Back in February, Mexico City’s Zona Maco art fair, then 11 years old, was joined by a scrappy newcomer, the Material Art Fair, focused on bleeding-edge galleries. “We were really battling to fill those stands,” Brett W. Schultz, one of the Material’s organizers, told ARTnews by Skype yesterday, recalling preparations for that first edition.
But planning for the second edition, which runs February 5-8, 2015, has gone quite differently. “This year the amount of interest was overwhelming,” Schultz said. “It’s much more international, and it was much more competitive.”
Material’s organizers—Schultz and Daniela Elbahara (who together run the Yautepec gallery in town) along with Isa Natalia Castilla, the founder of the art advisory Incontemporary—have lined up a list of 40 international exhibitors for its sophomore edition. (The names—selected by a committee made up of the Green Gallery’s John Riepenhoff, critic Chris Sharp, who runs a space called Lulu in the city, Preteen gallery’s Gerardo Contreras, and Beatriz Lopez, of Instituto de Visión—follow below.)
They have also changed venues, moving from the Hilton in the city’s Centro Histórico to the Auditorio Blackberry, a concert hall in chic Condesa. “We’re literally four blocks from Parque Mexico, one of the most beautiful parks in Mexico City,” Schultz said.
Other big changes for 2015: the fair is promising more extensive public programming and an art bar organized by the Lower East Side redoubt Beverly’s.
And there’s already talk of finding a larger venue for 2016 or 2017.
“Mexico City has been in the spotlight lately, and I think Material is part of this,” Elbahara told ARTnews. “It’s an international fair that has started really small, but I think we’re going to kick ass pretty soon.”
321, Brooklyn
Adams and Ollman, Portland
American Medium, Brooklyn
Aran Cravey, Los Angeles
CARNE GALLERY, Bogotá
Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago
Casa Imelda, Mexico City
Clifton Benevento, New York City
COOPER COLE, Toronto
David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis
East Hampton Shed, East Hampton
Et al., San Francisco
Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland
François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles
Grand Century, New York City
Green Gallery, Milwaukee
helper, Brooklyn
Instituto de Visión, Bogotá
Kunstverein Toronto, Toronto
Levy.Delval, Brussels
lodos, Mexico City
LOYAL, Stockholm
Lulu, Mexico City
LVL3, Chicago
Mary Mary, Glasgow
Michael Jon Gallery, Miami/Detroit
Narwhal Contemporary, Toronto
New Galerie, Paris
Night Gallery, Los Angeles
P!, New York City
Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca
Queer Thoughts, Chicago
Regina Rex, New York City
Roberto Paradise, San Juan
Rolando Anselmi, Berlin
Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago
Smart Objects, Los Angeles
What Pipeline, Detroit
The White Lodge, Cordoba
Yautepec, Mexico City