Inside the Collection: Carlos Carrillo on Family, Photography, and Mexico City

As ZsONA MACO and Mexico City Art Week converge each February, the city sharpens into one of the most concentrated cultural crossroads in the Americas—where galleries, studios, collections, and conversations overlap with unusual intimacy. It’s a moment when the rhythms of collecting, hospitality, and long-term cultural thinking come into focus, and few figures embody that intersection more naturally than Carlos Carrillo, Chairman of the Board of Trendsetera.

Founded more than two decades ago, Trendsetera operates across Mexico City, New York, and Paris, advising global brands on how to move meaningfully within culture rather than merely alongside it. That same sensitivity—toward time, presence, and lived experience—also defines Carlos Carrillo and his approach to collecting. Shaped by a family tradition of shared looking and sustained attention, his collection unfolds through relationships, photography, and deeply personal encounters with artists and places.

In this interview, Carlos Carrillo reflects on Mexico City as a training ground for the eye, the role of friendship and sobremesa in shaping cultural exchange, and how living with art informs both his business philosophy and his belief that culture is something not just observed, but actively lived.

Collecting as a Family Practice

WHITEWALL: Your collection has grown very organically over the years. How did it begin, and what was the first work that made you realize collecting would become a lifelong pursuit rather than a passing interest?

CARLOS CARRILLO: Collecting entered my life early and collectively. My parents brought my sister and me into galleries when we were five and nine, and decisions were always shared. We have worked like that since then. What we acquired was discussed at the table, imagined at home, and chosen together. That spirit still defines the collection today, a blend of two generations guided by love and instinct.

One lesson from my parents stayed with me. When something truly moves you, you make space for it, physically and mentally. You picture where it will live, how it will accompany you. The value comes from what you feel. The collection is built on love, lived with daily, and chosen with the intention of enjoying it.

WW: Mexico City has become a gravitational center for contemporary art in the Americas. How does living and collecting there shape your eye, and in what ways does the city itself enter into your collection?

CC: Mexico City offers an exceptional richness of opportunity for collecting. It operates through layers. Long-established galleries such as Kurimanzutto, OMR, Patricia Conde, and Enrique Guerrero work with rigor, conviction, and long-term vision. They are not just commercial spaces, but cultural builders, committed to artists over time. That lineage extends to Galería de Arte Mexicano under Inés Amor, whose vision helped position figures such as Rivera, Tamayo, Kahlo, and María Izquierdo, setting a foundation that still resonates today.

Living and collecting here sharpens the eye through density and contrast. Mexico City places different histories, aesthetics, and tempos side by side. You learn to look carefully, to slow down, and to make choices rooted in enjoyment – Mexicans are unique in enjoying – otherwise you can get lost in so much noise that this size of people generates. The City trains you to appreciate complexity without over-sophisticating it. Beauty appears in restraint, in material honesty, and in how things are lived with and displayed.

The city enters the collection through that way of seeing. It encourages choices rooted in how you enjoy life, an intimate way of doing things, and how you live with them. Works are selected not only for what they represent, but for how they inhabit space, accompany daily rhythms, and hold presence over time. Mexico City doesn’t ask for spectacle. It rewards attention, closeness, and commitment because let’s be honest, living here is not a piece of cake.

“When something truly moves you, you make space for it—physically and mentally.”

—Carlos Carrillo

Mexico City as a Way of Seeing

WW: Can you tell us about your collection? What draws you to an artist today, an intellectual position, an emotional response, or a reflection of the moment we are living in?

CC: My collection grew out of a family context where art was part of everyday life. Decisions were made together, discussed at home, and imagined within the spaces where the works would live. That early training stayed with me. I still choose artworks in the same way. I need to love them. I need to feel a connection immediately. I need to be able to picture where they will live and how they will accompany my daily life. When that happens, the work finds its place naturally.

There is a strong inherited foundation. Works by masters such as Rufino Tamayo and Byron Gálvez anchor the collection emotionally and historically. From there, photography became a natural extension. Mexican photographers, including Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Lola Álvarez Bravo, and Graciela Iturbide, form a core language. Their work carries a clarity of gaze and an understanding of place that continues to shape how I look at images.

One photograph brings many of these threads together. A work by Kati Horna portraying Remedios Varo wearing a mask created by Leonora Carrington. The image reflects a moment of deep artistic intimacy between three women whose lives and practices became inseparable after their arrival in Mexico. Horna’s photograph captures friendship as a creative force and positions Mexico City as a place where exile, imagination, and collaboration converged naturally.

Relationships with artists have played a defining role. Working alongside Erick Meyenberg took me to places I never imagined, from painting a wall at the border between Mexico and Tijuana to accompanying his work at the Venice Biennale. Those experiences expanded my understanding of what it means to be close to a practice, to witness work as it unfolds, and to participate in the process.

Photography also opened a global dialogue. Works by Wolfgang Tillmans, Herb Ritts, Irving Penn, Karl Lagerfeld, Robert Mapplethorpe, Erwin Olaf, and Mert and Marcus entered the collection through encounters, admiration, and time. One of the most meaningful pieces I live with is a photograph by René Habermacher. I admired his work early on, long before I could acquire it. Years later, after meeting him unexpectedly, the photograph I had always wanted became a gift. That history is inseparable from the image itself.

Friendship remains central. Kelly Santos holds a special place in the collection. She is Mexican in the way Chavela Vargas was Mexican, by choice, conviction, and emotional depth. I live with one of her photographs of Tijuana. Through her gaze, the city appears tender, complex, and deeply human. As the daughter of Portuguese immigrants who grew up in France and became profoundly Mexican, her work carries a sensitivity that feels essential to understanding the country today.

Another important presence is Kornel Zezula, whom I met when I arrived in Paris. Several works in my collection are tied to that moment in my life, a period of discovery, vulnerability, and formation. Those pieces carry the emotional weight of arrival, learning, and becoming.

Across mediums, artists such as Hernan Bas, Takashi Murakami, and Robert Longo reflect how I see the present moment. Their work speaks to identity, image, and cultural tension with clarity and force. A Robert Longo piece portraying Cindy Sherman feels especially resonant, engaging directly with authorship and the construction of image.

Nothing in the collection feels accidental. Sometimes works arrive through coincidence, sometimes through convergence, and often through relationships. What connects them is a way of moving through life: going, seeing, connecting, loving, and giving love. The collection holds together because it is lived with. It is a record of encounters, friendships, places, and moments that stayed.

From Living With Art to Building Culture

WW: Art Week in Mexico City has evolved dramatically in recent years. What excites you most about this moment, whether at Zona Maco, Material, in galleries, or in more informal, off-calendar encounters?

CC: Art Week in Mexico City feels confident and self-aware. That confidence comes from a deeply rooted culture of hospitality. For many years, collectors, artists, and gallerists opened their homes, studios, and even their cars to visitors. People were personally guided through the city, taken to studios, introduced to artists, and invited into conversations that extended far beyond the fairs. The pleasure was always in sharing and in seeing others experience the city as it is lived.

Over time, that generosity evolved into structure. Zona Maco, Material, and the galleries grew stronger and more rigorous, while preserving the human scale that defines the scene. The city learned how to host the world without losing its character. What began as informal gestures became a sustained cultural rhythm built on trust, repetition, and dialogue.

I often think of a metaphor Enrique Olvera once shared when he spoke about what makes a mole truly Mexican. Its ingredients come from many different places, but the magic only happens here. The balance, the depth, and the transformation occur in this specific context. That feels very close to what is happening in Mexico City today. Artists, ideas, and perspectives arrive from everywhere, but it is here where they converge, mix, and become something distinct.

That is what excites me most. Mexico City operates as a meeting point where global practices and local sensibilities blend naturally. The energy of Art Week comes from continuity rather than spectacle. Like a good mole, it is complex, layered, and impossible to replicate elsewhere. It feels grounded, generous, and deeply connected to the way the city lives and welcomes.

“The most meaningful exchanges during Art Week happen around the table.”

—Carlos Carrillo

Carlos Carrillo on Art Week Beyond the Fairs

WW: Beyond the fairs, Art Week is also about conversations, dinners, and unexpected discoveries. Where do you feel the most meaningful exchanges are happening during this week?

CC: The most meaningful exchanges happen around the table. In Mexico, we call this sobremesa, the time that begins once the meal ends. It is a cultural practice rooted in presence, generosity, and conversation. People stay, listen, speak freely, and allow ideas to evolve without urgency. It is how relationships are built and how trust takes shape.

During Art Week, sobremesa becomes part of the city’s cultural rhythm. A table at Contramar fills at one in the afternoon and slowly evolves into hours of conversation. Tequila is poured, glasses are refilled, and façades begin to soften. People speak more openly, listen more carefully, and stay longer than planned. From there, the same group drifts to Ticuchi, and the sobremesa continues without interruption.

Lina, Charco, Pujol, Lalo’s. These restaurants and taquerías that are booming more than ever offer more than food. They offer continuity. Tables become informal meeting points where artists, collectors, curators, and friends gather without an agenda. Conversations move naturally between culture, life, and work.

Mexico City understands hosting as a form of cultural participation. Long lunches turn into extended dialogues. Meals become shared time. This is where ideas deepen, relationships take shape, and the art world feels human, open, and fully alive.

WW: As a collector and as an entrepreneur behind Trendsetera, you operate at the intersection of culture, lifestyle, and vision. How does your engagement with art influence the way you think about building a business?

CC: Art has always been a way of training curiosity. At home, books, films, and artworks were treated as companions, not references. My father used to say that Octavio Paz was one of his closest friends. They never met, yet Paz shaped his understanding of Mexico through words, ideas, and sustained attention. That stayed with me. I learned early that proximity can be built through study and care, across disciplines and forms.

I experience art in all its mediums in the same way. Photography, painting, sculpture, ceramics, video, and installation each offer different tempos and forms of attention. Living with these works trains the eye to move between stillness and movement, material and image, silence and narrative. The objects and images I live with feel like presences. I return to them, learn from them, and allow them to shape how I think. Curiosity creates intimacy. Beauty becomes a form of respect.

That practice sharpens judgment and openness. It builds sensitivity to craft, process, and intention, regardless of medium. Over time, it becomes a way of understanding how ideas take form and how meaning is constructed.

That mindset carries directly into how I build a business. At Trendsetera, culture is at its core. It is the foundation. We value clarity of vision, strong creative voices, and work that holds together over time. I encourage us to approach clients, ideas, and contexts with the same attentiveness, understanding their materials, rhythms, and language. Art sharpens the eye. Business follows.

“Mexico City operates as a meeting point where global practices become something distinct.”

—Carlos Carrillo

WW: Trendsetera has a strong sense of identity and intuition. Do you see parallels between how you support artists and how you nurture ideas, talent, and communities through your company?

CC: It does. There is a shared logic. Supporting artists and nurturing ideas both require time, trust, and sustained discipline. The role is not to direct, but to create the conditions where a voice can become more confident and find its own way to do things. Listening closely is part of the work. So is knowing when to step back.

At Trendsetera, intuition operates as a form of experience. Talent grows when it is taken seriously and challenged with care. Communities form when people feel seen and understood. The same sensitivity that guides collecting informs how ideas are developed, protected, and allowed to evolve. I really see my team as my family, and I love to bring the best out of what I’ve learned at home: to make decisions together that are not there for validation.

WW: Looking ahead, what are you most curious about: new artistic practices, shifts in collecting habits, or the future role Mexico City might play on the global cultural stage?

CC: What continues to hold my curiosity is how culture in Mexico insists on being lived properly. Ideas take form through rehearsal, repetition, and shared effort. Craft exists without announcement. Presence carries weight.

Mexico City reveals itself around the table. Mesas llenas, sobremesas largas, tequila poured slowly and taken seriously. A mariachi may appear, unplanned and perfectly timed. Conversations unfold over hours, guided by spontaneity and reciprocity. People stay because staying feels right. Art emerges through proximity and shared space.

What I hope to see next is a deeper commitment to presence. Fewer arrivals are motivated by visibility, and more people are interested in listening and engaging. Mexico City applies its own filter, sometimes even with loud demonstrations against those who arrive not respecting the essence, and sometimes with a heartfelt ask to just start eating hot sauce the way we all do here. Those who arrive curious, generous, and open always find their rhythm. That balance keeps the culture grounded, confident, and will keep this place unmistakably alive.