Mexico City, from which I returned last week, is an underrated metropolis. It is full of provocative paradoxes and surprising juxtapositions. These inconsistencies at first seem jarring, but upon closer inspection, they meld together to create a pervasive air of fascinating strangeness.
Modern and ancient calmly coexist in the historic center. While eating lunch near the Zocalo, the city’s largest plaza, I simultaneously ogled excavated ruins of the Templo Mayor–a 700-year-old Aztec temple discovered in 1978 by telephone repairmen–and took advantage of the free WiFi provided in many of the capital’s public spaces. Cultural commingling is highlighted by street and district names: Our apartment was at the intersection of Chilpancingo (meaning wasp or bee in Nahuatl, one of Mexico’s indigenous languages) and Amsterdam, in the heart of the chic Colonia Condesa, sandwiched between the neighboring zones of Roma and Tacubaya. Condesa’s avenues are lined with Art Nouveau and Deco architecture, which provides a pretty, if incongruous, backdrop for rows of enthusiastic tamale and taco vendors (Side note: the street food is amazing).
This unusual melting pot of Aztec, colonial, and modern Mexican culture is perhaps best symbolized by the national flag, flying high all over the city. Its central coat of arms is an eagle perched on top of a cactus with a snake in its mouth, referring to the sign Aztec leaders were told they would encounter upon reaching the spot where they should construct the seat of their empire, Tenochtitlán. When Hernán Cortés arrived in 1519, Tenochtitlán was razed to build New Spain, and three centuries later, it became the capital of independent Mexico. Yet the emblem at the center of the flag remains that of an Aztec prophecy, situated in the middle of a traditionally European tricolor pattern.
Europe has left its imprint on the modern architecture and art of the city as well, not least because many Europeans escaped to the capital in the first half of the century. In the 1940s and 50s, Mexico City became a haven for displaced Surrealists. Painters like Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington used the city’s bizarre hybridity as artistic fodder. Their compositions combine disparate objects into meticulously rendered scenes, making the impossible believable.
In 1949, the literary critic Alejo Carpentier wrote an article titled “On the Marvelous Real in America.” In it, he contends that Surrealism is inherently Latin American, since the strange marriages diligently contrived by European Surrealists are naturally part of the landscape in this part of the world. “After all,” he asked, “what is the entire history of America if not a chronicle of the marvelous real? Here the strange is commonplace and always [has been.]”
This notion of the “marvelous real,” a Latin American variant of Surrealism, is one of the many threads explored in the exhibition Drawing Surrealism, now on view at the Morgan Library & Museum through April 21. This groundbreaking and carefully curated show examines how drawing allowed Surrealists to unlock their subconscious desires and play around with chance. The works included are full of beautiful twists and unexpected details, and they offer a glimpse of the magic that abounds in Mexico’s sprawling capital.