My friend Federico Gama, a collage of whose Mexico City photographs is on the “about” page of this website, has a couple of pieces in an exhibition called Identidades y Fronteras en Iberoamérica (Identities and Borders in Iberoamerica), at the Centro Cultural España on Calle Guatemala #18, behind the Metropolitan Cathedral. It is an unsettling show of photographs that documents various groups of Latin Americans, who travel to other places to find a different life. (Most of them go to other countries, but one of Federico’s obsessions is photographing youths from towns and cities around Mexico who come to live in Mexico City. Two of them, whom Federico refers to as Mazahuacholoskatopunks, are pictured above.) Federico has just begun a blog, the link to which is on the list of “Friends” on the right-hand side of this page. The exhibit is up through the end of August.
Meanwhile, around the corner, at the Coordinación de Literatura de la INBA on Calle Brasil #37, is an ingenious exhibit based on the novel Las violetas son flores de deseo (Violets are Flowers of Desire) by another friend, Ana Clavel. Ana’s book is about Julián, a man who sublimates his desire for his pubescent daughter, Violeta, by creating a series of dolls inspired by his cravings for her. Ana convinced a series of artists to make sculptures based on Julián’s dream-dolls. The show is on through August 15th.