Where Memes Meet Murakami
Mexico City Art Week 2025
This year is the 21st edition of Zsona Maco a contemporary art fair that began in Monterrey in 2002 and has been driving the growth of an amazing contemporary art scene in Mexico since then. What do I think that Zelika Garcia and her team did right? They built an inclusive ecosystem and they endorsed fast followers to build a whole week of art fairs in Mexico around, today we have four official fairs from 3-10 of February. Driving hype, commerce, parties, and tourism.
I don’t think this is something that we see very often in the art world and something that really recalls my attention is in the art world the secrecy of the deals is what drives value, while in the Meme world, shouting out total value locked is what drives speculation. Picture this: In one corner, we have centuries-old art institutions where billionaires trade paintings in secretive rooms, and in the other, we have people spending millions on digital pictures of bored apes while throwing money at coins named after dogs. What a time to be alive!
The Smoke and Mirrors of Traditional Art
Let's talk about the traditional art market, that exclusive club where $67.8 billion changed hands last year. It's a world where a banana taped to a wall can sell for $120,000, and nobody bats an eye. Why? Because the true genius isn't in the art it's the network and its complete lack of transparency.
The Perfect Crime of Privacy
Think about it: When was the last time you knew exactly how much your neighbor paid for that Picasso? That's right, you don't have a neighbor with a Picasso, and even if you did, you'd never know the price. That's the beauty of it! The traditional art market operates like a secret society where prices are more mysterious than my aunt's "special" Christmas pudding recipe.
The Wild West of Meme and NFT world
Now, let's pivot to the digital realm, where transparency is culture or even I could say a cult. Here, every transaction is public, every price is visible, and somehow, this makes people even crazier with their money.
The Paradox, during late 2024, the meme coin market hit $93 billion. That's enough money to buy several small countries or fund a space program, but instead, it's being poured into digital tokens named after dogs, frogs, and whatever else Twitter decides is funny this week, and yeah! it is 50% more than total art market cap divided into more people.
The kicker: Both markets are essentially running on the same fuel pure, unfiltered speculation. The only difference is that one wears a monocle and speaks in hushed tones about "provenance," while the other screams "TO THE MOON!" and uses more rocket emojis than a NASA Twitter account.
The Public Signaling Game
Traditional Art: "I own this priceless piece that you can't know the value of, but trust me, it's very expensive."
NFTs: "I JUST PAID 69 ETH FOR THIS JPEG AND HERE'S THE TRANSACTION HASH TO PROVE IT!"
The real comedy here is that while traditional art markets hide their speculation behind closed doors and white gloves, the Web3 art world broadcasts its madness like a reality TV show. Palm Foundation and other platforms are trying to build legitimate infrastructure for digital art, but they're doing it in a space where a meme coin can gain more value than a museum's entire collection because someone named Elon tweeted about it, we need to change this!!!
In the end, whether you're buying a Rembrandt or a rare Pepe, you're participating in a grand theater of value creation. The only difference is that one performance has a dress code, while the other is being live-streamed with laser eyes.
And perhaps that's the most beautiful art of all, the art of watching humans find increasingly creative ways to convince each other that something is valuable. Whether it's through the whispered rumors of auction houses or the screaming caps lock of crypto Twitter, we're all just participating in history's most expensive game of "Emperor's New Clothes."
But hey, at least with meme coins, you know exactly how much the emperor didn't pay for those clothes.