Though, after this weekend, we're sure many would argue that its moment is already in full swing."You get picked for a building based on an image. The world runs on images," said the architect David Chipperfield on Saturday, at Mexico City's newly opened Museo Jumex. If Chipperfield—who won the commission to design the building in 2009—is correct, then Jumex's inaugural weekend produced enough visual currency to run the whole of Mexico, if not the globe. A bienvenidos dinner in a tangerine-lit urban forest with the likes of Eva Longoria, Richard Buckley, and Stavros Niarchos; a whitewashed penthouse studio with a Damien Hirst cow's head and a Richard Prince sex joke; and Mark Ronson's two-hour deejay set, which was spun for thousands of partygoers in a purpose-built Studio 54-inspired Mayan temple, were just some of the event's highlights.
Located in the municipality's upscale Polanco neighborhood, Jumex will serve as a second home for the Colección Jumex—a contemporary art collection billed as Latin America's largest, spearheaded by the Mexican beverage magnate Eugenio Lopez. With its serrated roof and sand-colored geometry, the building is completely captivating, and will function primarily as a gallery space to house curations from the Colección, as well as exhibitions by other artists. Jumex's current headliner is a blockbuster show dubbed A Place in Two Dimensions, which features artists from the Coleccion such as Thomas Ruff, Jorge Pardo, and Francis Alys alongside a solo display by Fred Sandback, a sculptor best known for his tied-off strings fraught with tension and delicacy. Curator Patrick Charpenel explained, "We wanted to play with the idea of being on the verge of collapse." It's a provocative sentiment, though it may contain a layer of reverse subtext: Mexico City—particularly on the arts front—is in modern-renaissance mode and is poised to flourish as a major and permanent international cultural player. Though, after this weekend, we're sure many would argue that its moment is already in full swing.
POST: 2024-11-24