On a chilly night in February, an exhilarating new arts institution called the Olivia Foundation opened its doors in the Mexico City neighborhood of Roma Norte. Set in a neoclassical townhouse from the early 1900s, the Olivia Foundation draws on the private collection of a Mexico City-native couple who, for the sake of discretion, named the project after one of their eight dogs, a long-haired dachshund. The family began collecting seriously around 2022, following the move from Mexico City to California, focusing their attention on post-war female artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Ruth Asawa as well as a new generation of creators including British artist Jadé Fadojutimi and the Brazilian painter Sophia Loeb. Shortly after, they decided to share their world-class acquisitions with the public, hiring the Mexico City-based architects Alberto Kallach and Carlos Zedillo Velasco to transform the four-story townhouse, previously used as an office, into a luminous display space. In the opening show, a series of prints by Louise Bourgeois shared space with a monumental Tracey Emin and an incandescent Alice Neel hung at the top of a staircase like a family portrait. In the years to come, the Foundation will grow and transform along with the collection itself as the family commissions new works from young artists and broadens its holdings, creating a space as dynamic as the city that houses it.
