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March 4, 2026
Contemporary Art Initiative
Update from McKinnon Curator Chelsea Pierce
I’m back from Mexico City where I visited the Zona Maco art fair. There were so many outstanding artists at Zona Maco and the Mexico City-based galleries had top billing with the largest stalls. I was impressed both with what they brought to the fair, but also had on view in their spaces in town. Some main themes I saw across the fair were textile and fiber arts, neo-geometric and optical art, works about sexuality, and mysticism. The fair featured many Latin and South American galleries (as well as U.S. and Europe) and I should point out the price point for the contemporary market of this region has much lower pricepoints than you would find at other fairs.
The top galleries I visited in Mexico City were Galería RGR, Kurimanzutto, OMR, and Patricia Conde Galería. Here are some highlights from my trip:
Fiber and textile art was big at this year’s fair and a growing trend in modern and contemporary art. This
work by Alejandra Aristizábal stood out to me at Duque Arango Gallery (Medellín, Colombia).
I was drawn to this work by architecturally-trained artist Jose Dávila at OMR. Dávila’s “Homage to Albers” plays on the key Bauhaus figure Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square paintings, a great dialogue linking architectural interests between regions and generations.
This diaphanous painting on wood by Omar Barquet is from his series called Waterfalls referencing an adolescent near-drowning encounter at Aguas Azules in Chiapas, Mexico that sparked a spiritual transformation (Gallery Arróniz, Mexico City).
Kurimanzutto gallery in the trendy Condesa neighborhood featured a solo exhibition by Oscar Murillo. All ages enjoyed this large-scale Impressionist-like painting.
Also in Condesa, RGR had a solo show on Roberto Matta, a Chilean surrealist painter. This lyrical painting L’eau Musique from 1993 embodies its title perfectly; meaning water music, you can imagine the faint spray of mist from the fountain-like representation.
In the Roma Norte neighborhood, not far from where I stayed, OMR gallery had a show by French-Canadian artist Marcel Dzama. Sharing a name with his artist idol Marcel Duchamp, Dzama similarly creates imaginary characters and worlds.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico is a bit off the beaten path, but their exhibition program is impressive. Aside from the Delcy Morelos installation, they had an archival exhibition on Mexican art collectives active in the 1970s and 80s (which spoke to my particular academic focus on international artist collectives).
A retrospective show at MUAC on Spanish-born artist Marta Palau featured the artist’s range of textiles and sculptures made between 1960 and the 2000s. In addition to the strong showing of fiber art at Zona Maco, this exhibition is indicative of the global textile art movement of the 1960s and 70s which gave many women artists a pathway into the art world.