Last weekend, the US President Donald Trump signed executive orders placing 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which were due to take effect on Tuesday. But at the last minute, the tariffs were postponed, at least for a month.
Inevitably, though, the talk of a trade war set nerves jangling at Zona Maco, the art fair in Mexico City, which opened on Wednesday. Ben Luke speaks to Ben Sutton, The Art Newspaper’s editor, Americas, who is in the Mexican capital, about the prevailing mood, and about the effect on the art world more generally of some of Trump’s executive orders.
India Art Fair opens at an important socio-political moment for the country
Courtesy India Art Fair
It is also the India Art Fair in Delhi this week. Our art market editor, Kabir Jhala, is there and tells us more about the fair amid the wider social and political climate in India.
Henry Fitz Jr., Self-portrait, January/February (1840)
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Henry Fitz Jr’s self-portrait, a daguerreotype, made in January or February 1840. It is thought to be the first photograph of a person made in the United States.
It features in a major show at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, American Photography. We speak to Mattie Boom, Rijksmuseum’s curator of photography, about the work, and the wider show.
- Zona Maco, Mexico City, until 9 February
- India Art Fair, Delhi, until 9 February
- American Photography, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, until 9 June. Carrie Mae Weems’s 2021 series Painting the Town, Rijksmuseum, until the same date.