CURATION AS CONVERSATION WITH MAGALÍ ARRIOLA

Magalí Arriola understands curating as a form of accompaniment — the ongoing dialogue between research, artists, and audiences that has guided her career across institutions and independent projects alike. Her entry into curating in the 1990s coincided with a turning point in Mexico, when institutions began to professionalize and position themselves within a global contemporary art circuit through traveling exhibitions and new international collaborations. At the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, where she was chief curator from 1998 to 2001, she worked with artists such as Francis Alÿs, Miguel Calderón, and Daniela Rossell, part of a generation that brought Mexico City’s art world into conversation with broader conceptual and experimental practices. She has also held curatorial leadership roles at Museo Jumex and Museo Tamayo. In between institutional roles, she has written and curated extensively. For her, research, writing, and curating exist without hierarchy and remain open-ended processes. “It is very difficult to give research a definitive end,” she says. This constant movement — between independence and institutions, across writing, curating, and even filmmaking — has defined her career. In 2018, she presented her directorial debut, the short film A Place Out of History (Un lugar fuera de la historia). It was based on research from an eponymous show she curated at Tamayo in 2010, which surveyed artists, including Tina Modotti, Hito Steyerl, and Jill Magid, who engage in falsified histories, forged provenance, and dubious identities. “That project helped me understand my own curatorial identity.” Currently, she is curating a group exhibition at Mendes Wood DM in New York, which opened in September 2025, and working on a project with artist Ana Segovia for the Fundación Cervieri Monsuárez in Uruguay, opening in January 2026. For Arriola, curating is a process of articulating research into forms that can be read, understood, and enjoyed, while remaining flexible enough to generate new dialogues.