Mercedes-Benz Looks Inward in ‘BE-LONGING’ Exhibition

Summary

The Mercedes-Benz Art Collection is presenting BE-LONGING, an expansive group exhibition, at Espacio CDMX in Mexico City through August 31.
Bringing together works from their collection and artists living and working in Mexico, the show leans into the fluidity and identity through a constellation of offerings from its global roster.

The Mercedes-Benz Art Collection is launching its international exhibition series with BE-LONGING, its first stop in Mexico City. Housed at Espacio CDMX in the heart of Chapultepec Park, the showcase pairs works from the brand’s own collection alongside contemporary pieces by artists living and working in Mexico – a sweeping mosaic of affinity, belonging and identity in-flux.

From questions of memory and geography to body politics and vocation, the artists of BE-LONGING are threaded together by a particular flavor of freedom found in the slipperiness of identity. The scenography, helmed by Mexico City based C Cúbica, enhances ideas of interconnectedness and multiplicity through a modular, open-ended design, pushing the presentation into an experiential realm.

Highlights include Francis Alÿs’ seminal “Paradox of Parxis I (Something Making Something Leads to Nothing),” a nine-hour ode to CDMX through the aperture of a melting ice block, and “El color de tus ojos (venus)” by Enrique López Llamas, whose surreal cowboy imagery evokes ideas of fragmented masculinities and embodiment. Additionally, Naomi Rincón Gallardo revives Mesoamerican fables in Resiliencia Tlacuache, while speculative futures take center stage in “My future is not a Dream” by Cao Fei.

With upcoming installments in the series still underway, the inaugural Mexico City edition draws excitement for what’s to come. In hand with exhibition itself, the collection has also launched an expansive programming calendar, inviting audiences to engagee with “multiple conceptual axes” of BE-LONGING to foster creative dialogue between global and local communities.

The exhibition is now on view in Mexico City through August 31. For more information about BE-LONGING and corresponding programming, check out the Mercedes-Benz Collection’s website. Read on for the full list of featured artists.

Emma Adler
Jane Alexander
Farah Al Qasimi
Francis Alÿs
Leonor Antunes
Pia Camil
Nicole Chaput
Clément Cogitore
Cao Fei
David Goldblatt
Wu Hao
Isaac Julien
Alicja Kwade
Enrique López Llamas
Robert Mapplethorpe
Jorge Méndez Blake
Zanele Muholi
Ann-Kathrin Müller
Berenice Olmedo
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew
Chantal Peñalosa Fong
Elodie Pong
Naomi Rincón Gallardo
Bárbara Sánchez-Kane
Lerato Shadi
Dayanita Singh
Pamela Singh
Buhlebezwe Siwani
Martin Soto Climent
Tercerunquinto
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger
Theresa Weber