Mexico City: unmasked contexts


The art that has come out of Mexico City since the ’90s is a clear result of the networked artworld of biennials, fairs, and increasing global flux. Many Mexican artists of the current generation themselves have international credentials; they either live between Mexico and the United States or Europe, or travel and show abroad frequently. At the same time, several influential foreign artists and curators have moved to Mexico City and made it their base. In the context of the growing internationalism of today’s Mexico City, its artists are articulating their dialogues within a larger discourse, while maintaining a connection with the place in which they have developed their ideas and which continues to inform their work.

The artists whose work has come to prominence during this last decade (most of whom were born between the mid-60s and mid-70s) have operated, both independently and collectively, beyond the structure of a deteriorated institutional system. Artist-run spaces have proliferated in Mexico City; the objective of the majority of them is to showcase work by young artists without the constraints of official sponsorship. Many galleries have given Mexico City’s contemporary art scene a new fluidity and energy, reinforced by the fact that some spaces have locations both in Mexico City and New York. Within this complex and multifaceted environment, the current Mexican art scene reflects and responds to the many directions of today’s international scene…


The full text is published in "tema celeste" No. 85, May-June 2001.




Pablo Helguera