Your Mexico City Weekend Guide

Taller de los Viernes (Friday Workshop) was an improvisational art game/system that Abraham Cruzvillegas, Damián Ortega, Dr. Lakra, Gabriel Kuri, and Gabriel Orozco used to collaborate socially from 1987 – 1992. Now, curator Guillermo Santamarina has reunited the group of artists to trace how their early interactions influenced their later work, or perhaps how they’ve grown apart.

I’m so curious to see this.

This solo exhibition of German sculptor Manfred Pernice focuses on a series of “cassettes”—vitrines inspired by vernacular architecture or commercial display. Each contains an image or collage component behind a sheet of glass, though not quite “framed” in the traditional sense.

This is a reception for Andrea Ancira’s new book Ars Machina: Intersecciones entre arte, ciencia, naturaleza y filosofía (Intersections between art, science, nature, and philosophy). The launch party features presentations by Inti Meza V., Rossana Lara, Fernando Monreal, and Andrea Ancira. Copies of the book can be purchased for MEX$130 (about USD$7).

The works in Callejero (roughly the equivalent of flâneur) draw a parallel between the personal act of painting and experiencing the collectively/accidentally composed city—sights, sounds, smells, peeling posters, and soot-stained stucco.

Birk’s artist statement reads like a love letter to D.F., and if he’s come even close to capturing some of this city’s bottomless character in this installation, it’ll be hard not to love.

Mark Joshua Epstein’s new work at Biquini Wax draws on traditions ranging from political murals to wallpaper and Mexico City’s ubiquitous geometric tiled floors. This is the latest in Biquini Wax’s series the room of dirty eyes that encourages visitors to “gather around a painting as if it’s a fire” in discussion. This sounds lovely in every way possible.

Full disclosure: I’m DJing this event!

But even if I weren’t, I’d still attend. This is going to be the best post-art-fair party of the weekend, with a set from bilingual feminist art-cumbia-rockers K Pasa USA and D.F.’s premier nude performance artists La Experiencia de Mery Izquierdas Buda (I saw Mery manage to gracefully remove her clothing while hanging from a pole with one leg in a punk house last weekend). She is amazing.

This show is a fundraiser/house-warming party for El Cine Independiente México, who just moved into their new home at Puebla tres.cero.tres, a new queer/feminist DIY space in Roma Norte.

Cover is MEX$50 (USD$2.75) and includes one free drink, so it’s probably one of the best deals in the art world. There will be mezcal!

This pop-up of LES gallery/club Beverly’s inside Expo Reforma promises “Curatorial Programming, Drinking, Dancing, Hanging” alongside a performance piece by Alison Kuo and Stina Puotinen. Material is also hosting other screenings and talks throughout the day. But I’m probably most excited about whatever “Mini Bar” entails. I’m predictable.

Information about this exhibition is scarce. From what we have gleaned from Facbook, artist Juan Pablo Vidal is painting a dilapidated wall as if it were a greenscreen. There’s other ephemera of aestheticized dereliction as well: cand-colored casts of beer cans, abstract compositions made from panes of broken glass, and installations constructed from reclaimed building materials …like a film set? We can’t find an artist statement, but maybe that’s for the best—this event looks to be the antithesis of an art fair booth.

Artists: Aldo Chaparro, Marco Esparza, Karla Leyva, Raul Ortega Ayala, Sofía Táboas, Juan Pablo Vidal

Uno Caña’s open studios take place both Saturday and Sunday, but we recommend you check it out today, because it’s right around the corner from Public Art Projects’ event (a seven minute walk) and there’s just so much going on Saturday.

Artists and projects:

• Patrick Meagher [COLLECTIVE SHOW.ORG]
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• Jen Dunlap [EYELEVEL BQE]
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• Ximena Garrido-lecca [ESTUDIOS UNO CAÑA]
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• Alva Calymayor [EYELEVEL BQE]
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• Tamara Ibarra [YEI + PAULA NIÑO]
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• ED.VARIE
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