Zona Maco fair spotlights Mexican art’s moment in the sun
Mexico City, Feb 8 (EFE).- One of Latin America’s most important art fairs, Zona Maco, kicked off in Mexico City on Wednesday with more than 200 gallery owners, artists and representatives of national and international museums exemplifying Mexico’s current artistic and cultural moment in the sun.
“It is one of the most important fairs in the global circuit and the most important in Latin America, which is at a very interesting moment artistically and culturally. Mexico has a very important role,” said Zona Maco artistic director Juan Canela in an interview with EFE.
The fair, which takes place at the Citibanamex Center in the capital until Sunday, presents more than 210 exhibitors from 26 countries.
“Zona Maco has a Latin American personality – it shows, and it has to be like that. It must have its character and its identity. In a globalized world, important fairs within a non-hegemonic region must have a strong personality,” said Canela.
One of the national artists at the fair is painter Claudia Doring-Báez, who focuses her work on portraying Mexico City, her birthplace.
“(The fair is) a huge exhibition – the whole world sees you and it is a fun fair with interesting people,” she said.
While 51 percent of exhibitors are Mexican, the remaining 49 percent are international and seeking to generate dialogue with national works.
For example, the work of the young Chilean artist Pablo Linsambarth, who will exhibit a selection of his work focused on women and the democratic transition of Chile after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
“Mexico has always had a very solid structure in art. And a fair like this, in addition to being a springboard, is a positioning, a solidification of the contemporary art system,” Linsambarth said in an interview with EFE.
Diego Altamira, in charge of the Gijón’s ATM gallery with which Linsambarth works, underlined the “prestige and recognition” that comes with the exhibitor and the artist being present at an event such as Zona Maco.
In addition, the organizers enter this edition with special enthusiasm due to the elimination of anti-Covid restrictions, which weighed down last year’s event, for which they expect a greater influx of visitors, collectors and museum managers.
“It is feeling good, intense, with a lot of people, and we have had a record of confirmed international museums. The last edition worked very well for the time we were in, but there was uncertainty, and this is the return to normality. Without a doubt there will be more visitors,” said Canela.
The multiple and varied galleries are framed in various sections, such as Zona Maco axis, south, contemporary art, design, photography, antiquities hall and books.
Among the works of renowned artists from the avant-garde of the last century, Canela highlighted the pieces by the Spain’s Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Antoni Tápies, and the Mexicans Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo.
Among the most modern exhibitions, she recommended the return of the New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery, the work of the American Mark Bradford and the Zona Maco Sur section, which focus on artists from the global south. EFE
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