Tuesday morning started lazily with a complete refusal from my body to exit my bed until Leo’s insistence won out. Then around 10am someone began playing trumpet in the streets. The skies are blue, the air is pleasant, maybe in the upper 50s or low 60s and the sun is beaming down.
And I may have myself on going lessons in Mexican cooking. Apparently the tamale session was such a success that Gus’ mom is already plotting other meals. This is freakin’ awesome!
My Wednesday foray into Art Week took me to an exhibit and performance in the Folklore Ballet School, just north of Bellas Artes in the historic center. The building is in brutalist style, a jutting concrete mass with imposing doors and abrupt angles. In contrast, on display they had rugs, mostly in neutral tone, and glasswork, largely cubes in various colors, complexity, and diameter. I always feel somewhat not cool enough for these events and this was no exception. I wandered a bit, using the handy dandy laminated sheet they gave me, whose language reinforced the general sense of not cool enough, but was at least somewhat informative.
The performance began on the main floor. A single woman with a trombone dressed in a simple woven, shift style dress. Her long black hair in a single braid down her back. She harkened back to an earlier time. She stepped on to the ledge and played a note, then another. Sound rather than music. And then from the stairs above a response. Another woman, drsesed similarly also sporting a trombone began a slow intentional descent down the stairs. Finally a woman with a French horn emerged from the shadows. They each made their own discordant sound. They moved slowly and the room felt the calming effect. Two additional women sans instruments emerged through the crowd. Then from below us a heavy bass note.
We followed the women and the sound down to the stage below, which was also home to a design set. A woman with a tuba stood in the back row.
Initially a woman without an instrument was on stage. Then the tuba player joined. Still not quite what one would call music. Then the other women without instruments for a long time they moved independently to pieces of the set and then they danced a dance reminiscent of a flamenco as the musicians began playing together, a bit chaotically, but moved solidly into music. The french horn player subbed out her horn for a drum and a trombonist came on stage. It ended abruptly. I never saw a title for a piece, nor do I know it’s goal, but it was cool. Then I headed home for the evening on the subway, which I’ve been more and more reliant on as I combat the urge to just Uber.
Thursday, I met up with Fran and Carrie at Salon Acme. This is a heavy hitter in Art Week World. Perhaps I should first remphasize that Art Week is impossibly big, diverse and decentralized, but as the week has progressed I’ve started to see trends. There is highly local stuff, like the performance above. There are shops that just take advantage of the week by being like “here’s a sculpture”. There are big art markets with artist stalls and a blatant commercialism. There are gallery managed events that can either be in the gallery or a rented space. This can be one roomers, like my Sunday foray, or they can be enormous, as in Salon Acme. These latter two tend to feature a more international vibe. All events come in all prices, ranging from free to expensive.
Salon Acme is a huge event space in the Juarez neighborhood that is freakin’ gorgeous. This is a paid entry event and feels a bit museum like. It’s an old colonial building with covered courtyards, viney plants dripping down from above, thick stone banisters and wide staircases that ought to have a red carpet down them. It’s 3 threes and 8 zillion tiny rooms, featuring a small performance space with ballerins, 4 bars, a taco stand, and of course art. And it was extremely crowded. Felt very eventy. Another intereresting choice they made was to (for the most part) include a large list of artist info at the end of each room rather than with each piece.
The art was all very modern and varied wildly in medium. It was pretty cool. We stopped and had a drink at the bar in the picture on the right. This was a bit of a challenge cause first you had to load your bracelet with money at a separate station, then order your drink (which were not speedy) and of course there’s not really a way to get any change back. So you go figure out how much your beverage costs, double back to load your wrist band, order, wait, repeat.
To get to the third floor you follow way too many people up a rickety wooden staircase that wrapped around the edges of an atria and a wooden canoe hanging in the middle. I kinda want a blueprint of this place. It was pretty incredible. On the top floor there’s a roof top bar.
While very cool I did feel like it was a little seen and be seeny and you had trouble getting enough space to have a moment with the art. But the environment was so cool. The building was just amazing.
Friday, Fran, Carrie & I went to BADA. BADA is an artist’s market, so you can buy directly from the artist rather than through a gallery. It’s also how I learned that there is a polo field in Chapultepec park. Housed in a huge white tent supporting more than 200 artists for the duration of art week. Out back they have food and drink area and if you’d paid for the fancy ticket, there’s a second tent hosting a lucha event. We did not. But I did buy art there.
We had read that all art was 2500 or less in an article written in Spanish, so we assumed pesos. It was not. We surmised that perhaps they meant USD, although even that was mostly accurate, with some notable exceptions. Carrie’s preference trends toward the colorful and eclectic. Mine leans surreal and cubist. Fran prefers landscapes and calming imagery. This mostly meant we stopped at pretty much every booth.
We headed to the lawn after and grabbed a drink and some pizza. Then I jetted pretty quick to get back into town to grab Leo from daycare. I’d hoped to take the subway, but the nearest station was closed for renovation, so I sat in an Uber for almost an hour to go about 4.5 miles. Friday traffic is the worst.
Saturday I had class. We talked about mental models which is apparently a more complete and complex term than perspective or beliefs, but is near those concepts. The reading had some really fascinating strategies around eliciting the mental models of stakeholders. So far, I’m really enjoying this class, though it is so far straight up lecture.
In the afternoon I went in search of what would be my last day of art week since I was heading out on a hike Sunday. This time I went the gallery route and stayed very local. My first stop was about 3 blocks away at a cafe/gallery venue. The front space was dedicated to the cafe and a wall crammed with art by various folks. In the back was the Art Week exhibition. I preferred the section up front.
Next I headed down Alvaro Obregon toward the Casa de Representación de Quintana Roo en Ciudad de Mexico, which really feels like a cumbersomely long title for a building, which was hosting an exhibition which intended to converge art, science, and technology around coral bleaching. Unfortunately, the building was closed. So I doubled back and headed to La Laguna who was supporting several art spaces.
The line was ungodly. But having nothing else to do for the evening, I waited. And waited. And waited.
Inside was actually the right amount of crowded, so I kinda forgave the wait. Different shops and galleries were open on each floor with a rooftop display as well. I don’t particularly think there was a theme for the whole.
The rooftop was a very cool space featuring a bar, a bunch of tables, some sculpture and then a display the renovation of the building to become La Laguna, including 3D models, materials found at the site, and a bunch of multi media collages.
I headed back downstairs and finished up in the ceramics shop. They also had an open studio section which kinda has me wondering if they offer pottery classes..
Headed back home to black bean soup, Leo cuddles, and another James Bond (if you’re not in the know, Netflix has added ALL the James Bond movies). Then packed up the pack and prepped my hiking gear for the morning, set an alarm and it was early to bed after my first art week.
Overall a cool event, but maybe a little too trendy and pricey. I think if you’re in the scene and the know it could re really awesome, there was just a ton going on in the city. After parties, before parties, during but hidden parties. All venues had some private doors or curtains through which the average bear (aka me) could not pass. I’ll definitely go again next Febraury. I’m also now just scrolling through all the places I’d hoped to hit to see how many of the exhibits are actually available post this week, so there may be more art in the weeks to come.
Tacos of the Week: Los Duros
This taqueria opened not a long very close to my house and I hadn’t been yet. Ordered a pastor and a campechano. While both were totally fine and edible, don’t think I’d bother going back. My taco palate is definitely getting pickier.
Year One Project 
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