★ Zona Maco

01Why it matters

Zona Maco established that a serious international fair could work in Latin America, and it did so by building on a domestic collector base rather than importing one. It draws the region's galleries, from Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Bogotá, Lima and Guadalajara, with a substantial American, Spanish and northern European contingent.

Our reading is that the week's value has outgrown the fair. Mexico City in February is one of the most rewarding art weeks anywhere, because the city's museums, its modernist architecture and its own gallery scene are extraordinary. The fair is the excuse; the city is the event.

02The week around it

Mexico City Art Week now runs to several fairs and dozens of openings. Material Art Fair, the young-gallery counterpart, and Salón ACME, staged in a disused house in Colonia Juárez, are the two essential satellites and both are more interesting to walk through than the main fair. Galleries in Juárez, Roma Norte, San Miguel Chapultepec and Polanco hold openings across the week. The institutions are the real reason to come: Museo Jumex and Museo Soumaya stand next to each other in Polanco, the Museo Tamayo and the Museo Nacional de Antropología are in Chapultepec park, and the Casa Luis Barragán in Tacubaya is bookable in advance and the single best thing to see in the city.

03When to arrive

Tuesday, so that Wednesday evening's opening is not the first thing you do after a flight. The fair itself takes one day. Give the rest of the week to the city: one day for Chapultepec and the museums, one for the southern houses, and reserve the Barragán house well ahead because entry is by timed booking.

04Where to stay

Roma Norte and Condesa are where most international visitors stay: tree-lined, walkable, full of restaurants and close to the galleries, though about half an hour from the fair. Colonia Juárez is closer to the satellite fairs. Polanco is the most expensive and closest to Centro Citibanamex, the Jumex and the Soumaya. The Centro Histórico is the most interesting to walk and the least convenient for the fair.

05Access and hospitality

Zona Maco sells single-day and multi-day tickets through its website and at the venue, and admission covers all of the fair's divisions. The organizer publishes prices in Mexican pesos each year and they are not reproduced here. The Wednesday evening opening is a preview distributed through galleries and the fair's own list. The satellite fairs sell their own inexpensive tickets, almost all of the city's gallery openings are free, and the Casa Luis Barragán requires an advance booking and charges its own admission.

06Where the social activity happens

Centro Citibanamex is a convention centre in a part of the city with nothing around it, so the social geography of the week is entirely elsewhere. The evening moves to Roma Norte and Juárez: the bars and restaurants around Colima, Orizaba and Havre streets, the terraces on Álvaro Obregón, and the courtyards of the houses the smaller fairs occupy. Condesa's Parque México takes the later crowd. Mexico City eats late; nothing serious starts before nine.

07Getting there

08Practicalities

09History

Zelika García founded the fair in Monterrey in 2002 and moved it to Mexico City in 2004, where it took the Zona Maco name. It grew through the 2010s alongside a wider expansion of Mexican contemporary art institutions and by the 2020s had become the region's dominant fair. The design and antiques sections were added as separate divisions, giving it a range no purely contemporary event has.

10Who is there

Mexican collectors in the largest numbers, with strong representation from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Peru; American collectors and advisers, for whom Mexico City is a short flight; European galleries testing the region; museum and foundation staff from across Latin America; and a large local public, since the fair is a mainstream cultural event in the city. Design buyers form a distinct audience of their own here.