Curro Borrego, founder of the CURRO gallery, welcomes us to his space the day after the busiest season of the year for the art world in Guadalajara. Art Week has just ended, and the walls still echo with the voices of collectors, visitors, and artists who passed through the studio as part of the event.
Curro, as he’s better known to his friends and colleagues, confesses that he suffers from “postpartum depression” due to the letdown after “a weekend you plan so far in advance and want to be perfect.” “Every year this grows exponentially in an incredible way, so much so that it overwhelms me and I don’t know how much to take in. But I always have these highlights that I try not to miss. Every year, Art Week becomes a beast of its own, which no one controls anymore—it’s a thing unto itself,” he says.
I was just packing my bags for Zona Maco in Mexico City. The world doesn’t stop, nor does the love of art.
CURRO and the appetite for art in Jalisco and among international audiences
In nearly 20 years of history, CURRO has become a leading figure in the contemporary art scene of Guadalajara, Jalisco, for an international audience. Over the years, the space has been both a key player and a witness to the scene.
“After all these years, I sense that the public is eager to experience art and visit cultural venues; besides, Guadalajara is a city that loves to party, and visitors really enjoy that too,” he acknowledges, “as long as that appetite continues to exist, we need to be there to satisfy it.”
CURRO: What are today’s collectors like?
The new collector is part of that audience, and one of CURRO’s goals is precisely to meet that demand: “When you’re just starting to collect art, sometimes you need a little push or an excuse. In this case, it’s about building a lot of trust so that the potential collector’s enthusiasm is accompanied by peace of mind.”
“At CURRO, we’ve proven over the years that we’ve maintained a high level of professionalism and a very consistent program; that’s also important when it comes to making decisions. “Collectors feel very confident because they know they’re investing in interesting, innovative, and experimental works, but ones that are also backed by a significant career,” he says.
On what it means to be a Guadalajara-based gallery in a globalized world and the relationship with local identity amid CURRO’s significant international reach, he comments: “It’s a challenge, because it could be the case that, since Guadalajara is now in the spotlight, people might expect us to talk about a regional or specific movement—something that has never interested us. We’ve always tried to maintain a global perspective—with similar interests, yes—but we never speak from a regional standpoint,” says Curro.
The Challenges Facing CURRO
“It’s an interesting phenomenon, and obviously we work with local artists because that’s what we have around us—what we’ve grown up with and, I believe, helped nurture. However, that is a challenge I see as a gallery in Guadalajara, and we believe it is important for people to start viewing the consumption—even if only visual—of art in a more global way, without geographical or national labels.”
However, for Curro, it is clear that there is a distinct line separating the gallery’s curatorial approach: “Of course, we have a clear idea of what we like, but we try to challenge ourselves so as not to simply be complacent.”
“If we want to lead the conversation, we also have to dare to take risks that we aren’t always comfortable with, but that are consistent with our intentions and our aesthetic”— Curro
“I’m interested in elegant solutions to these complicated ideas,” he says. “I’m quite interested in the solution being just as ingenious as the concept. And that almost always results in aesthetics that are, perhaps, clean. It’s something we’ve tried to do over the years, and sometimes it works better than others; but here we are: that’s the aesthetic that has set us apart,” he explains.
The biggest risk the gallery has faced over the years: simply existing. “Yes, because when we started, the art scene that exists today didn’t exist. I was very young, and it took a tremendous amount of effort to get the few collectors to take notice of me and to get the artists to join me on this journey.” And another risky move has been that we’ve always been interested in multidisciplinary work: we’re not afraid of installations, video, sculpture, photography—whatever it may be. “And that is obviously a challenge, especially today given current market trends, where the focus is heavily on paint.”
The New World Order of Art
And that trend, he explains, has to do with the economy. Shipping paintings is more affordable, and the market is more receptive to them. For Curro, a major shift in art distribution is on the horizon: “The new world order is making shipping very complicated; it’s complicating many things due to geographical restrictions, which also makes us lose interest in certain art fairs that used to be pivotal on our calendar. In fact, I believe that many of these fairs will cease to exist in the coming years due to these border issues.”
In light of this, Curro asserts that galleries will have to come up with new strategies, and that one ray of hope is to embrace globalization even more.
Balance & Shift at CURRO Gallery
The gallery is currently hosting the exhibition Balance & Shift, curated by Richard T. Walker in collaboration with Letha Wilson, featuring works by Meg Lipke, Teresa Baker, and Dion Lee. “None of them are Mexican, much less from Guadalajara, but I think the aesthetic is very much of this place—it’s very spatial and elegant. Exploring the landscape and how to translate it into visual art is also a very complex challenge,” he concludes.
The Sunday gathering came to a close— Galería CURRO and its team had a trip to Mexico City ahead of them—with one thing clear: this established art space in western Mexico is more than what lies within its four walls; beyond the artworks, the installations, and its history, there is a stance and a perspective on what is happening in the art world—both in Guadalajara and across Mexico and the world.
CURRO | 726 Andrés Terán St., Santa Teresita neighborhood, Guadalajara
Learn more about the gallery owners and studios setting the trends at AW Magazine
