A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel de Allende.
Five of Mexico’s leading galleries, two special projects and more than 40 artists in one house on Mesones. From November 6 to 8, 2026, Percepto gives San Miguel de Allende a contemporary art fair of its own.
From Friday, November 6 to Sunday, November 8, 2026, Percepto, Feria de Arte, opens its first edition at Mesones 71 in the Centro Histórico of San Miguel de Allende. Five galleries from Mexico City and Guadalajara, Galería de Arte Mexicano (GAM), Proyectos Monclova, Galería Enrique Guerrero, guadalajara90210 and PALMA, bring more than 40 Mexican and international artists, alongside special projects by TRÁMITE from Querétaro and San Miguel’s own Taller30. Entry is free with registration at perceptoart.com. It is the fair at the center of San Miguel de Allende Art Week 2026, and the one event of the week not to miss.
San Miguel has bought, sold and lived with art for almost a century, ever since Bellas Artes and the Instituto Allende made it a school town for painters. What it has never had is a fair. In Mexico, the galleries that set the conversation have stayed in Mexico City, where collectors gather every February for Zona Maco, and San Miguel’s own artists have had to travel to be seen at that level. Percepto was founded in 2023 to change that: to bring the country’s most recognized galleries, the ones that tour national and international fairs, to San Miguel for the first time.
The first edition brings five galleries:
Between them they show more than 40 artists. Names announced so far include Eduardo Terrazas, Edgar Orlaineta and Andrés Pereira Paz with Proyectos Monclova, and Gafar Oluwabori and Jimena Chávez Delion with Enrique Guerrero.
TRÁMITE Buró de Coleccionistas, from Querétaro, presents Una habitación no es suficiente, curated by Tania Ragasol: a cross-generational look at ten women artists born or based in Querétaro who have shown with TRÁMITE over its ten years.
Taller30, the art and technology workshop on La Esperanza in Colonia San Antonio, has spent years showing everywhere but here: Iván Puig’s SEFT-1 rail probe at Furtherfield in London, Gilberto Esparza’s coral regeneration project KORALLYSIS with an honorary mention at the S+T+ARTS Prize in 2024, and Puig and Daniela Edburg with YAM Gallery at Zona Maco this year. At Percepto they bring an installation and new pieces to one of their first major shows in their own city.
Percepto has three founders. Curator Daniel Garza Usabiaga holds a PhD in art history and theory from the University of Essex, curated Zona Maco’s new modern art section in 2013 and later served as the fair’s artistic director. José Pablo Rivera Zavala is a corporate lawyer trained at the UNAM, a founding partner of the firm Avendaño Hernández & Rivera Zavala since 2019 and, since 2024, a partner in the New Zealand investigations and law firm Warden Consulting, as well as a devoted follower of the visual arts. Santiago Suárez Damm completes the founding team.
The name joins two words, percepción and concepto. “It refers to the conscious experience the artist and the viewer have when they look at a work of art,” the founders say. “Not only grasping a concept, but the ideas and sensations that come from perceiving the work.”
Their ambitions are long-term. Each year they want to bring more of the galleries that tour Mexico’s and the world’s fairs. For this first edition, the bar is simple: “It completely breaks with the curatorial and artistic quality San Miguel has been offered for at least the last 30 years.” They hope to see collectors, artists and locals walk through the door, along with visitors from Mexico City, the Bajío and the United States.
Percepto, Feria de Arte · Mesones 71, Centro Histórico
Entry is free with registration at perceptoart.com. Plan to stay a while: Tierra Cobriza tequila from Jalisco, Mezcal Salmero from San Luis Potosí, Cervecería La Bru from Michoacán and San José Lavista wines from Guanajuato pour on site, with food and coffee from San Miguel’s Hortus and Panio. Follow the fair on Instagram at @percepto.art.
Percepto’s first edition is supported by the Government of Guanajuato and the Municipality of San Miguel de Allende, Expo Museo, Namuh, Hotel Casa Hoyos and Tonana, Hotel Amatte, Bárbara Boutique Hotel, Hotel Casa Aliz, Hotel La Morada, María Bonita Petit Hotel, Casa Cuadrante and Galería Yandró.
Percepto is the anchor of San Miguel de Allende Art Week 2026, the city’s own art week, from November 4 to 8. Around the fair, museums and galleries open new shows, lead guided visits and host talks, most of them within a short walk of the Jardín: openings at the Instituto Allende Casa Museo and Galería Yam on Ancha de San Antonio, three posthumous Pedro Friedeberg exhibitions at Casa del Mayorazgo de la Canal, Galería Casa Diana and Centro Cultural El Nigromante, and the Encuentro de Cultura Contemporánea at the Instituto Allende on Saturday morning. The full program, day by day, is in our Art Week 2026 guide.
SAVANT is a media partner of Percepto.
A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel.
