This scrapbook documents Abraham Cruzvillegas and Dr. Lakra's recent and provocative exhibit of drawings, sculptures, objects and miscellany at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca, Mexico, and honors the ongoing collaboration of which it is a part, a 20-year friendship here blossoming into public collaboration for the first time. Los dos amigos is an excellent introduction to two of Mexico's most interesting contemporary artists.

Los dos Amigos

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

Turner/A&R Press

This first major monograph on the electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was produced on the occasion of the 2007 Venice Biennale, where Lozano-Hemmer presented six interactive installations--becoming the first artist to officially represent Mexico at the Biennale. Born in Mexico City in 1967, Lozano-Hemmer studied Physical Chemistry at Concordia University in Montreal, and now uses his background in the sciences to create the large-scale, public-space installations for which he is known. Working with the concept of "relational architecture," Lozano-Hemmer's installations employ everything from robotics to sensors to cell phones and video projections to create social situations that alter the ways people relate to urban space. Describing his piece, "Subtitled Public" in an interview in this very nicely designed book, Lozano-Hemmer says, "I look for the 'special defects' that allow me to activate the imperfections, the disruptions; 'to disrupt' seems to be the most precise term for describing what I want to do."

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Some Things Happen More Often Than All of the Time

LONDON, BARBARA

Medina, Cuauhtémoc

DeLanda, Manuel

Lozada, Priamo

Stoichita, Victor

Barrios, José Luis

Perea, Bárbara

History & Criticism

Ortega's 2002 sculptural project, "Ocupación," at Mexico City's Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (also known as "The Cube") was produced at such a scale and of such materials (cotton yarn and rubber balls) that the work fully occupied the site, and yet was completely scannable at a glance.

Luis Felipe Ortega: Ocupación

From November 2006 to January 2007, Plataforma Puebla took over the oldest factory in Mexico, La Constancia in Puebla, for a large-scale exhibition showcasing more than 60 Latin American artists. The curators charted an artistic cartography of the city around the site, and made interventions that spilled over into the streets--altering traffic, inviting viewers to reevaluate the roles of landmarks, and highlighting connections between the landscape and its past. They connected viewers to alternate narratives that would otherwise have passed unnoticed, giving them a new experience of the same place without erasing or overwriting the existing one. Plataforma Puebla 2006 showcases participants including Teresa Margolles, Santiago Sierra, Francis Alÿs, Carlos Amorales, Thomas Glassford, Gabriel Orozco, Daniel Guzmán, Damián Ortega and Melanie Smith. It also includes essays on art and technology by curators Príamo Lozada and Bárbara Perea and additional texts by a host of international theorists, art historians, philosophers and the artists themselves.

Plataforma Puebla 2006

This artist's book is based on the concept of "social design" developed by the artist FOS (alias Thomas Poulsen) since 1999. It is an environmental tool that can be used to examine the character and potential of the physical space of contemporary exhibitions and more permanent redesigns of public space.

FOS: Liquid Chain Into the Vapor Wall: The Fall

When author Phyllis La Farge and photographer Magdalena Caris recently took a journey from the city of Xalapa in the state of Veracruz to the town of Coatepec, they noted that on the facades of countless public and private buildings, improvised murals had been painted. The wit and exuberance of these wall paintings, whether commercial or simply decorative, suggested an urban visual lingo that could be traced to the ancestral murals of pre-Columbian Mexico, and La Farge and Caris decided that they deserved closer study. Somewhere between a scholarly investigation and a travel book, Painted Walls of Mexico documents these often anonymous interventions. As Homero Aridjis writes in the preface, "Painted Walls is not only an invaluable testimony to this undervalued art which is disappearing from our streets, but honors the unknown artists who, with humor and imagination but without the slightest recognition, convert the streets of their town into an open gallery."

Phyllis La Farge & Magdalena Caris: Painted Walls of Mexico

This charming and elegant artist's book tracks Eduardo Sarabia, grandson of the treasure hunter Felipe Sarabia, as he searches the Sinaloa mountain range for Pancho Villa's lost gold, along with a Mexican policeman, a Tijuana drug dealer and a bandit.

Eduardo Sarabia: Relacion de un Interes

Born in the UK in 1965, Melanie Smith has lived and worked in Mexico City since 1989. An internationally showing artist, she is represented in Los Angeles by Patrick Painter Gallery. This volume presents Smith's reflections on the anonymous Mexican town of Parres, gesturing toward the, "symbolic space brought about by the self-reflexivity of painting."

Melanie Smith: Parres

Other Media

The University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC) opened this year at the National Autonomous University of Mexico City--an impressive cultural center without rival in Latin America. The university has two philharmonic orchestras, a radio station, a television channel, a film archive, a world-class concert hall, dance, theater and film venues. In addition, it has 25 science and art museums under its auspices. This extensive volume catalogues 100 works by a diverse group of international artists in the MUAC collection, including Pipilloti Rist, Gabriel Orozco, Francis Alÿs, Melanie Smith, Thomas Hirschhorn and Steve McQueen. Eschewing historical narrative this spirited collection is curated by Olivier Debroise, a Mexico City-based writer and critic. This publication includes a checklist detailing the MUAC collection in its entirety.

Informe: Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo

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