It takes both magic and trust to build a creative community. Infinite-hyphenate writer/curator/poet/etc. Su Wu (@imrevolting) has an uncanny knack for unearthing that magic and creating spaces for it to grow. Recently transplanted from Joshua Tree, California to Mexico City where she’s lived “for the length of one child who was conceived and gestated and born here,” Wu has helped to draw international attention to the art and design community in CDMX through curating and organizing multiple exhibitions and projects.
Her first endeavor there, MASA gallery, for which she co-curated the inaugural exhibition with Constanza Garza, melded art and design—and the historical and the contemporary—into one site-specific exhibition comprising 70 works and housed in an abandoned mansion on the north side of town. Then, finding inspiration in place yet again, Wu opened Casa Ahorita, a temporary gallery and store on the ground floor of her new home, a 1920s former theater and home of William Burroughs located in Roma Norte. The space was filled with a mix of homegoods and art objects like plump sheepskin pillows from Elise Durbecq, plates adorned with tiny, ceramic strawberries from the artist Isabel Sanchez and volcanic neon crackle cups from LA-based Raina Lee.
Wu commissioned the works from friends from near and far, somehow creating a deep and singular sense of place despite the objects’ varied provenance. The project is a testament to her ability to bring worlds together—art and design, past and present, local and international—and of trust. Not only emanating from Wu to her artists, but from the artists to Wu: that whether in abandoned mansions or on garage shelves, Wu’s aesthetic discernment is unwavering, her worldbuilding otherworldly, and that she’ll know just what to do in whatever city she calls home.
Here, Wu shares with us what makes CDMX an international art and design destination and where to visit when you’re there.
How would you describe the art and design scene in CDMX?
The artist Francis Alÿs once said in an interview that he lived in Mexico City because it was a place where people would still describe themselves as poets, without qualification or embarrassment. What I take that to mean, after having been on the receiving end of Alÿs’ generosity in letting us exhibit his work, and in having visited what is rumored to be his first painting — down a rainwater and laundry-lined alleyway, covering up a hole in a crumbling facade — is that there is a certain openness to ideas that are impractical and antithetical to personal gain, and also a streak of wildness, and most of all old-school manners.
What opportunities do you think are afforded by living in CDMX and why do you think so many people are attracted to the area as an international center for art and design?
I do think it is important as an outsider and as an immigrant to think about my life like there is only life, and no place is a detour from any other default life.
