Observer Arts Interviews: Feria Material Founder Brett W. Schultz

You started as a gallerist before launching Feria Material in 2014. What motivated you to enter the fair business, and how did you hope to impact Mexico City’s art scene? 

I moved to Mexico City in 2007, and starting in 2008, I co-directed a gallery called Yautepec with Daniela Elbahara. The early 2010s were honestly a great moment for contemporary art in Mexico City. In 2011, this small scene—a mix of young Mexican artists and international artists who had recently moved to the city—started coalescing around this project space called Preteen Gallery, which was run by a visionary curator Gerardo Contreras. By 2013, it felt like everyone in Mexico City had a project space. There was Lodos, started by Francisco Cordero Oceguera; NO SPACE, which was run by the artists Andrew Birk and Débora Delmar; Bikini Wax, run by Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Ramón Izaguirre, Rodrigo García and Cristóbal Gracia; Tanja Nijmeijer Gallery, run by the artist Rachel de Joode; Lulu, run by the curator Chris Sharp and the artist Martín Soto Climent; Casa Maauad, run by the artist and collector Anuar Maauad; and so many others. Yautepec was close to this scene—we were all friends.

It all felt incredibly alive. Of course, we were all very young and very cocky. But the funny thing was that while these exhibitions were getting a bunch of attention internationally through social media (this was the era of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr; Instagram was just getting started), Mexico City was mostly indifferent. None of the institutional curators were going to those shows. None of the collectors were buying the work.

The road toward Feria Material started around then. For the art week in 2013, Yautepec had decided not to participate in ZONAMACO, and instead, we organized a pop-up show called Raw Material in collaboration with galleries we admired, like Proyectos Ultravioleta from Guatemala, La Central (now Instituto de Visión) from Colombia, DiabloRosso from Panama and Sultana from France. We didn’t have plans for an art fair yet, but the whole experience of organizing that event with the other galleries was really energizing, and it got us thinking.

Feria Material grew out of that particular moment: our belief that Mexico City had a really exciting new scene that deserved a platform to support it, our conviction that there were young international galleries waiting for the right reason to come to Mexico City and the pure fun of creating something like Raw Material. By that summer, we had partnered with Isa Castilla, and we were making an art fair.

Now in its 11th edition, Feria Material has become a key platform for emerging and cutting-edge galleries worldwide. How does it differ from and complement ZONAMACO?

Zélika and the ZONAMACO team have done the very difficult job of securing Mexico City’s place in the annual art fair calendar. It takes a fair of a certain size and strength to do that kind of heavy lifting, and I have a lot of respect for them.

From the outset, the intention with Material was always to complement ZONAMACO with another high-quality fair, but one that offers a more intimate and focused experience. This can be hugely helpful for galleries, especially those that are actively building a market and institutional awareness for their artists. The human scale that we offer has been fundamental to ensuring that every exhibitor and visitor feels like they’re part of a meaningful, relevant and coherent conversation. 

What can you tell us about how the fair has grown over the years? 

I’ve actually thought about this quite a bit lately. The first few years, from 2014 to 2017, were all about exploration and experimentation. Every fair felt radically different from the last—there was so much energy and trial and error. But we learned a lot and mostly had fun in the process.

From 2018 to 2020, it was growth and consolidation. We moved to the Frontón México, where we introduced the multi-level scaffolding structure that APRDELESP had designed. Our performance program, IMMATERIAL—curated by Michelangelo Miccolis—was becoming more ambitious each year. We had fantastic graphic design from Carla Valdivia and interior design by Fabien Cappello. The fair began attracting more renowned national and international galleries, more collectors, bigger institutions. For me, at that moment, it felt like Material had really arrived.

Then, right after our 2020 edition, the pandemic threw us unceremoniously into a long, dark tunnel of financial, emotional and existential crises. But, on the bright side, it also gave us pause to think deeply about what Material’s role could and should be in the larger scheme of things. That led to our partnership with Del Castillo y Castro Abogados and the creation of Proyectos, our two-year program that supports artist-run spaces in Mexico by offering them free exhibition space, mentorship and workshops. We also launched our nationally focused fair, Estación Material, in Guadalajara, thanks to our tapatío godfather, José Noé Suro.

SEE ALSO: On the Rise of ZONAMACO: An Interview With Fair Founder Zélika García

Those initiatives were really about supporting our more immediate community of galleries, artists, and spaces through platforms that felt much more meaningful and foundational. And finally, since 2023, I’d say we’ve entered our maturing phase. Returning to Expo Reforma and signing a multi-year contract was a conscious, adult decision—it gave Feria Material the stability it needed to fully recover and continue growing. We simplified the fair’s architecture in order to make the artwork the star of the show again. We reimagined our organizational structure, and we hired a great team.

That’s all to say that we recognized that the generation of galleries we’ve grown alongside have different needs now than they did before. So our focus is on meeting them where they’re at and continuing to be the fair they need us to be in the future.

Even as the fair expanded in exhibitors and international reach, it has always prioritized curation and research. Can you share more about your selection process and key priorities? 

Our main priority has always been to maintain a platform that feels relevant and meaningful to our exhibitors and their artists. We rely on a selection committee that deeply understands our fair, its context, its strengths and its limitations. The selection process is about curating a fair that feels coherent and thoughtful—one that balances established and emerging voices and facilitates meaningful dialogue between them. Ultimately, our goal is that every exhibitor feels they’re part of something special, with the best possible context to present their artists’ work.

Feria Material’s low participation fees encourage younger galleries to apply. How does this strategy on the business side translate into greater accessibility, diversity and, eventually, high curatorial quality?

This goes back to the question of the human scale of the fair. The key to that has been maintaining smaller stand sizes in general. For instance, the stands in our principal section range from 7.5 meters squared to 26 meters squared. As a result, the cost of entry is relatively low compared to other fairs, where the smallest stand you’ll find is probably the size of our largest stand. In that sense, it’s a question of proportion. That said, we make a major effort each year to keep our price per square meter steady. It’s definitely a conscious strategy. We want our galleries to manage their risk and introduce new artists without having to worry that they’ll have to close their doors if they don’t find the right collectors.

Has your outlook on the fair business changed since you first started? 

I think what we need is a healthier ecosystem—one built from the ground up rather than a system where thousands of galleries are buying very expensive lottery tickets to place works by tens of thousands of artists into the collections of the same handful of high-profile collectors. Personally, I’d like to modestly propose a re-regionalization of the entire art market, where galleries and artists can take pride in growing steadily over time with the active support of collectors and curators who truly understand the context in which those galleries operate and where their artists’ practices come from, and who can genuinely champion them. I guess on my end, the key questions are: how can an art fair create context instead of collapsing it? How can it support real, thriving ecosystems rather than perpetuating imaginary ones?

Mexico City’s art scene has expanded rapidly, especially post-pandemic, with new galleries and spaces emerging across various districts. Meanwhile, recent biennials and exhibitions have amplified global interest in Latin American art, both institutionally and in the market. Do you have thoughts to share on the state of Mexico City’s art scene and the broader Mexican art market?

To be honest, I don’t know if I have a clear view of it now. I just think there’s still a lot of work to be done.