Not a gallery, where the work is finished and priced. A studio, where it is half-done and the artist will tell you what is wrong with it.
No hanging, no labels, no prices. The room as the artist actually uses it.
What is on the easel and why it is not finished. Studios are where the decisions are visible.
Drinks and something to eat, and the hour where the table stops being polite and starts asking real questions.
Older work pulled out of racks — including the pieces that did not work, which are usually the interesting ones.
Galleries are sales environments. Everything in them has been selected, framed, lit and priced, and the artist is usually somewhere else.
A studio is the opposite. The failed canvases are against the wall, the materials are out, and the person who made all of it is standing next to you with a drink. It is a considerably less comfortable and considerably more interesting room.
The city has one of the deepest contemporary scenes in the Americas — a consequence of cheap studio space in the 2000s, a serious collector base, and Zona Maco pulling the international market in every February.
The artists the house works with show internationally. Their names come with the house’s reply, not with a public listing.
Nothing is for sale during the evening. If a conversation about acquiring work starts, the house steps out of it entirely and puts you in touch with the gallery afterwards.
Studios are working buildings. Some have no lift and most have concrete floors.
The evening runs in Spanish or English depending on the artist and the table. Interpretation is arranged where it helps.
Not through us and not that evening. The house does not take a commission on art and will introduce you to the gallery instead.
You are told when the house replies to your request. It changes through the season.
Yes. Most guests do not collect. Curiosity is the only requirement.
A kitchen closed to everyone else for the night. One chef, one table, a menu that exists only once — built around what…
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Out of the valley in restored pick-ups, into the maguey, and into a palenque where the roast is still done in a stone …
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A working studio, closed to everyone else, and a maker who has spent thirty years doing the thing you are about to att…
Read moreNot a gallery, where the work is finished and priced. A studio, where it is half-done and the artist will tell you what is wrong with it.
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