While you’re in Mexico City for Zona Maco Contemporary Art Fair, make sure you set aside time to visit these museum and gallery shows.
Yann Gerstberger: Ice News & Freeway Fetishes
Galeria OMR
Now—March 30
With a multi-faceted practice spanning across a variety of areas including Surrealism, Nigerian folk art, digital image, and graffiti, Yann Gerstberger’s first solo exhibition at OMR, “Ice News & Freeway Fetishes,” features a site-specific chalk mural applied to the gallery’s wall. Acting as a backdrop for the other works on view, the lively mural sets the scene for several tapestries made of household materials, and sculptural figures that fill the gallery’s Brutalist architecture. Also included in the exhibition is the artist’s first monograph, Baby Comet Face, published by Zulu Press (© 2019).
Abraham Cruzvillegas: Esculturas Pendientes (Pending Sculptures)
Kurimanzutto
February 9—March 16
With identity construction lying at the center of this body of work, Abraham Cruzevillegas’ exhibition “Pending Sculptures” is a set of sculptural works exploring the various materials, themes, and techniques that embody his artistic inquiries. Using himself and his own family as reference points, the show combines life with art, expressing Cruzevillegas’ preoccupation with origin, resilience, sociability, and the creativity of individuals within the context of their built communities. In addition to using a range of plants native to the artist’s home district of Coyoacán, the artist offers commentary on his own roots by creating his works from materials found in his everyday environment like the remnants from a house remodeling projects and objects from construction sites like beams, buckets, and rods.
Lucien Shapiro: The First and the Last Freedom
MAIA Contemporary
Now—until
Through a constantly-evolving creative process, artist Lucien Shapiro employs the use of everyday items he finds on the street—like bottle caps, studs, and crystals—to create objects of protection, which are then meant interact creatively with his visitors through an element of performance. In his latest exhibition “The First and the Last Freedom,” visitors at MAIA Contemporary will experience a unique sort of retrospective. Shapiro’s works on view include a series of pieces that have been emblematic in his artistic production. After a period of uncertainty regarding the direction of this body of work, the figure of the snake came to the artist, as a symbol of energy, spiritual guidance, life force, physical emotion, and spiritual transition.
Scripted Reality: The Life and Art of Television
Museo Jumex
Now—March 24
Television is a major component of today’s society, playing a definitive role in the circulation of news, visual culture, and the forging of identities. In “Scripted Reality: The Life and Art of Television,” the Museo Jumex takes its visitors on an international journey of the history of television and its impact on daily life, through the exploration of television as an object, a subject, and a medium. Featuring the works of artists like Phil Collins, Candice Breitz, Laure Prouvost, and Abigail Reyes, the exhibition showcases a number of installations, photographs, sculptures, and videos (including made-for-TV works complete with commercial breaks) demonstrating television’s role throughout the world.
Gonzalo Lebrija: Milky Way
Museo Tamayo
Now—February 24
Gonzalo Lebrija’s exhibition “Milky Way” is a selection of photographs from his project “Via Láctea (Milky Way, 2016—17)” depicting a large group of smokers sitting in an alley in Havana with a beam of light piercing through the hazy clouds rising above their heads. In capturing the smoky scene, Lebrija also created an exploration of the sociopolitical relations born from smoking—including the image of a smoker as a suggestion of power, and the juxtaposition of characters and the legendary tobacco house.
Art Without Guardianship: The Salón Independiente in Mexico, 1968—1971
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo
Now—April 7
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1968 student movement, the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo is presenting “Art Without Guardianship: The Salón Independiente in Mexico, 1968—1971.” Curated by Pilar Garcia, the exhibitions shows the artistic transformation in Mexico through the reconstruction of three past exhibitions by the Salón Independiente. Artistic boundaries are erased, in order to experiment fashion and film, as well as bring art into nontraditional spaces. Included in the show are works like Manuel Felguérez’s 1969 Sin título (Boceto para desfile de modas), a replica of Helen Escobedo’s Corredor blanco, and a number of archival images from the time.
Helen Escobedo
Proyectos Monclova
Now—March 9
This is Helen Escobedo’s second show in Mexico City since her death in 2010. On view are nearly eighty interconnected bodies of work including drawing, maquette, painting, sculpture, and collage produced from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. One of the main concerns of Escobedo’s work was site specificity, which stemmed from the intention to integrate art into daily life. Escobedo first began making functional sculptures, which were followed by her “total environment and dynamic walls” series, which led to large-scale sculptural geometric works that integrated time, activity, and environment. The exhibition at Proyectos Monclova includes pieces like Homenaje a octubre, Infonavit, and Coatl, a lacquered aluminum on wood piece reminiscent of a geometric slinky.
