SFAQ - Material Art Flair

Material Art Fair 2016
Expo Reforma, Mexico City
February 4-7, 2016
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The art market in Mexico has long been a one-gun town on the art-fair front. That is, until three years ago when the Material Art Fair opened its doors and shook things up.
Each year since its inception, Material has seen pretty radical format and venue changes, but at their core they maintain a dedication to emerging practices with the ambition of attracting fresh new talent and vision to Mexico City. On that front, they are an undisputed success, attracting the young, fabulous, and broke, whose collective hustle builds a palpable and dynamic energy. Art Fag City even went so far as to call it the most important art event of the year for artists.
“For artists” is the key.

Material bills itself as having its thumb squarely on the youth pulse. From their online PR to the party scene, they cultivate a spirit of scrappy can-do-ism. This year the fair is on the sixth floor of Expo Reforma, a ‘60s building that seems caught between decay and half-hearted attempts at modernization in a somewhat overlooked corner of the city center. When, on the way up, the elevator doors spontaneously open onto an empty floor with views of the city’s skyline, there is a dystopian sense of a megopolis on the brink of chaotic collapse. That sense quickly proves to be prophetic.


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