CURATOR: Daniel Garza Usabiaga

FEMSA and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey present the exhibition The Material Order of Things: A Reading of the FEMSA Collection, which focuses on the presence of everyday objects in the creation of artworks, either as references or, primarily, through their physical presence.

The exhibition highlights the presence of objects and their symbolic charge in painting genres such as still life and vanitas. By the 20th century, with French Cubism, still life became crucial in introducing everyday objects into artworks. Later, Dada and Surrealism fully incorporated the everyday object as an artistic work through found, assembled, or modified objects. By using them, some works seek to leverage their multiple meanings to offer critical commentary on reality. This logic continues in contemporary art, as seen in the work of numerous artists who have made the object one of their common materials.

Considering the richness of the FEMSA Collection, The Material Order of Things also aims to illustrate this process in relation to the history of art and the everyday object in Mexico, establishing a dialogue between works produced in the country and those created by artists from various parts of Latin America over the past three decades, highlighting similarities, differences, and other types of associations.