Material Fair bets on more Latin American art

The 11th edition of the Material Art Fair, a fundamental meeting of Art Week in Mexico City, will take place from February 6 to 9 at Expo Reforma, in the Juárez neighborhood, which, once again, will make This is one of the nerve centers of this series of days of effervescence from and about art in the Mexican capital.

This year’s Material edition will host 72 galleries from 20 countries and 35 cities, with work by more than 200 artists. Of this selection, 25 exhibitors participate in the fair for the first time from cities such as Berlin, Los Angeles, Milan, Chicago, Guatemala, Lima, Toronto, Bogotá and San José, among others.

It also highlights that in this next edition 56% of the selected exhibitors come from Latin America, which, mentioned by its director, Brett Schultz, in the presentation conference this Monday, consolidates Material as a bridge meeting between contemporary work of the region and the rest of the world.

Also present at this conference were Isa Castilla, director of Material Development; Miriam Torres, Alliances coordinator, and Adrian de Banville, director of the VIP Invited program.

The health of the market in Mexico

As this newspaper has stated, based on several of the most extensive studies on the behavior of the contemporary art market, in recent years the weight of buyers with medium purchasing power in the world on high-cost works of art has grown noticeably. accessible.

This universe has established itself as the great force that supports the world market, especially after the instability generated by the pandemic and war contexts. Although there was excessive growth in art acquisitions in 2021, today the market shows signs of decrease but stabilization similar to pre-pandemic levels, but now with a much stronger middle class within the market.

The organizers of the fair are asked about this and the weight that fairs have had in this migration.

“At least in Mexico City, Material has played a very important role in giving visibility to a new generation of galleries and independent artists, but also in creating a market not only local but international for the work of this generation. In that sense, fairs compress so many people in such a short time that they trigger international opportunities for local exhibitors and vice versa, links are created between galleries and artists or foundations. In the end, it is a good sign that that segment of the market is growing in terms of sales globally. That allows us to think that it could be a very successful week for our participating galleries,” responds Schultz.

On the other hand, Adrian de Banville pointed out that “we have verified, especially from the third edition of our Estación Material fair, in Guadalajara, that there is excellent health of the contemporary art market in Mexico, beyond the capital. In this country, regional markets are growing and communicating, that is, artistic exchanges are increasing. And that also affects the general market in a very positive way.”

The ecosystem and the Mexican contemporary art market, he reiterated, gives clear signs of autonomy compared to large places such as Europe or the United States.

A fair expanded to the entire city

The meeting, at least the bulk of its programming, the one reserved for the Expo Reforma, will begin activities around noon on Thursday, February 6 with an exclusive preview visit for the VIP Invited program, followed by the afternoon opening to the public, starting from 5:00 p.m.

However, on Monday, February 3, the Material Monday program will be launched, with the invitation to a tour, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., through 14 galleries that participate as Material exhibitors. The tour will be facilitated by a transport with limited capacity that will take interested people through this circuit that covers 18 exhibitions in six different neighborhoods of the city.

Likewise, on the night of February 5, artists Melanie Smith and Patricio Villarreal will present the work Tixinda-marcha por un color in the brand new Scenic Pavilion of the first section of Chapultepec. Two performances of this will be offered to the public with limited capacity.

In this vein, the El Eco Experimental Museum, located in the central San Rafael neighborhood, will host version number 8 of the Immaterial performance program, with which the piece “Body loss” by the Australian artist Angela Goh will be presented, represented by artist Gemma Sattler. This will be offered, also in two performances, on Friday, February 7.

Material Art Fair