Main meeting of this "week of art" inaugurated Wednesday, the Zonamaco fair receives 216 exhibitors (arts, design, antiques, photos), including 51% Mexicans and 49% foreigners, according to the organizers.

Along with the Spaniards, the Americans represent the bulk of the gallery owners who have come to Mexico City, located three or four hours by plane from Miami or Los Angeles.

They are attracted by the local market of private collectors and a network of some 170 museums (which would make Mexico City one of the three cities in the world best equipped in this field with London and Paris, according to certain tourist classifications on the internet ).

"Mexico City is a very important hub for collectors internationally," says Mauricio Sampogna, who came from Houston on behalf of the Art of the World gallery, which offers works by Colombian master Fernando Botero.

Zonamaco also welcomes dozens of international investors, according to its new artistic director, Juan Canela: "This year we have more than 55 international museum groups coming to the fair, and collectors from various places in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States of course. They come to buy for museums or for private collections".

"There is a growing interest in Mexican cultural industries," said Julien Cuisset, a French gallery owner who has lived in Mexico City for more than 20 years.

Another event of "Art Week", the Bada fair presents the originality of putting artists - mostly Mexicans - in direct contact with individual buyers and collectors, without the intermediary of galleries.

Deep inequalities

A godsend for digital designer Anni Garza Lau, who exhibits her fictional computer-generated scientific images with the use of artificial intelligence: "There is no purely digital art gallery in Mexico City. Usually I don't sell" , she says.

A woman looks at photographs during Mexico City's Contemporary Art Week on February 9, 2023 © NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP

Buyers also find their account there: "You can find good deals at more accessible prices and not inflated as they are in the galleries", affirms an art lover, Cecilia de la Vega.

The Material fair - independent contemporary art - and the Acme fair - "an art platform created by artists for artists" according to the organizers - complete the agenda of the week devoted to contemporary creation.

Bridge between the United States and Latin America, Mexico, 126 million inhabitants in 2020, is a country crossed by deep economic inequalities.

"The Mexican upper class occupies a territory estimated at 1,467 km2, which represents barely 0.07% of the national territory (...) from where they control 47% of the country's real wealth", recently advanced the Spanish news site El País.

"First the poor" is one of the slogans of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (nationalist left).

In the cultural field, its policy translates into support for the artistic or craft expressions of the indigenous communities, the most affected by poverty.

The federal government has boycotted another international event in recent years, the Guadalajara Book Fair, described by the president as a "conservatism forum".

The Zonamaco contemporary art fair "is a very singular, very important event in Mexico", however acknowledged its Minister of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard, present on Wednesday on the day of the inauguration.

"Mexico has considerable cultural power," added the possible candidate in 2024 to succeed Lopez Obrador.

© 2023 AFP