After a successful first edition, and as another testament to Mexico City’s burgeoning art scene, festival Tono is back this year until March 24th with a very rich and complete programme of free activities including installations, screenings, and performances. Taking places in a wide range of venues, from Laboratorio de Arte Alameda to Centro de Cultura Digital and Ex Teresa Arte Actual, the second edition of the festival promises to become a mandatory stop for art lovers in the city.
The festival opened on Tuesday with a multi-screen installation of Gabriel Massan’s Continuity Flaws: Rumours of a Leak co-curated with UK’s Serpentine Galleries, which marks the Brazilian artist’s first presentation in Mexico. In this artwork, the multimedia artist references philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva’s book Unpayable Debt, described as “a Black feminist reading of race, global capitalism and futurity,” and creates a new, digital world where new moments of connection are made possible. And looking to promote emerging artists, Massan collaborates with fellow Brazilian artists Lyzza and Agazero on the sound design.
Just yesterday, the festival kept up the pace with a performance by Emilija Škarnulytė at Centro de Cultura Digital, where she also has an installation of her video work Æqualia. In it, the artist encarnates a posthuman creature that denounces the repercussions of human arrogance and the limit of our species, taking as a starting point the drought of the Encontro das Águas, a unique place in the Amazon where two rivers met and where pink dolphins (known locally as botos) used to live. Also in the same venue, the collaboration between Tono and the Pérez Art Museum Miami hosted a screening programme with works by artists like (La)Horde, Biarritzzz, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Seba Calfuqueo, Leo Castañeda, Colectivo Ixqcrear, Cristóbal Cea, Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau and Carlos Motta, among others.
In the next few days, more performances, screenings, and talks will follow. For example, the Centro Cultural de España is hosting Sudor, a performance by Nicolás Poggi, which is a continuation of his 2023 piece El bobo. Joshua Serafin will bring his Void spectacle to Museo del Cárcamo Dolores, where he gives birth to a god(dess) in current times through a choreography that defies gender norms and engaging in a process of healing from generational trauma. Next Tuesday, artist Tania Ximena will talk with curator Marisela Castro to discuss both her performance and exhibition at Ex Teresa Actual and the exhibition hosted by gallery Llano. If you want to know more about the festival’s full schedule, check Tono’s website here.
Emilija Škarnulytė, Æqualia, 2023
Gabriel Massan, Continuity Flaws - Rumors of a Leak, 2023-2024
Tania Ximena, Río de Niebla, Río de Adobe, Río de Sangre, 2023