and gallery openings, including our favorite, Material Art Fair. This year’s fourth edition of Material, which took place at Expo Reforma, doubled in size, though it remained at around 50 exhibitors. Among the galleries present were Mexico City’s LABOR, Chicago’s Shane Campbell and Toronto’s Cooper Cole, with about a fifth of the galleries coming from Mexico City.
The News spoke to Nika Chilewich, curator, gallery director at Anonymous Gallery and editor of the new poetry and art journal Erizo. This was her first Material Art Fair and we found her selling copies of Erizo with her co-editor Aron Chilewich. “Our experience has been great. Today’s our first day and we’ve sold half the issues we printed. We’re selling them like hot cakes. I think it has to do with the design. It was done by Studio Katsu who also did the design for Material.”
When asked about how it differed from stalwart Zona Maco, she said Material offered a much more casual and cohesive community. “People are coexisting with the artwork. Maco is bigger and much more aseptic.”
The fair took up two floors of the Expo and left behind its labyrinthine layout of past years for a more conventional floor plan. Galleries were divided by small walls and gallery directors were available for questions about available artworks.
As part of the art fair’s inaugural “IMMATERIAL” program, which sought to explore the immateriality in art, performative works by a group of international artists working with choreography and performance took place throughout the weekend. Dora García’s Michelangelo Miccolis and Fernando Estrada performed a number of pieces, one of which guided viewers through a gallery in which the artist refuses to produce anything.
Material Art Fair coincided with a number of gallery openings around Mexico City. Visitors from all over the world flocked to the city just as the city protested Donald Trump’s presidency Sunday afternoon.
You can see more information about Material Art Fair here. For more information about Erizo, look here.
