If you punch into google (or perhaps my algorithm’s version) and ask for the city best known for Contemporary Art, the web will regurgitate the insect of information that New York City is arguably the Contemporary Art capital. This title is bestowed upon the 13 mile wide island due to the fact that NYC is home to more institutions than any other city in the world. Yet, the exodus of international-arts-oriented-millennials to Mexico City, tells us another history. Anyone who has recently visited CDMX, can attest to the captivating art scene that bleeds through the city built on top of Lago de Texcoco. A tour through Roma alone you can encounter on both the street and the white walls artistic practices from the ancient and ancestral to cutting edge technology. With sabroso smells that fill the air, galleries high brow and punk in almost every neighborhood, fire breathers next to your car, dancers in the park, flowers brighter than the sun, purple rain in the jacaranda season, intricate weavings, baskets and murals amply available, you don't have to spend a lot to experience art in Mexico- particularly on Sundays when most of the museums are free.
According to Scout Zabinski, history cannot be singular because there are infinite stories. New York born and based, Scout is currently learning about Mexico City’s narrative whilst residing at Edith Vaisberg’s Adhesivo Residency. Scout is an academic who recounts social theory via painting, playing both the role of the narrator and the subject. Scout’s painting’s in her solo exhibition Hard and Fast star her fairytale green eyes that take note from early Feminists like Shirin Neshat and Cindy Sherman who gazed back. If her face isn’t present we are presented with Zabinski's incriminating tattooed hands that say I’m here like Diego Velasquez’s cameo in Las Meninas.
In Hard As You Can Zabinski’s stiletto-shaped claws hold up a piñata against a pavement backdrop. The black hole to fill the candy has shadow’s that evoke a primordial connection to the divine feminine. The depth of the darkness arouses Ana Mendieta’s punctured holes in her sand silhouette series.The erotic nature of the gaping is quite literally overshadowed by the lack of candy. The abyss surrounded by the colorful tissue paper is a gentle reminder that the two dimensionality of painting can be a screen to keep secrets for artists. Scout told us what she wanted, As Hard Are You Can, but the viewer is left thinking about what's going to burst out.
Images courtesy of Scout Zabinsky “Hard As You Can”
The 24 year-old artist who proclaims to not be a fan of flowers, painted a baby pink rose her first week in the residency. Why? Because that's the sacred charm of Mexico City, it blooms something out of people like a portal. Scout’s aversion to flowers is less based in visual dissatisfaction as much as it is rooted in the fact that she has never been in a serious relationship. Translation: the artist has never been given a flower. That was until a beautiful sunny day a man on the streets of CDMX named Octavio handed Scout her first gifted flower. The title of the painting Una Rosa Para Una Rosa is an echo of what Octavio said to her in this exchange that sparked an artistic evolution. Zabinski is growing an interest in depicting natural things. The rose is met with a knife which prompts us that roses have thorns even if they have been conveniently removed. The scars on the wood table read like nails on a chalkboard because, frankly, intimacy is a struggle.
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