México Arte Contemporáneo

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Art fairs are becoming as ubiquitous as film festivals. Sometimes it seems as if every city in the world has one. Mexico City’s MACO, or México Arte Contemporáneo, is a relative latecomer to the scene.

But a visit to Wednesday night’s opening festivities in the swishy Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood indicated that MACO, now in its fourth year, already has the basics down: a buzzing atmosphere, ambient music, lots of dressed-to-kill young people, and, yes, an interesting global cross-section of contemporary art.

Some 700 artists and 80 galleries representing 15 different countries, including regular attendees The Happy Lion gallery from L.A.’s Chinatown, have their wares on display through Sunday at the Residencial Palmas Park, a massive new upscale housing development that’s still under construction.

On Wednesday night, browsers strolled the concrete labyrinth taking in witty ‘industrial sculptures’ made of felt by Chilean artist Johanna Unzueta; Daniela Edburg’s fantasy-realist photos, with neo-feminist subtexts that are simultaneously amusing and disturbing (my favorite, ‘Death By Cotton Candy,’ shows a pink funnel cloud chasing a young woman); Gabriel Orozco’s iconic Mexican cardboard flags; and Simon Vega’s ‘Caseta de vigilancia,’ a mock ‘guardhouse’ cobbled together with scraps of wooden packing crates and other found materials.

Vega’s fake security station, complete with ‘surveillance cameras’ made of plastic water bottles, was the perfect symbol for an event where everyone seems to be watching everyone else.

Posted by Reed Johnson in Mexico City