Material Art Fair Vol. 12: ASMA, Jose Bonell, Lucas Cantú, Manuela de Laborde, Tomás Díaz Cedeño, Carolina Fusilier, Lukas Gschwandtner, Carlos H. Matos, Caroline Mesquita, Theo Michael, Victoria Nuñez Estrada, Vica Pacheco, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Julia Rometti, and Alan Sierra
PEANA’s booth for Material Vol. 12 is conceived as a constructed space where art and architecture intersect, understood as systems that organize bodies, materials, and movement. A panel structure and two original Josef Hoffmann chairs function not as decorative elements, but as architectural and conceptual devices: they structure movement, frame encounters, and foreground the relationship between the body and the built environment. Anchored by a historical sketch for the stone mural by Jorge González Camarena for the IMSS building on Reforma, the presentation reflects on the image as a structure—where material, labor, and symbolism converge.
Bringing this framework into the present, the works on view explore form and matter as carriers of thought: from ASMA’s material reliefs and Lucas Cantú’s sculptural devices, to Carlos H. Matos’s monumentality; from María Fragoso’s drawing, where the egg operates as a compact symbol of vulnerability and transformation, to the speculative structures of Tomás Díaz Cedeño and Carolina Fusilier. Works by Julia Rometti and Caroline Mesquita further extend concerns of modernization and progress through material investigations and objecthood. Alan Sierra’s work extends Camarena’s concerns into the present, reflecting on hyperproductivity and the contemporary body shaped by systems of constant output.
Together, the booth proposes the image not as representation, but as an active, spatial field of meaning.
PEANA’s booth for Material Art Fair Vol. 12 is conceived as a constructed space where art and architecture intersect—where objects do not simply occupy space but actively organize it. A panel structure and two original Josef Hoffmann chairs function not as decorative elements, but as architectural and conceptual devices: they structure movement, frame encounters, and foreground the relationship between the body and the built environment.
At the core of the presentation is a historical sketch for the stone mural by Jorge González Camarena for the IMSS building on Reforma, which serves as an anchor for the booth. The drawing anticipates an understanding of the image rooted in matter, structure, and symbolism—where the body, architecture, and material operate as a unified system of signs. In González Camarena’s mural work, the body often appears bound to cycles of labor, production, and progress, revealing a persistent tension between collective construction and individual strain.
This way of thinking resonates strongly with contemporary practices that understand form and material as carriers of thought. ASMA’s cubist reliefs construct speculative narratives through materiality and color; Lucas Cantú approaches the artifact and sculpture as devices—objects that appear functional or archaeological, yet operate as containers of time, gesture, and memory. Carlos H. Matos works through sculpture and monumentality, testing scale as both a physical and conceptual condition. María Fragoso’s drawing uses the egg as a symbolic structure where protection, vulnerability, and transformation coexist. Tomás Díaz Cedeño and Carolina Fusilier engage form and matter from a speculative perspective, proposing structures that oscillate between the organic and the imagined. Julia Rometti and Caroline Mesquita extend concerns of modernization and progress through material investigations and objecthood, where sculptural forms echo the logics of industrial design, efficiency, and the residual traces of modernist ideals. Alan Sierra’s take on the Thonet chair reflects on hyperproductivity, extending González Camarena’s concerns into the present by examining how the contemporary body is shaped, disciplined, and exhausted by systems of constant output.
Together, the works propose the booth as a system rather than a display: a space where the body is understood as structure, identity as construction, and the image as an active field of signs and symbolism. In this sense, González Camarena is not positioned as a historical reference alone, but as a point of departure—one that allows us to consider how images continue to think, materially and spatially, in the present.
