Mexico City establishes itself as a capital of contemporary art

Mexico (AFP) – Cultural bridge, Mexico City establishes itself as a capital of contemporary art with the celebration this weekend of the twentieth edition of Zonamaco, the largest fair of its kind in Latin America, which attracts more and more to foreigners.

Since Wednesday, hundreds of gallery owners, artists, curators, sponsors and collectors, as well as thousands of modern art fans, began to walk the halls of Zonamaco, within the framework of "Art Week" in Mexico.

"We are receiving 212 international exhibitors, with a lot of presence of art from Latin America," explained the new artistic director of the fair, the Cuban Direlia Lazo, former director of the Faena Art event, in the American city of Miami.

Mexico "is a reference site," Lazo estimated. "Zonamaco has been strengthened accompanied by the context of the city," she commented inside an "immersive work" made by Osvaldo González.

Also well represented, galleries from the United States are regulars at the event.

"The Zonamaco audience is very cultured. It is one of my favorite art fairs because this is where you see the most diversity," said Mauricio Sampogna, representative of a Houston gallery with an impressive collection by the Colombian master Fernando Botero, who died last year. September 15.

"People come from Europe, Asia, the United States (...), all willing to learn. And to buy too," he admits, smiling.

A Parisian gallery owner stated that Zonamaco was his most successful fair in terms of sales last year.

The reputation of the Mexican fair extends to countries on the edge of Europe. "It is a new art market. The Mexican market is emerging and it is interesting for us to explore it," said Tamuma Arshba, of the ERTI gallery, in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

In addition to Zonamaco, the Mexican capital hosts two other alternative fairs this weekend aimed at younger artists: Material and Bada, in addition to Acme.

And in the bookstores of Mexico City, readers continue to buy a devastating essay on the "Fraud of contemporary art" by the critic Avelina Lésper, in war against "VIP" art (Video, Installation, Performance).

But apparently, for the public, the art fairs in the Mexican capital offer much more than that.