Despite the outbreak of swine flu, life goes on for this organ grinder in Mexico City. © Anthony Wright, 2009

Swine flu at Ground Zero (Mexico City): life in a masked city

People are still going about their business as usual, only we’re all wearing surgical facemasks. I can’t decide if this whole fear campaign is a massive media beat-up or if it has some credence. Greetings from Mexico City… On the subject of the city – and schools, and cinemas, and restaurants, and bars, and churches, […]

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Lawrence Tierney, who once played Elaine Benes' father in Seinfeld, was evidently a rather unhinged individual. © Anthony Wright, 2009 © Anthony Wright, 2009

The lurid artistry of the Mexican lobby card

Mention the name “Sean Flynn” to any savvy tween and the recognition is instant: “He stars in Zoey 101.” Indeed, the teenage actor, grandson of Australian-born screen legend Errol Flynn, is more than recognizable to legions of young Nickelodeon viewers. However history buffs, especially those cognizant with the Vietnam War, might associate the name with […]

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This magical portrait of the Virgin carries a message of peace. It is one of many graffiti murals on the Estadio Azteca (Aztec Stadium) in Mexico City. © Anthony Wright, 2009

Graffiti: the Estadio Azteca and Mexico City’s new wave muralists

Art and sport seem rarely intertwined. There is the American cliché of the muscle-bound football jock bursting with idiotic energy, indulging his time off the field to torment the nerdy, isolated artist (who invariably exacts his revenge by growing up to become a Hollywood screenwriter and perpetuating the cliché in teen flicks — wherein the […]

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"Permanent revolution," stencil grafitti art from Mexico City. © Anthony Wright, 2009

Graffiti: the wry humor of Mexico City street stencil art

Most modern art aficionados know that if mysterious British artist Banksy didn’t create the urban world’s love affair with quirky riddles in stencil art on public walls, then he certainly spearheaded its emergence into light — at least from a broader (if somewhat bemused and undecided) public’s point of view. Those in the know will […]

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The graffiti artist's tools of the trade-spray paint cans-lie at the base of a dramatic impression by a wall artist in Mexico City. © Anthony Wright, 2009

Graffiti: Mexico City’s wall art emerges from the shadows

In Mexico City, graffiti is a bit like prostitution. Nominally, it’s illegal — carrying a $1,000 peso (100 dollar) fine or a day in jail. But like the hookers plying their trade in mini skirt collectives along infamous thoroughfares such as Sullivan and Tlalpan, the rule of law doesn’t seem to stand in the way […]

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Andy Warhol art in Mexico City: The Bazaar Years (1951-1964)

Andy Warhol art in Mexico City: The Bazaar Years (1951-1964)

Mexico City is a center of art and culture, a required stop for world class traveling exhibits and concerts. Pop Art makes its presence known in Mexico City’s Museo de Arte de la SHCP. Pop Art is said to be the first movement to straddle two aesthetically opposed dimensions, arriving at a fresh place where […]

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Místico, La Sombra, and Volador Jr., photograph by Diego Gallegos © Anthony Wright, 2013

Mexico’s lucha libre: Street art in a Coyoacan museum

A new exhibit running through January at the Museo de las Culturas Populares in Coyoacan, Mexico City, celebrates the “wow” factor of the wrestling phenomenon known the world over as lucha libre (free fighting) — that is as famous a Mexican cultural export nowadays as Frida Kahlo, Day of the Dead, and tequila. It’s also big in […]

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View of Mexico City's Templo Mayor from the onsite museum © Anthony Wright, 2013

Mexico City’s Templo Mayor connects Mexicans with their past

Despite years living in Mexico City, I had never been to the archeological zone of Templo Mayor — once the heart of the Aztec empire of Tenochtitlan, now located in the heart of the Historic Centre next to the National Palace and the Cathedral — right off the Zócalo, until very recently. It was something […]

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