Collaborators of the project ITZA attending Fátima de Juan’s installation at La Bibi Gallery’s Zona Maco booth. Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
You don’t have to be a doom-scroller to realize there is plenty to spiral over in 2025. Unsettling headlines routinely induce panic about everything from geopolitical instability and extreme weather events to AI-powered cyberattacks and deepfakes spewing misinformation. Lest we forget the Orange One’s plans for mass deportations and a potentially crippling trade war with our closest neighbors.
Those and other troubling topics were on the minds of locals and visitors alike during Art Week Mexico City — an annual affair anchored by the internationally flavored fairs Zona Maco, Feria Material, and Salón Acme.
Outside the main fairs in a stately building in Colonia Juárez, a small painting by Mexican artist and educator Sandra Valenzuela encapsulated the moment with a sharp sense of humor. A thorny highlight of the contemporary landscape exhibition Misrepresented, Valenzuela’s meme-inspired painting employed prickly-pear cacti as a backdrop for the slogan, “These cacti are nopales. We eat them for salad. Do you think a trade war scares us?”
When asked about the painting, which is part of Valenzuela’s series SA-ME-ME, Misrepresented curator David Miranda explained that it references a key question posed in the British sketch show Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy: Is it a joke or a concept?
With that infinitely debatable conundrum in mind, we set out to find the most humorous work among the mazes of Zona Maco, Feria Material, and Salón Acme. Although the goal was to provide a much-needed dose of comic relief during an increasingly stressful era, we were pleasantly surprised to find some enlightening messages and fascinating stories beneath whimsical facades.
Zona Maco
Michael McGregor, “Still life in Studio End of Summer,” 2023. Courtesy of Hashimoto Contemporary
Michael McGregor
Los Angeles-based artist Michael McGregor has described his approach to still-life painting as “al dente,” a term typically reserved for toothsome pasta. That designation may refer to the childlike freedom of his works — spontaneous-looking affairs that are anything but overworked. Abundantly colorful, McGregor’s paintings curiously combine still-life hallmarks — fruit, wine bottles, flower vases, and candles — with such contemporary additions as McDonald’s french fries, boom boxes, cans of spray paint, and a sole Gucci horsebit loafer. “The Gucci loafer appears in a lot of my work,” McGregor told Glasstire. “As an object, it’s loaded with histories [and] a sort of opulence, but it’s also a design object that’s remained consistent — like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s fries — in an ever-changing world.” Showcased at Zona Maco by New York/San Francisco-based gallery Hashimoto Contemporary, McGregor’s whimsical, travel-inspired paintings were complemented by what the artist deems “point-and-shoot drawings” — sketchy renditions of a Cartier watch, a Birkin bag, and a bottle of Valentina hot sauce scrawled on stationery from luxury hotels including the Ritz-Carlton, Chateau Marmont and the Waldorf Astoria. “Through this escapist and vibrant lens, McGregor reinvigorates his audience,” Hashimoto Contemporary’s Jennifer Rizzo added. “[He’s] showing us that we can view the world with a sense of optimism and humor — a very real reminder of something that feels more important than ever.”
Ai Weiwei, “Untitled (Saint George Slaying the Dragon).” Courtesy of Galleria Continua
Ai Weiwei
Humor may not be the first quality that comes to mind when considering the work of Ai Weiwei — an outspoken human rights activist who was once arrested and beaten for critiquing the Chinese government. But the Chinese art star flexed his imaginative wit for 2023’s Untitled (Saint George Slaying the Dragon), which landed at Zona Maco courtesy of globetrotting Italian outfit Galleria Continua. Commissioned as a replacement for Vittore Carpaccio’s 16th-century masterpiece Saint George Killing the Dragon while it traveled from its permanent home — the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy — Ai Weiwei’s contemporary reinterpretation is constructed entirely from tiny LEGO bricks. Although it appears as pixelated as a low-resolution JPEG, the piece has a clear message that transcends its playful medium. Illustrating the triumph of good over evil, the LEGO construction nods to a biblical quote inscribed on the frieze of the Venetian chapel: “Ego vici mvndvm (I have conquered the world).”
Ali Elmaci, “Just Imagine But Maybe Its a Blessing.” Courtesy of Pilevneli
Ali Elmaci
Represented by the Turkish gallery Pilevneli, Istanbul-based artist Ali Elmaci is known for works that play with dark humor and irony. Tellingly, one of his artistic goals is to place viewers “on the fine line between laughter and sorrow.” That fine line is expertly drawn in Elmaci’s cartoony oil paintings of bedsheet-variety ghosts captured in day-to-day activities — picking wildflowers at sunset, marveling at winged insects, bursting into tears. Commanding attention in Pilevneli’s Zona Maco booth, Elmaci’s 2024 painting Just Imagine But Maybe It’s a Blessing depicts one of his signature spirits in wide-eyed wonderment during an encounter with a spritely fairy. In the background, the scenario takes a decidedly dark turn as a menagerie of wild animals hunt and attack their prey while a quartet of cherubs tries to distract the beasts by dropping apples from a tree – to no avail.
Fátima de Juan’s installation at La Bibi Gallery’s Zona Maco booth. Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Fátima de Juan’s installation at La Bibi Gallery’s Zona Maco booth. Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Fátima de Juan
In terms of whimsical wow factor, Mallorcan artist Fátima de Juan’s immersive Zona Maco installation was hard to top. Hosted by the Spanish gallery La Bibi, the presentation beckoned with a living room-like display decked out in fake-fur carpeting and wall coverings in an arresting shade of mustard. Painting since childhood, de Juan found her pathway into fine art through the realm of graffiti (tag name: Xena), and the soft edges afforded by aerosol paint still distinguish her large-scale canvases. Created in reaction to the male-dominated culture she grew up in, de Juan’s paintings celebrate the female form — albeit in an outsized format she likens to contemporary Amazonian proportions. In her exuberant work — some of which La Bibi bills as “sweetly aggressive self-portraits” — de Juan surrounds her powerful women with vegetation, fruit, and “power animals,” including cats and alligators. “It’s a call back to our origins, to pureness, and to a connection with the world and nature,” de Juan explained in a video shot in her studio in Mallorca. “As a woman, I’ve always felt the need to fill big spaces that were never predestined for a woman. I feel comfortable in this kind of format that makes one feel small in front of the artwork. In the end, through my work, I’m searching for a window to escape. Creating a new world where I’d like to live.”
Feria Material
Magdalena Petroni “Threesome.” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Magdalena Petroni
As luck would have it, absurdist humor was front and center at the ground-floor entrance to Feria Material — thanks to Mexico City-based gallery General Expenses and featured artist Magdalena Petroni. Born in Buenos Aires and now living and working in Mexico City, Petroni has a knack for quirky provocation that’s exemplified in her 2025 sculpture Threesome. Priced at $4,200, the work involves three taxidermied rats — two of which are dressed in skimpy Barbie clothes — clinging to a metal Playboy logo painted in acid-green automotive paint. Beyond the playful nod to polyamory in the animal kingdom, Petroni’s Threesome was amusingly hung next to New York-based artist Philip Hinge’s painting of a menacing tabby ready to pounce at a second’s notice.
David Ramírez Cotón, “Se Abrió Paca (The Bale Has Opened).” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
David Ramírez Cotón
Perhaps Feria Material’s most outwardly humorous installation, Guatemalan artist David Ramírez Cotón’s exhibition “Se Abrió Paca (The Bale Has Opened)” transformed Guatemala City-based La Galería Rebelede’s booth into a trompe-l’oeil vintage store — complete with racks of second-hand garments and accessories. The kicker? Each article of clothing was actually a painting on un-stretched canvas with an accurate price tag affixed to the backside. Inspired by the vast quantity of used garments the United States exports each year to Guatemalan resellers — including Cotón’s uncle — “Se Abrió Paca” employed a whimsical format to explore the environmental implications of fast fashion and textile waste. It also celebrated the era-spanning surprises one might discover upon cracking open a 100-pound bale of pre-loved duds. Aptly, Cotón’s racks mixed everyday staples like blouses, joggers, and skirts with name-brand finds, including Diesel jeans ($1,199) and Nike running shorts ($699). But arguably Cotón’s wittiest works weren’t on the racks but on the walls — where a Virgen de Guadalupe blanket, a tiger poncho, and a Bugs Bunny towel were interspersed with hand-painted versions of retail signage and tiny canvases mimicking light switches and electrical outlets.
Fátima Rodrigo “Ejercicios de Resistencia (Resistance Exercises).” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Fátima Rodrigo
Similarly, Peruvian artist Fátima Rodrigo employs aspects of vintage pop culture — including repurposed apparel — as a means to address serious issues, including modernism, capitalism, and climate change. While her work comprises bedazzled disco balls and abstract tapestries sewn with metallic thread, Rodrigo’s presentation at Lima-based gallery Livia Benavides’ Feria Material booth highlighted her series Ejercicios de Resistencia (Resistance Exercises). Using leather work gloves as unexpected canvases, Rodrigo covers them in plastic gems and crystals and hand embroiders them with symbols associated with Peruvian culture — such as eyes inspired by celebratory Andean masks. By taking these everyday tools comically over the top, Rodrigo blurs boundaries between high and low culture while commenting on the unseen labor that fuels capitalism.
Salón Acme
Diego González Gómez, “El Agua Desapareció de Pilas Públicas y Fuentes Privadas (The Water Disappeared from Public Basins and Private Fountains).” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Diego González Gómez
What could possibly be funny about a fountain based on an old fountain based on an even older fountain? Just ask Guadalajara-based artist Diego González Gómez, who presented one of the quirkiest installations at this year’s Salón Acme. While participating in the archive-based exhibition “No Llegaron Aquí las Flores (The Flowers Didn’t Arrive Here)” at Guadalajara’s Museo Raúl Anguiano in 2024, Gómez found his archival inspiration in the museum’s fountain — itself a replica of what is now known as La Pila Seca. Dubbed La Pila de los Compadres in the 19th century, the fountain originally functioned as a water source for summer homes in the Guadalajara suburb of Tlaquepaque. As the story goes, the landmark entered its current waterless era when two men died on the site after a drunken knife fight. Inspired in part by the water-spouting fish that adorn both fountains, Gómez created El Agua Desapareció de Pilas Públicas y Fuentes Privadas (The Water Disappeared from Public Basins and Private Fountains). With an inflatable kiddie pool as its whimsical base, the piece features a quartet of plush fish spitting water from a stone pillar. When he debuted the project last year, Gómez explained on social media, “I believe that history is not made of stone and quarry, but of water that runs through something soft, like the drops falling from the mouth of a stuffed fish.”
Gibrán Turón, “Sentimiento Precoz (Precautious Feeling).” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Gibrán Turón
Atop the crumbly walls of Salón Acme’s storied host venue Proyecto Público Prim, Mexican artist Gibrán Turón’s playful paintings evoked cotton candy on a hot summer day. Presented by Marchante Arte Contemporáneo, Turón’s solo show “Sentimiento Precoz (Precautious Feeling)” highlighted both his artistic process and his kitschy sense of humor. Fantastical qualities aside, Turón’s work is largely based on fleeting moments — street scenes, signage, landscapes — he captures with his camera and then recontextualizes through painting. Among these slices of city life were a quintet of Mexican seafood cocktails, a candy-apple-red pedicure in progress, and a mustachioed man walking barefoot through a field in a wedding dress. Emerging as a fan favorite on social media during Art Week, Turón’s painting of two lovers caught in the act behind the door of a refrigerated meat truck reproduces the cautionary signage: “Reportar si permanezco más de 20 minutos estacionado (Report me if I remain parked for more than 20 minutes).” A poppy thread throughout, bubblegum pink factors heavily into Turón’s color scheme — a signature palette he developed in tribute to the dramatic sunsets in his hometown of Tepic, Nayarit.
Sebastián Córdova, “Rebeca.” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Sebastián Córdova, “Rebeca.” Photo: Bryan Rindfuss
Sebastián Córdova
Supersized clothing will arguably always be associated with the giant suit Talking Heads frontman David Byrne wears in Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense. Inspired by the exaggerated proportions of Japanese theater costumes, Byrne’s enormous suit is so embedded in pop culture that it routinely inspires Halloween costumes. If Byrne were seeking the cozy comfort of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he might snap up one of Mexican architect Sebastián Córdova’s enormous cardigans. Among the most amusing highlights of the Salón Acme exhibition Yendo de la Cama al Living (From Bed to Living Room), Córdova’s Rebeca cardigans took shape after a long walk through Mexico City’s sprawling park Bosque de Chapultepec. Based on the distance of his walk, Córdova designed a hand-woven sweater crafted from exactly 3,014 meters of yarn. The resulting pieces — one in scarlet and one in pea-soup green and tan— measure roughly six feet tall and ring in at $6,200 each. As for the name? “That’s what they call cardigans in Spain based on the success of the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca,” exhibition curator Enrique Giner de los Rios told Glasstire. “We thought it would be interesting to name it that way, winking to the sweater’s presence in a house.”
Zona Maco is on view February 5-9, Feria Material and Salón Acme are on view February 6-9 in Mexico City.
