* Above, Shamim Momin (standing left) laying an artwork at Jumex, April 21.
Has the global economic recession put a damper on the constant frenzy that is the Mexico City art scene? We'll find out this week, when the city's annual marquee art fair opens under a new name, Zona Maco, and is joined by a barrage of openings and arty party events to satisfy all the usual suspects of artists, gallerists, critics, and hangers-on from Mexico and almost 20 other countries. (That name change is due to some major internal (and still ongoing) legal tussling over the original outfit, FEMACO.)
Playing a key counterweight to Zona Maco will be the seventh interpretation of the Jumex Collection, which opens Wednesday night as well, a departure from the recent Saturday afternoon custom. The show is organized by Whitney adjunct curator Shamim Momin, who gave her filtering of Eugenio López's vast holdings the title of "La nada y el ser," or "Nothingness and Being," an inversion of the title of a 1943 Sartre text. Momin was on hand Tuesday morning to meet the Mexico City arts press at the Jumex plant, saying that her curation is about "collapsing the duality between those things."
Now let's list a few options for adjacent events and openings this week, but really, the fun is doing your own digging. Tonight the dazzling old-school dancehall Salón Los Ángeles hosts work by artists such as Miguel Calderón and Jesús León, a.k.a. Domestic Fine Arts. Thursday night there's a party at Marrakech on Calle República de Cuba, featuring Islandia. Friday El Estudio in Roma presents a group show featuring Gustavo Abascal. Saturday Kurimanzutto presents the first solo show in its hot new space for Mexican art titan Gabriel Orozco. Also on Thursday the Soumaya and Carlos Slim's Fundación Centro Histórico is hosting an intimate cocktail for the extraordinary Betsabeé Romero at Pase Usted's Piso 28, by invite only.
Am I missing something? Drop a comment, email, or start your own whisper campaign. * Post updated.
* And, where is where? Check out once more my recent piece in The New York Times 'T' Magazine on new art spaces in Mexico City. See you at the bar.
