In celebration of Frieze Week Los Angeles, Monica Calderon and David Cruz presented DIALOGO: at Blackman Cruz gallery—An exploration of the ongoing cultural and aesthetic connection between California and Mexico’s design communities. The show presented a special curation of furniture, ceramics, and decorative objects highlighting a century of the California-Mexico design dialogue.
Mexican craft heritage and artisan culture has influenced generations of California designers, from Mayan Revival to Modernism.
In turn, Hollywood as a masterful exporter of taste and culture has impacted Mexico’s built environment, most notably with ‘Colonial Californiano’, a 20th century Mexican architecture movement based on Hollywood's depiction of Spanish Colonial Revival style—essentially, an interpretation of an interpretation.
DIALOGO: featured David Cruz’s collection of influential Mexican works of the 20th century, such as Arturo Pani, Los Castillo, alongside Clasicos Mexicanos iconic reissues from architects such as Ricardo Legorreta and Amando Franco, as well as CALA editions curated by Calderon WHICH featured contemporary, Mexican made works from Jorge Pardo, David Weisman, and Ezequiel Farca of Ezequiel Farca+Cristina Grappin, whose architecture and design studios in Mexico City and L.A. make his work emblematic of the connectivity of point of views that continues to thrive today.