Mexican Art Galleries Suffer as Drug-Money Law Ends Anonymous Cash Buys Joshua Partlow - The Washington Post
go to original September 19, 2014

Gallery owner Oscar Román, in hat, with customers at his space in Mexico City's Polanco neighborhood. (Dominic Bracco II/The Washington Post)

MEXICO CITY — For more than three decades, Guillermo Zajarias has watched local painters become international stars, new galleries proliferate, and Mexico’s reputation soar as a hothouse for hip contemporary art.

“The art in Mexico is marvelous. It is superb,” said Zajarias, the owner of Aura Gallery. “The market should be growing. But it has totally frozen.”

Zajarias and other art dealers here blame their recent troubles on a new law intended to uncover the hidden profits in the lucrative world of Mexican drug trafficking. The government is now demanding more information from a wide range of businesses about who their customers are and how much they are spending. The new anti-money-laundering regulations have support among those who fear the turbulence of an economy awash in narco dollars.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!