Here Are a Few of Our Favorite Things From This Year’s Salón Cosa in CDMX

For its third edition, the burgeoning Salón COSA, Mexico’s biannual “gathering of contemporary objects,” returned to its roots in CDMX after a stint in Guadalajara last fall. On a relatively intimate scale — 22 participating artists and designers showed recent and unpublished works — Salón COSA occupied the dance floor of an old cantina nestled among the cafés, nightclubs, and shops of Calle de Motolinia, one of the oldest streets in the city. With the walls and furniture of the bar-turned-exhibition-space cloaked in a fresh coat of cerulean blue, this year’s curation reflected Salón COSA’s nocturnal setting: Spiked concrete stools and biomorphic silicone vases braced in metal were serving “touch of kink.” And as is often the case, lighting designs caught our eye: Miami-based Jimena Montemayor’s lacquered ‘Identity’ lamps and bench (at the top of this post), Rutso’s touchable ceramic and lambswool pieces, Marcelo Suro’s cute-yet-creepy collection of legged and linking lights, and a sculptural rock formation-like floor lamp by Andrés Monnier all stood out. On a sweeter wavelength, Chuch Estudio’s Canel’s side tables, named for the colorful Mexican chewing gum with which they share an immediate likeness, were positively collectible.

Envisioned by founders Daniela Elbahara and Mario Ballesteros as a new model for exhibiting contemporary art and design, Salón COSA is offered, in the words of Ballesteros, as “an alternative to the polished and precious, watered-down and whitewashed aesthetics of global good taste.” To this end, Salón COSA collects no participation or space acquisition fees from invited creators — Elbahara and Ballesteros hope this will continue to create something of a haven for Mexican creators of diverse backgrounds and identities, who share a common interest in proposing and producing deeply personal, perhaps riskier work. “We want to be a platform for new talent and young artists, most of whom have no gallery backing, and give them the liberty and the confidence to be as audacious and experimental as they want,” says Ballesteros. “It is very important for us to show that diversity is Mexico’s biggest asset, and we want to reflect that in the selection of artists and works.”

PHOTOS BY SERGIO LÓPEZ