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26/11/2008

ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City

State Museum of Modern Art of the Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow

A huge exhibition of contemporary Mexican art within the framework of the festival "Mexico in Moscow"

Curated by: Christina Faesler and Jeronimo Hagerman

This exhibition is part of a monumental project realized in 2002. It was then that the book "ABCDF: The Graphic Dictionary of Mexico City", including 2.000 photographs united in 515 topics and accompanied by 45 texts, was published. It allows us to visualize its main character — huge in size and infinitely surprising, the City of Mexico. Its pages offer a variety of perspectives by 250 photographers who have captured the many manifestations of the city they live in, and the city living in them.

The ABCDF exhibition, based on the graphic dictionary, was first presented in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico. It displayed 350 exhibits — photographs, objects of daily life, and other exhibits. The show had great success: it attracted 200.000 visitors in the first three months, and later traveled to New York, Washington, and then to Paris and other European cities. The ABCDF exhibition unveils one of the biggest and most exciting cities in the world. The show? s popularity is closely linked to its success in showing the joy and fun that reign in Mexico.

The unique feature of this project is the texts that accompany each exhibit, and the dictionary entries, briefly defining the key words of the show. This project is not meant to be an all-embracing description of the city — it just makes us a little closer to the everyday life of Mexico. It vividly characterizes Mexico as an inventive, funny, emotional, dangerous, excessive, impulsive, proud, ardent and incredible city.

This show teaches us to look at the city from different angles. This is a group portrait of 20 million people living day by day quite happily. Mexico and Moscow are very much alike: two big cities, rich in contrasts and resources, throbbing with life, the cities that never sleep. For those who have never been to Mexico, ABCDF gives a chance to form the first impression.

Being dwellers of one of the world? s biggest cities, we found ourselves under the influence of an incredible number of various forces and had confronted such diverse information that we felt compelled to write a book and to put up an exhibition that would tell what it is like to live in such a huge city as Mexico (or the Federal District of Mexico, as it is officially referred to), focusing on the free and fun interplay of images.

This project is the result of continuous society observation practices. It is an attempt to understand how people establish contact with the city, what attracts them most, what their internal and external motivation is. Our aim was not to criticize or praise the city, but to try to comprehend what it means to live in an urban of this size.

Christina Faesler and Jeronimo Hagerman, authors and curators of the project.


The ABCDF exhibition is organized within the framework of the "Mexico in Moscow" festival. An unforgettable splash of Mexican culture for the first time opens the riches of sunshine, colours, sounds, flavours, and traditions of Mexico to Moscow public.

Mexico in Moscow is an attempt to give an idea of contemporary Mexico, so little known in Russia. Mexico in Moscow is an invitation to get to know the country through its art and culture, to feel its spirit, and the hot spicy flavour of the place where ancient civilizations have intertwined with a rapidly developing economy. The program of the festival reveals the various aspects of the bright and cheerful character of Mexico: fine arts and architecture, cuisine, cinematography, music and books. Two exhibitions, that have received great international success, will open in Moscow: "ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City" (State Museum of Modern Art of the Russian Academy of Arts; organized by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art), and "Contemporary Mexican Architecture" (Schusev State Museum of Architecture), as well as the photo exhibition by Kirill Ovchinnikov "Mexico. The Day of the Dead... The Triumph of Life" (Schusev State Museum of Architecture). Martha Ortis, the best Michelin Star chef in Mexico, will be demonstrating the refinement, sophistication and variety of Mexican cuisine during one week at Nedalny Vostok Restaurant. Eight young Mexican musicians will perform classical Mexican music at the Moscow State Conservatory. The contemporary Mexican film festival, which will be held at "Formula Kino Europe" and "Formula Kino Gorizont" cinema houses, will introduce debut feature films by the famous Mexican actors — Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. Newly released books, "The Miraculous Reality of Mexico as Seen by Russians, From the XVI to the XXI Century", prepared by the State Library of Foreign Literature and published by Yuri Friedstein, and the "New Brief History of Mexico", prepared by Colegio de Mexico and the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, will be presented as part of the festival.

Official website of the Festival: http://www.mexicofest.ru

Partners of the Festival:

Nedalny Vostok Restaurant
CoolConnections Art Association P. I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory
Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences
M. I. Rudomino All-Russia State Library of Foreign Literature
Balchug Kempinski Hotel Moscow
Afisha Magazine
ProMexico: Trade and Investment

Sponsored by DeDietrich

State Museum of Modern Art of the Russian Academy of Arts
10 Gogolevsky Boulevard Moscow

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