Exhibiting Contemporary Art in a Colonial Context at the Ex Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City

In July 2019, visitors gathered at the convent of Santa Teresa la Antigua in downtown Mexico City, a centuries-old religious sanctuary nestled between the Templo Mayor and the Palacio Nacional. They packed into the convent’s neo-classical chapel, which once enshrined a miraculous statue, not for a religious ceremony, but for a performance by a contemporary composer. Visual art Installations and live performances are a mainstay of the museum known as the Ex Teresa Arte Actual, which was founded by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1993. In this paper, I consider the ramifications of staging contemporary performance and installation art within the emptied halls of this colonial convent. Through a formal examination of the space itself, which has been rendered increasingly bare through waves of expropriation and secularization, as well as case studies of exhibitions from recent years, I reveal how the Ex Teresa Arte Actual anchors Mexico’s present to its colonial past. While some exhibitions have effectively reduced the building to a backdrop of decadent decay, much like those found in contemporary art galleries across the globe, others engage with the specific historical context of the site and the city around it. In both cases, I argue, the museum provides a place wherein the rituals of viewing contemporary art can be juxtaposed and overlaid with the lingering rhythms of baroque devotion that are produced by the architecture itself. The space merges past and present action, forging lived connections between the colonial city and the modern CDMX.