For those who do not know me (which surely will be many, if not all): I am Armando de la Garza; I have been painting since I was seven years old and, after attending the Faculty of Architecture, I began a professional career as a visual artist. Since then I have concentrated on my work in art, but in addition to producing my projects I have come and gone through the worlds of teaching, curating, art direction and also… writing.
For this, and now getting into the matter, I want to tell you in this first occasion about art week in CDMX and my experience visiting everything I could, which was ZonaMaco and Material.
First I took a look around ZonaMaco, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. Illusionally believing (and as if I didn’t know well) that it could be easier, I left very early on Wednesday to try to find it a little emptier, but it wasn’t like that.
As always, there was a little bit of everything, everything and everything. On the one hand, the phenomenon that this fair attracts such an eclectic audience (and which is increasingly numerous), and on the other (and which is what we must focus on), the art offer, also so varied and contrasting. Even with all the years I have been in this field, I still admire some examples, and although I know why, I continue to be surprised and almost even bothered by the way in some cases they want to make fun of us. Or what do you think?
And although this happens a lot, on the other hand I found great examples of what, in my opinion, is the complete opposite, such as the pieces by Gabriele Grones in the stand from the Boccanera gallery (Turin), where beyond the preciousness of his small pieces and the demonstration of his mastery and craft, the artist asks us different questions based on an image that at first glance could seem very casual.
Another notable Gabriel is De la Mora, with the gallery Proyectos Monclova (CDMX), who turns the screw on our perception and shows us fragments of glass spheres from their concave and convex sides, creating interesting figures and almost plane effects. dizzying, not to mention the infinite amount of images, colors and deformations that his pieces project.
Another very interesting discovery was the object-installation-sculpture art of the Cuban artist José Yaque, from the Continua gallery (San Gimignano and others), which shows us a “retro” console full of bottles of different types with herbs (which he himself collected on their walks) macerating in alcohol and sealed with wax, reminding us of grandma’s pantry.
Kapoor, Hirst, Botero and Soto could not be missing, nor the typical large-format spectacular sculptures that so many slefies originate (and, honestly, how lazy), but concentrating on the pieces that were worth seeing, I can mention the oil paintings by Julia Silova, from Cut Art Gallery (Riga), which evoke a voluptuous but at the same time innocent orgy ; or the portraits of Michel Kvium, from the Nils Staerk gallery (Copenhagen), with his well-known characters that I am not sure are one hundred percent human; or the three oil paintings by Dr. Lakra, from Kurimanzutto (CDMX), with their zoomorphic portraits of the marine world that evoke Archimboldo.
On the other hand, in Material, at a younger age but with a lot of strength and drive, I was able to see a very powerful broadcast for me. Also with the inevitable contrasts and the “teasing” pieces, but with others that are definitely very good and, furthermore, with a notable presence of galleries that are increasingly present.
I think the piece I liked the most in the entire fair was that of Óscar Santillán in the stand from the Llano gallery (CDMX), also with notable mastery, mastery of technique, light and a very attractive color palette, which shows us worlds created with the use of artificial intelligence, a clear example that the use of Technology and the craft of a great artist do not have to be at odds.
The piece by José Eduardo Barajas, from the Peana gallery (CDMX), was also one of my favorites: technique, concept, proposal and time coexisting in harmony.
They will say that I have a hidden taste for painting, and yes (the good kind, of course), but so that they do not say that I only noticed this one, I recommend that you review the work of Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya, at the Murmurs gallery (LA ), and its attractive and fun sculptures built with different materials that make me think of an alien or a futuristic, but very Mexican, specimen. I also found them very interesting, due to their contrasting proposal that mixes the future from the past, very similar. Mad Max, the sculptures of Brandon Morris, at the Pangée gallery.
I couldn’t tell you much about parties and other events, because I didn’t even go to any. And I apologize for telling you this when everything has already happened, but a year goes by very quickly and before we least realize it we will be seeing the 2025 version of this experience again. In any case, be sure to see some of these digitized works and, in the case of Mexican galleries, how much of this they will show in their spaces in the coming months.
I promise for the other one to anticipate a little more in these reviews.
The post In this first first appeared on Alan x el Mundo.
The post In this first appeared first on Alan x el Mundo.
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