7 Shows to See in Mexico City Art Week

“La conciencia es un árbol” marks Roberto Matta’s first solo exhibition in Mexico City in nearly three decades. Matta, who is often referred to by only his last name, was one of Chile’s most prominent artists during the 20th century; he traveled extensively across Europe and the US, where he encountered some of the era’s most important artists. His work is known for its Surrealist-inflected, all-over, semi-abstract quality. The exhibition will present work from the 1950s to 1990s, alongside archival materials, with an emphasis on the artist’s “pioneering conception of space as a dynamic, living structure,” per a release.

On view from February 3 to March 28, at Gral. Antonio León 48, Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico City – CDMX 11850.

For those wanting even more Surrealism, look no further than OMR’s exhibition for Leonora Carrington. The centerpiece of this exhibition is her 1964 painting ETHIOPS, which lends the exhibition its name. On view are works from the late 1950s through the ’60s, showcasing the artist’s period of transition from a more European sensibility to Surrealism to her more singular approach. In addition to paintings, the show also has on view costumes and masks she made during this period, as well as preparatory drawings made in Chiapas for her mural Mito y religión de los mayas de las tierras altas (also known as El mundo mágico de los mayas), which she executed from 1963 and 1964 at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.

On view from February 3 to April 11, at Córdoba 100, Roma Norte, Ciudad de México.

For a look at the contemporary focus of OMR’s program, head over to the gallery’s Bodega space, a few blocks away. On view there is a solo exhibition of rising artist Dorian Ulises López Macías that looks at the artist’s ongoing archive of photographs he’s captured from across Mexico since 2010. Many of the images are taken from oblique angles, often of bodies and gestures, as a way to present a “critical re-reading of Mexican aesthetics” that is very much queer, according to a release. “MEXICANO,” as the exhibition and series is called, is the first in-depth presentation of this archive of images.

On view from February 2 to March 27, at Dr. Andrade 41, Doctores, Cuauhtémoc, Ciudad de México.

In its final days is a solo exhibition of Gabriel de la Mora at Museo Jumex. Titled “La Petite Mort” (a French idiom for experiencing an orgasm), the exhibition surveys the last 20 years of the Mexico City–based artist. Curated by Tobias Ostrander, “La Petite Mort” showcases the various approaches of de la Mora’s art-making, which often takes the form of off-kilter, everyday objects, like human hair or weathered ceiling tiles, arranged into careful installations. The exhibition’s title nods to de la Mora’s ongoing interest in both death and desire in his practice.

On view through February 8, at Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 303, Colonia Granada, Ciudad de México.

For her second exhibition with Kurimanzutto, Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes continues her research-based investigations into the work of women artists and designers from the postwar era. For this show, which takes the title “surface, edge and voids (expanded),” she looks at the work of Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999), Léna Bergner (1906–1981), Anni Albers (1899–1994), and Trude Guermonprez (1910–1976). Their practices are filtered through Antunes’s hands to create stunning installations and sculptures from a variety of materials, from a linoleum floor piece that takes the form of a grid to brass lattice works.

On view from February 4 to March 28, at C. Gob. Rafael Rebollar 94, Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec, Ciudad de México.

Located within a Luis Barragán and Max Cetto-designed building in Mexico City’s Cuauhtémoc neighborhood, PARA A—a nod to the building’s name of Edificio para Artistas (Building for Artists)—looks to present “relevant artists within the [duo’s] celebrated architecture,” per a release. This exhibition by John Sonsini, who splits his time between Los Angeles and the Mexican state of Queretaro, presents his tender watercolors of Latino day laborers, whom the artist pays their full day wages for their labor of being his models. The exhibition takes its title from his sitters’s names: “Francisco, Roger, Jorge, David, Enrique, Rodney, Carlos, Gabriel, Ramiro, Luis, Fernando, Rian, and Carlos.” Of the series, the artist has said, “I paint remarkable men, and I try to make the paint behave in a way that will convey that.”

On view from February 4 to April 12, by appointment, at Edificio para Artistas de Luis Barragan y Max Cetto, Parque Melchor Ocampo 38, Cuauhtémoc, Ciudad de México.