Guadalajara comes alive with intensity and wonder during ART WKND GDL. This was the week when the city became one of the epicenters of the national and international art scene.
Guadalajara comes alive with excitement and wonder during ART WKND GDL, the week when the city opens its doors to become the epicenter of national and international art.
ART WKND GDL is a contemporary art and design platform that showcases the most innovative works on the current scene; it has established itself as one of the most significant cultural events in western Mexico.
In 2026, Guadalajara’s major art festival took place from Thursday, January 29, to Sunday, February 1. It was a long weekend that made it clear that, at least for a few days, all roads in the art world led to Guadalajara.
This year’s concept—an open-door event —remained true to the event’s original spirit: exploring the main venues that hosted the works created for the occasion. ART WKND GDL led attendees to unexpected, unlocked locations, reaffirming its commitment to openness and discovery. From the studio where artists keep their demons at bay—so the muses can roam freely—to established or emerging galleries. From conversations about a piece to debates, to the photo op where everyone wants to be in the shot, and, together, to the city’s vibrant and dynamic cultural scene.
Claudio Limón and the visual identity of ART WKND GDL 2026
Guadalajara-based artist Claudio Limón was a key figure in this edition, bringing the graphic concept of ART WKND GDL 2026 to life. His participation included a solo exhibition open to the public (You Will Not Live with Your Eyes Closed), various collective interventions in public spaces and iconic monuments—such as the arches on Vallarta Avenue—as well as the design of the event’s official logo.
“Depicting Guadalajara through my own lens was a challenge, but also something I thoroughly enjoyed. The idea was to capture everything that surrounds us during this week,” shared the founder of Casa Limón during a visit to his studio. His inspiration stemmed from elements deeply rooted in the local landscape: the characteristic mosaics on the city sidewalks, reinterpreted from a contemporary perspective.
The launch and urban vibe of ART WKND GDL 2026
The event kicked off with a video mapping projection on the evening of Thursday, the 29th, in the atrium of the Guadalajara Cathedral. Venues such as the Cabañas Museum, the Rotonda, and the Degollado Theater were also featured. That marked the start of the event.
The mission of seeing everything proved as challenging as it was unlikely, given the sheer number of events and openings taking place simultaneously. While the city has the access and mobility needed, the key to enjoying the weekend was to be selective, without losing sight of the goal of being as inclusive as possible and without missing out on the must-see artists and galleries.
The key areas of ART WKND GDL 2026
Thus, the experience was as free-spirited as it was playful: seeing, hearing, touching—when circumstances allowed—and, best of all for those who enjoy art and everything that surrounds a piece, looking directly at the artist and their unique creative processes, and hear him engage in dialogue and deliver the speech he surely rehearsed for months to defend his work.
The Historic District, the Americana neighborhood, and the Santa Teresita neighborhood were among the areas where most of the activity took place and where the key venues were located. It is worth noting that several site-specific projects were launched during the event: exhibitions and pop-ups that existed only during Art Week to capitalize on its momentum.
One of them was CAL, Cooperativa de Agentes Líquidos, a collective led by Ana Alcantar, Virginia Jáuregui, and Adriana Torres, which comes together a couple of times a year as part of the city’s two annual art weeks—the second of which takes place in September. Their presentation featured established artists such as Gabriel Rico, Agustín Solórzano, and Gonzalo Lebrija, alongside emerging artists.
Curro: a key gallery at ART WKND GDL 2026
One of the must-see stops was Curro, one of the longest-running contemporary art galleries in Guadalajara.
“Everyyear, this grows exponentially. It’s something that’s constantly changing, and hopefully it’s for the good of the artistic community”— Curro
Yes, the outlook is good, according to Curro Borrego from his gallery, one day after the whirlwind of the city’s most explosive week for the art world.
In this edition, Curro opened the group exhibition *Balance and Shift*, featuring works by Letha Wilson, Meg Lipke, Dionne Lee, Teresa Baker, and Richard T. Walker. The exhibition draws on photography, video, painting, sculpture, and installation to explore the unpredictability of life and the relationship between perception and experience. The exhibition succeeds in conveying a sense of familiarity through recognizable elements of everyday life that, when stripped of their functionality, take on a different kind of magnetism—and drama.
Contemporary Art Platform and Its International Dialogue
Plataforma Arte Contemporáneo, a space located in the Americana neighborhood, presented *Here, Now*, the third installment of the series curated by London-based Sacha Craddock. The exhibition brought together the work of eight artists from Los Angeles and Tijuana, with an almost musical rhythm to its layout. Megan Plunkett and Nihura Monteil were among the standout artists, alongside the recognizable black-and-white photographs of Yvonne Venegas. An exhibition that engaged with the event’s international pulse and confirmed Guadalajara’s role as a meeting point between scenes.
On Friday night at the Plataforma venue, a big official ART WKND GDL party was also held.
Eduardo Sarabia and sensory experience as a common ground
Eduardo Sarabia, one of the most influential artists of his generation, prioritized sensory comfort by installing a high-definition sound system and inviting a DJ to his open house in the Seattle neighborhood of Zapopan.
“I usually like to open up my studio for Art Week. I think it’s a really interesting way to welcome visitors, show them what projects I’m working on, and start building connections,” explained the L.A.-born artist of Mexican descent. His installation took the form of a listening room where the rugs—the result of a collaboration with the Mughal brand, produced in India—served both as exhibited pieces and as active elements within a sound experience.
Jorge Méndez Blake and the Art of Writing Without Being a Writer
Jorge Méndez Blake opened his studio, and although it was nearly impossible to find a free moment to talk with him—since half the world wanted to congratulate him—the Guadalajara-based artist took a break to tell us about his work and his relationship with writing. Rather than identifying as a writer, Méndez Blake plays at being one. He incorporates text as part of the artistic process, not as an end in itself.
“I don’t sit down to write the way writers do,” he explains. His practice is built on the daily making of art, where writing emerges as a key tool, accumulating over time into fragments, lines, and potential books. For the artist, the literary canon is neither sacred nor untouchable: it is vulnerable, worthy of being used, distorted, and destroyed. Only in this way—through rupture—does something new emerge. His exhibition and his immense studio, where we were greeted by a car in which books held up the absence of a tire, was one of the most visited.
Roxy Hall: Architectural Memory and Contemporary Practices
A visit to the legendary space that once housed a movie theater and later a cultural center was another must-see stop. The echoes of a place steeped in history remain alive: the walls and their restoration tell a story all on their own. As part of ART WKND GDL, Miriam Villaseñor and Patrick Charpenel curated an exhibition of crafts, design, and sculpture featuring works by Luis Miguel Suro, Francisco Ugarte, Cynthia Gutiérrez, and Fernando González Cortázar, among others.
Other notable venues included Central de Arte, which hosted an exhibition curated by Milo Medina featuring artists such as Teresa Margolles, Santiago Sierra, and the Guatemalan artist Jorge de León.
Jose Dávila and Balance as a Sculptural Language
“I don’t know if art is always cathartic, but there are works that clearly make you deeply question very personal things,” Jose Dávila remarked as his studio was swarming with visitors and collectors.
His exhibition during Art Week focused on sculptures that explore balance, gravity, tension, and the dialogue between nature and industrialization. From a distance, his work seems daring and defiant, even in the face of physics, but behind the beauty lie the meticulous processes shaped by the artist’s training as an architect.
Target Practice: Art as a Bond
At Tiro al Blanco, a gallery known for its successful curatorial projects, ART WKND GDL 2026 also had a prominent presence. “It is the art that must speak; we are the link,” Rodrigo Blanco told us during our visit to this space located in the Artesanos neighborhood, in the Santa Teresita district. At the venue, artist Marek Wolfryd presented *Economic Feelings*, a solo exhibition in collaboration with Solivagus and curated by MS Yániz.
The closure of the MAZ and the experience as a radical act
On Sunday, there were still collectors and visitors—mostly foreigners—who took advantage of their stopover in the city before heading to their next destination, Zona MACO, and who wanted to see more before catching their flight. At the Zapopan Art Museum (MAZ) , various activities took place. Among them, Alejandra Laviada presented *La escalera hizo caer la casa*(The Staircase Brought Down the House), an exhibition of sculptures made from objects salvaged from abandoned buildings or those in the process of demolition.
Seeing the unsettling works of Tino Sehgal, a Berlin-based artist of German and Indian descent, was a fitting finale. He presented a couple of unexpected and powerful pieces based on human interaction (warning: spoiler alert). No one anticipated that one of the pieces would consist of a group of people of different ages and personalities running around the small square adjacent to the MAZ while humming a Kraftwerk song.
The second piece, titled *The Kiss*, led us into a completely dark room where—once our eyes had adjusted to the dim light—we discovered a couple reenacting, in close embrace, the poses of Klimt’s figures as they rolled across the floor. Photography was not allowed, but rather than a restriction, it was a statement: this was an experience to be lived, not documented.
ART WKND GDL 2026, a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem
Travesía Cuatro, Cerámica Suro, Gabriel Rico, Guadalajara90210 ( where we saw, among other things, the bizarre pop art of designer Lino Vite), the studios of Luis Alfonso Villalobos and Gonzalo Lebrija, Galería Palma, among other venues, were also part—among many others—of a tour that confirms something essential: ART WKND GDL is not just a prelude to the art fair circuit or just another date on the art calendar, but an exercise in urban and cultural appropriation that is already a destination with a personality of its own.
Many of the exhibitions opened for the occasion will remain on view for varying lengths of time in each of the venues.
For a few days, Guadalajara didn’t just host art— it brought it to life, spread it throughout the city, and integrated it into daily life, leaving a lasting impact that extends beyond the weekend and reaffirming its place as one of the country’s most vibrant art scenes.
Coming soon to the pages of AW Magazine: the full interviews we conducted with the key figures of this pivotal week in the artistic development of Guadalajara and the Mexican contemporary art scene.
