Constellations and Drifts: Art from Latin America

!!!

Issue Jun 17-30 2026: Constelaciones y derivas: arte de América Latina desde la Colección FEMSA is presented at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO) to open a dialogue that questions its own nature.

In Nexos Magazine of Mexico, María Olivera wrote that the exhibition starts from the premise: that it is possible to “reread.” The collection wanders through more than fifty years of history in  170 works and seeks to reconfigure the major milestones of modern and contemporary art.

The exhibition arises from a research process that, for three years, did not seek to construct a chronological narrative or generate a celebratory compendium, but rather to rethink the meaning of the collection as it reaches its half-century mark. As Paulina Bravo, chief curator of the FEMSA collection, explained, it was an exercise in historiography: returning to the origins, identifying the theoretical frameworks that guided the collection’s initial decisions, and bringing that history into the present day, understanding what it means to sustain the work that the multinational has carried out from a contemporary perspective.

This return to the past involved a physical exploration of the archive. In Bravo’s words, there was “a lot of work in storage: we found pieces that hadn’t received much attention, but that now felt relevant.” Understanding that a linear perspective wouldn’t fit within 1,800 square meters, the selection process ensured that each object corresponded to a specific historical moment, but that its meaning was activated in relation to current questions. Along the same lines, Beto Díaz, curatorial coordinator for the same collection, emphasized that “Constellations and Drifts…” does not aim to establish a single narrative about Latin America, as it recognizes the diversity of territories and contexts in the region.

Throughout its history, the collection has fluctuated between different ways of engaging with its audiences, due to a series of curatorial and pedagogical decisions made by those who preceded the current team. During certain periods, for example, the curatorial discourse prioritized the presentation of “masterpieces,” which meant leaving other works that did not fit into that category in storage. In contrast, the MARCO exhibition seeks to address both external stimuli and the internal dialogues within the collection, critically examining hierarchies. Key to this process has been the progressive dissolution of boundaries: “In recent years, the stark differences between modern and contemporary art have been erased, allowing them to engage in dialogue,” Díaz points out. Herein lies the importance of recontextualizing the pieces and questioning how their relevance is sustained.

The exhibition’s structure is inspired by an analytical and curatorial model initially developed by art historian Mari Carmen Ramírez in the 2000s. In this methodology, Ramírez explored a constellation model that allowed her to showcase the multifaceted nature of Latin American art, understanding each constellation as “an open and flexible category, capable of relating artists and works from diverse periods and trends.” Furthermore, this chronological and geographical disparity allowed for the abandonment of a linear progression of styles—sometimes contrary to the development of art in Latin America—and the proposal of new confrontations and dialogues within each constellation. From this network of open relationships between artists and works, five axes were established for the MARCO exhibition.