Kurimanzutto

Kurimanzutto is a contemporary art gallery with flagship spaces in Mexico City and New York, founded in 1999 by Mónica Manzutto and José Kuri. Named from a fusion of the founders' surnames, the gallery emerged from a context in which Mexico offered few venues for experimental contemporary art, particularly for young artists working in non-traditional formats. Rather than beginning with a fixed exhibition space, Kurimanzutto operated nomadically for its first decade, staging projects in markets, parking lots, shipping containers, and other unconventional sites. This itinerant model, conceived with input from artist Gabriel Orozco, established the gallery as a pioneering platform for artist-centered, context-responsive practice. Today it represents approximately 33 international artists and is widely recognized as one of the most influential galleries in Latin America and the global contemporary art world.

The gallery was formally established on August 21, 1999, though planning had begun earlier that year. Gabriel Orozcoagui Orozco, whom the founders had met during their time in New York in the late 1990s, proposed the initial concept: a support structure for emerging Mexican artists that would prioritize creative development over conventional exhibition infrastructure. The inaugural project, Economía de Mercado, opened on August 21, 1999, at the Mercado de Medellín in Mexico City's Colonia Roma. Thirteen artists exhibited works made from market materials, priced comparably to produce and household goods, in a rented stall open for less than twenty-four hours. Participants included Orozco, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Damián Ortega, Daniel Guzmán, Minerva Cuevas, and others. From 2000 to 2003, the gallery produced more than twelve projects in diverse locations: Jonathan Hernández's Traveling without moving at the Mexico City International Airport in 2002; Minerva Cuevas's Dodgem, a bumper car installation at a fair; and Damián Ortega's Elephant Juice (Sexo entre amigos) at Los Manantiales restaurant in Xochimilco in 2003, a labyrinthine installation designed by architect Mauricio Rocha. In 2003, Orozco also served as guest curator for the Mexican pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, inviting several Kurimanzutto-associated artists to participate in Everyday Altered under strict material constraints. The nomadic phase continued until 2006, when the gallery acquired a warehouse on Juan de la Barrera Street in Colonia Condesa for use as a project space and workshop. In 2008, Kurimanzutto opened its permanent Mexico City space, followed by a New York project space in 2018 and a Chelsea location at 520 West 20th Street in 2022. In 2024, the gallery joined Bortolami, James Cohan Gallery, Kaufmann Repetto, Anton Kern, and Andrew Kreps to purchase the 78,000-square-foot Ockawamick School and 22 surrounding acres in Claverack, New York. The gallery marked its 25th anniversary in 2024 with exhibitions including Gabriel Orozco's Diarios de Plantas.

Kurimanzutto's program centers on contemporary art with strong representation of Mexican and Latin American artists alongside international figures. The gallery emphasizes interdisciplinary practice, creative risk-taking, and projects that exceed conventional gallery parameters. Its roster has included artists working across sculpture, installation, performance, video, painting, and photography. Rather than adhering to a fixed curatorial identity, the gallery has supported diverse artistic methodologies, from the conceptual and research-based to the materially experimental. The program has consistently fostered dialogue between local and international contexts, facilitating exchanges through residencies, publications, and collaborations with foreign curators and institutions. In 2001, Flash Art Magazine ranked Kurimanzutto among the 100 most influential galleries worldwide. In 2018, Art Review identified it as Mexico's most prominent gallery and placed founders Manzutto and Kuri at position 34 among the 100 most influential figures in contemporary art globally.

The gallery has been instrumental in developing the careers of numerous significant contemporary artists. Its represented artists have included Gabriel Orozco, Damián Ortega, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Dr. Lakra, Minerva Cuevas, Daniel Guzmán, and Gabriel Kuri from its earliest years, alongside later and current representations such as Sarah Lucas, Roman Ondak, Adrián Villar Rojas, Danh Vo, Haegue Yang, Oscar Murillo (since 2022), Petrit Halilaj, and the estate of John Giorno. The gallery has organized major solo exhibitions including Abraham Cruzvillegas's Esculturas Pendientes (2019), Haegue Yang's Arcane Abstractions (2025) and Ornamento y abstracción (2017), Nairy Baghramian's Dawnbreakers (2018) and Modèle vivant (2023), and Allora & Calzadilla's Performative Ellipses (2016). Group exhibitions have included Siembra (Sowing) (2020), a year-long project designed to create alternative temporal rhythms to the standard art world calendar. The gallery has maintained a presence at international fairs including Art Basel and Zona Maco since 2004, and in 2025 presented Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith's Correspondences at its New York gallery, the first gallery presentation of this collaborative body of work.

The gallery's main Mexico City space opened in 2008 at Gobernador Rafael Rebollar 94 in the San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood, within the Miguel Hidalgo borough. The building, constructed in 1949, had previously functioned as a lumberyard and industrial bakery. Architect Alberto Kalach led the renovation, preserving original wooden ceiling trusses and maximizing natural light to create a single large warehouse-style exhibition room. The space retains industrial characteristics while accommodating large-scale installations and diverse exhibition formats. The 2006 Condesa warehouse on Juan de la Barrera Street, with its raw concrete walls and metal roof, preceded this permanent location and served as an interim project space and workshop. In New York, the gallery opened a project space at 22 East 65th Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 2018, later expanding to 520 West 20th Street in Chelsea in 2022. The 2024 acquisition of the Ockawamick School property in Claverack, New York, shared with five other galleries, represents a significant expansion of physical infrastructure.

Kurimanzutto's primary Mexico City gallery is located at Gobernador Rafael Rebollar 94 in San Miguel Chapultepec, near Chapultepec Park. The space is small and generally accessible, though exhibition-specific installations may affect accessibility. The gallery operates Tuesday through Thursday from 11am to 6pm and Friday through Saturday from 11am to 4pm, with contact available at +52 55 5256 2408 and info@kurimanzutto.com. Admission is free. The gallery does not typically offer guided tours; visitors receive information about works upon entry, and most visits last approximately thirty minutes. The New York project space at 22 East 65th Street and the Chelsea location at 520 West 20th Street extend the gallery's presence internationally. Kurimanzutto remains privately owned by its founders and continues to function as both a commercial gallery and a platform for critical discourse and research, maintaining its commitment to artist-centered programming across its multiple sites.