One of the most anticipated events of an overstuffed Mexico City Art Week earlier this month promised to be a surreal collision of architecture, performance art, power, privilege — and horses. Marina Abramovic, the grandmother of performance art, would be presenting her latest works (though she would dispute recognizing them as such) at a house and horse stable designed by Luis Barragán, Mexico’s famed midcentury architect.
As a well-heeled crowd milled in the corral at Cuadra San Cristóbal, the Barragán property just outside Mexico City, event staff passed out pink baseball caps printed with the words “La Cuadra.” That is the new name of the property, which will become a cultural center.
Without fanfare, three brown horses emerged from the stables, their riders dressed in all black and carrying white flags emblazoned with the phrase “Art Is Oxygen.” Behind them was Abramovic, dressed in black Comme des Garçons and accompanied by the Guggenheim Museum’s curator at large of Latin American art, Pablo León de la Barra, who shaded Abramovic with a large red tasseled umbrella. Abramovic sat down in a chair on a small platform in front of the iconic Barragán pink wall.
The horses began to trot around Abramovic and León de la Barra. With camera crews, a drone and cellphones documenting her, she read her manifesto. Some highlights: “An artist should have enemies. Enemies are very important”; “An artist should die consciously, without fear”; “Don’t forget we have art, and art is oxygen.”
She concluded, “We have lunch!”
Once the crowd was seated, at a long row of tables set with silver reflecting orbs, a woman in red approached. She was Abramovic’s final performative intervention, an opera singer who sang the lunch menu. “Taco, taco, taco, taaaacoooo,” she sang as a camera drone buzzed by. “Aye, que rico.”
The two days of programming — there was also a one-day performance workshop — were meant to celebrate the announcement of the new La Cuadra cultural center, spearheaded by Fernando Romero, a businessman and architect.