Zona Maco is taking place right now in Mexico City but the locals are not terribly impressed with the fair’s 10th edition:

“Slow,” “pale” and “thin” were some of the words used to describe the scene.

“What bothers me is there’s no real thread,” said Mario Ballesteros, editor of Domus Mexico magazine. “Even the big-name galleries, it’s like they’re just pulling out the inventory, like a garage sale.”

On the bright side, government cultural agencies are becoming more involved, offering special programs and providing venues for Zona Maco events, said Maria Ortiz, director of volunteers at Mexico City’s Museum of Modern Art.

Give the scene more time to grow, Ortiz said. “They have international galleries coming now, and so we can see art from abroad that we couldn’t see otherwise.”

By the afternoon, works were selling briskly. A government cultural official announced the establishment of an $829,000 fund to buy new work for Mexico’s museums.

Art market doldrums exhibited at Mexico City’s annual bazaar (Los Angeles Times)