Feria Material: A Look at Mexico’s Next Great Artists

If Zonamaco is the polished, blue-chip anchor of Mexico City Art Week, Feria Material is its electric current.

At the helm of Feria Material is a team that lives and breathes contemporary art. Isa Natalia Castilla, trained at Parsons and Sotheby’s, returned to Mexico in 2014 after formative years in New York to create a platform for emerging artists. Alongside her, Marcos Ruiz, collector and Director of Programming, shapes the fair’s curatorial vision, while Brett William Schultz, co-founder, has expanded Material into new initiatives like Estación Material and Proyectos. Adrian de Banville, Director of Invited, oversees the fair’s VIP program, connecting collectors, institutions, and artists, and ensuring that the people who support and shape the art world can experience Material in an intimate and exclusive way.

Now in its twelfth edition, the fair has taken over Maravilla Studios, a former textile factory in Atlampa, turning this gritty industrial neighborhood into the city’s most exciting art moment.

Material’s reach is global—78 exhibitors from 21 countries—but its pulse is unmistakably Latin American. This year’s Mexican presentation offers a thrilling mix of rigor and rebellion: the serene, landscape-oriented conceptualism of LLANO and Peana contrasts sharply with the punk-infused energy of Salón Silicón and General Expenses. Alongside emerging disruptors like Plaga and the refined eye of SAENGER Galería, these spaces showcase why Mexico City remains the creative capital of the Americas.