Mexico City Guide

Mexico City’s plethora of public art is rooted in postwar modernism, with artists responding to the city’s architecture in works that integrate into civic spaces. This rich heritage of public art has not only invested residents with a desire to be involved in shaping the image of Mexico City but, arguably, has also encouraged the appropriation of public space through spontaneous protests and the construction of anti-monuments, such as the Anti-monument to the 43 disappeared students at Ayotzinapa (2015) on Reforma and the Anti-Monument against Femicide (2019), installed opposite the Palace of Fine Arts. Though far from comprehensive, the following list of some of Mexico City’s most significant public artworks and buildings underscores how concrete was the defining medium of the era and how, through lending itself to an abstract visual language, it enabled artists to reject the modes of allegorical representation commonly employed by the state – and promoted through the favouring of muralism – to assert particular political ideologies.

View more of our City Guides