Ocula’s Guide to Mapping Out Mexico City Art Week 2025
Exhibition view: Gabriel Orozco, Politécnico Nacional, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (1 February–3 August 2025). Courtesy Museo Jumex.
Navigating Mexico City's vast wealth of galleries, museums, and artist-run spaces might seem like a challenge. But, taking it neighbourhood at a time, we've mapped out an itinerary to ensure that you won't miss a beat during Mexico City Art Week (3–9 February 2025).
Whether you're visiting for the weekend or the full week, we've got you covered for the best exhibitions, art-fair offerings, and cantinas in the capital.
Polanco: Zona Maco (5–9 February) and Museo Jumex
Last year, Zona Maco—Latin America's largest art fair—was a celebration of Mexico City's booming local scene, with record-breaking attendance figures reaching 81,000. Founded by Zélika García in 2002, Zona Maco has come a long way from the 25 participating galleries of its inaugural fair.
Returning to Centro CitiBanamex for its 21st edition, Zona Maco 2025 hosts 200 galleries from 29 countries across four continents. The participating galleries demonstrate a sustained effort by García and her team to balance international representation with an ongoing commitment to supporting the art scenes in Mexico and Latin America.
Helping them do so are many of Mexico City's stalwarts. As ever, kurimanzutto's presentation features several of Mexico's greatest artists—Abraham Cruzvillegas, Gabriel Kuri, Gabriel Orozco, and Damián Ortega, among others—as well as a beautiful set of graphite works by their latest recruit, Ana Segovia. OMR's stand includes a display of large-scale sculptures, cast by Claudia Comte, Alicja Kwade, and Gabriel Rico. Alejandra Topete Gallery debuts at Zona Maco with a solo booth of work by Mexican interdisciplinary artist Randy Shull, who uses hand-woven hammocks as supports for his painterly explorations.
Among those who made the wise decision to escape January in Europe is London-based LAMB Gallery with a group presentation featuring American textile sculptor Sheila Hicks, Belgian painter Harold Ancart, and the Chilean painter Marco Bizzarri, making his debut in Mexico City with his latest painting titled Puerta de Alhué (2025).
Over from Berlin is Galerie Judin with a two-person exhibition of Cuban sculptor and painter Enrique Martínez Celaya and the young Russian-born painter Alexander Basil. Also from Berlin, but with a Mexico City outpost, is Galerie Nordenhake. Reflecting this duality, the gallery's booth showcases Chilean architect Alfredo Jaar and Peruvian artist Elena Damiani alongside Berlin-born painter Sophie Reinhold and Swiss sculptor Not Vital.
Once you've commandeered the fair's main section, you'll be happy to know there are three more to explore: Sur, curated by Ecuadorian Manuela Moscoso, casts a lens on art from the Global South through a series of site-specific commissions; Arte Moderno, helmed by curator Esteban King, reexamines some of the 20th century's most groundbreaking artworks; while Ejes presents works that investigate the concept of freedom, selected by the Brazilian curator Bernardo Mosquiera.
Aside from the fair, Museo Jumex is arguably the go-to attraction in the Polanco neighbourhood—and they've put on a show with one of Mexico's best: Orozco. Surprisingly, however, Politécnico Nacional (1 February–3 August 2025) is the artist's first museum exhibition in Mexico since 2006, but this presentation, featuring some 300 career-spanning works, more than makes up for it. You'll find La DS (1993), the Citroën car he sliced and reassembled without its mid-sections; Four Bicycles (There Is Always One Direction) (1994), a sculptural mesh of bicycle parts; and paintings brandished with his characteristic semi- and quarter-circles in red, gold, white, and blue.
In the southeast quadrant of Polanco is Proyectos Monclova, host to three concurrent exhibitions by Mexican artists: Desde nuestra propia altura (From Our Own Height) by legendary collective Tercerunquinto; La sombra de la montana tiene tatuajes (The Shadow of the Mountain Has Tattoos) by artist and filmmaker Noé Martínez; and Pintura Cosmica (Cosmic Painting) by painter Circe Irasema (all on view 4 February–1 March 2025).
Food and Drink in Polanco
Entremar is an excellent choice for your time in Polanco. Other great options include El Bajio for traditional Mexican, El Turix for a quick, often standing, taqueria refuel (their cochinita pibil taco gets our vote); and of course, the famed two-Michelin starred Pujol.
San Miguel Chapultepec
No trip to this leafy residential neighbourhood would be complete without a visit to the couple who kickstarted it all: José Kuri and Mónica Manzutto, who, under the auspices of Gabriel Orozco, opened kurimanzutto gallery back in 1999, when Mexico City's contemporary art scene was in its infancy. 'It was a desert,' Kuri told Ocula. 'You could count on one hand collectors in the city.'
Today, the sprawling gallery, housed in a former lumber yard, has become one of the city's leading destinations for contemporary art during Mexico City Art Week. This year, kurimanzutto are showing work by Korean artist Haegue Yang. Having exhibited widely across the globe—most recently at London's Hayward Gallery—Yang's presentation, Arcane Abstractions, is only her second in Mexico City (8 February–5 April 2025). Continuing the artist's uniquely personal investigation of abstraction, the exhibition features sculptures and works on paper alongside a display of archival pieces by Mexican artisans that speak to Yang's practice.
This year, there's a new kid on the Chapultepec block: Alejandra Topete. Prior to setting up her eponymous gallery in September 2024, Topete worked for 20 years as an art conservator and restorer at Casa Luis Barragán. Currently on view is the two-person exhibition Entre Hilos y Relatos (Between Threads and Stories), which features work by Claribel Calderius and Jason Kriegler, two textile artists who use their medium to relay personal and social histories from the regions of Cuba and West Africa, respectively.
Other notable galleries in the area include LABOR, which presents French artist Étienne Chambaud's fourth solo, Limbo (8 February–14 March 2025). The exhibition centres on a series of sculptural works, including contorted equine bronzes (Zebroids, 2024), blinking neon apostrophes (Operators, 2025), and hundreds of brass plumbing knobs installed across the gallery walls and ceiling (Limbo, 2025). Nearby, Galería RGR hosts a solo exhibition by Mexican artist Magali Lara, whose four-decade artistic career has been heavily influenced by the women painters of the Mexican school, such as Olga Costa, María Izquierdo, and Frida Kahlo (5 February–29 March 2025).
If you've still got beans, a scout around the city's Chapultepec Park—housing Gabriel Orozco's Calzada Flotante (Floating Causeway, 2023)—lands you at LagoAlgo, a food and art space co-founded by Cristobal Riestra from OMR gallery that overlooks the lagoon. During Art Week, the modernist building is host to Capitulo VII: Shifting Grounds, a group exhibition that considers humanity's impact on the environment, migration, and identity issues, with works by Julius von Bismarck, Alicja Kwade, and Ho Tzu Nyen, among others (7 February–1 June 2025).
Food and Drink in San Miguel Chapultepec
For your morning coffee, SAINT on Gobernador Melchor Muzquiz, and Marne Panadería found on Calle Gobernador Ignacio Esteva are both great options. Both also do food: SAINT serves delicious sandwiches, while Marne is perfect for pastries, or a light lunch.
For good, local cantinas in the neighbourhood head to El Mirador, El Bosque, or El Puerto de Veracruz. For something more leisurely, the popular Mari Gold serves up delicious Indian-Mexican cuisine, with excellent vegetarian options. While Comal Oculto is another local gem, with a small menu that draws from Mexico's finest ingredients: it's well worth the wait for your seat around the communal table of this neighbourhood favourite.
Roma and Condesa
In the adjacent arty enclaves of Roma and Condesa, OMR is a good place to start. Opened in 1983, it is one of Mexico City's oldest contemporary art galleries, and today can be found in an epic, light-filled brutalist building in the heart of Roma Norte. The French-born, Mexico-based artist Yann Gerstberger takes over the space this week with 2 Feet in 1 Bucket of Ice, featuring all new works produced using the artist's signature technique: gluing hand-dyed cotton fibres from cleaning mops onto canvas (4 February–5 April 2025).
A little further south, PEANA presents Their Silhouettes Bristled with Razors, its first solo exhibition by Mexico-based artist Naomi Rincón Gallardo. The show centres on Eclipse (2023)—a video work part of 'Tzizimime Trilogy'—a series where the artist crafts a world sown with dismembered bodies; these skeletal figures linger over a Mexico ravaged by the series of violences afflicting both human and non-human lives (3 February–29 March 2025).
Heading west will take you to Condesa, where Yngve Holen's posthuman sculptures fill Galerie Nordenhake (4 February–15 March 2025); the Argentinian sculptor Mariela Scafati's exhibition in ode to Barragán's pink at Travesía Cuatro; and Xiyao Wang's lyrical abstract paintings are displayed at KÖNIG GALERIE (4 February–27 March 2025). Do check opening hours before venturing out, particularly on Sunday and Monday.
Food and Drink in Roma and Condesa
For traditional cantinas, check out El Centenario and Covadonga. However, if you fancy a change from tacos, Lardo is a brilliant Mediterranean restaurant, and there are a number of great al fresco offerings around Plaza Rio Janeiro. For the best Mexican seafood, Contramar—sister restaurant to Entremar in Polanco—is the place to go; if you can book a table on the balcony, even better.
Coyoacán
Although Coyoacán is a little further out—around 20 minutes by car from Roma or Condesa—it's worthwhile making the pilgrimage to see the charming, cobblestoned neighbourhood that was once home to two of Latin America's most renowned artists: Kahlo and Rivera.
If you haven't yet made the trip to Museo Casa Azul—Kahlo's birthplace and home for most of her life until her death in 1954 at the age of 47—now's your chance. Bookings are required, and can be made online. A ten-minute drive away is Museo Anahuacalli, the part-studio, part-museum, and part-shrine to Mexican art designed by Rivera. It's an astounding building that today houses his expansive collection of pre-Hispanic figurines, carvings, and totems accumulated over a lifetime.
During Art Week, the museum is host to ¿Cómo se escribe muerte al sur? (How Do You Spell Death in the South?), a two-person exhibition by Carolina Fusilier and Paloma Contreras Lomas. Through a variety of mediums—including video, sculpture, and painting—the two artists will transform Anahuacalli into the site of a fictional thriller, drawing on its architecture and the surrounding landscape to construct their own mythologies. The exhibition, a co-production between Museo Anahuacalli and U.S. non-profit arts organisation TONO, forms part of the third edition of TONO Festival, an annual event hosted across 13 museums and music venues in Mexico City and Puebla (25 March–6 April 2025). —[O]