CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: GUSTAVO GARCIA-VILLA; RICHARD E. AARON/GETTY; BRIAN COOKE/GETTY; STEFAN HOEDERATH/GETTY; JEFF KRAVITZ/GETTYWHAT’S NEWS
64 WSJ. MAGAZINE
L
AST FEBRUARY Rodman
Primack and Rudy F.
Weissenberg put down
roots in Mexico City, a
place they felt was undergoing
a renaissance in design. Primack
had just left his position of five
years as a director of Design
Miami, and Weissenberg, a for-
mer telenovela producer who also
worked with Rick Owens on his
furniture, had recently received
a master’s in design studies
from Harvard. The couple got
to work on their new gallery-cum-
incubator, AGO Projects, which
debuts this fall.
A profusion of homegrown and
imported galleries has cemented
Mexico City’s reputation of late
as an international arts capital. It
also remains an affordable place
for creatives to live and work.
“It’s so fertile,” says Weissenberg.
“Design is everywhere.... It’s part
of the whole ecosystem that we
wanted to tap into.” AGO Projects’
light-filled Colonia Juárez space
was designed by Mexican architect
Tatiana Bilbao, whose firm sits
just one floor below it in the 1970smodernist high-rise they share.
Primack is also operating a branch
of his 15-year-old interiors firm,
RP Miller, out of the gallery, and
Weissenberg is at work on design-
centric real estate projects such
as an 18-story Guatemala City tow-
er, also designed by Bilbao.
The inaugural AGO exhibition
opens September 21 with new-
ly commissioned work by Lanza
Atelier, a local architecture
studio helmed by Isabel Martínez
Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo.
Martínez Abascal says that
Primack and Weissenberg gave
the duo “complete freedom to
research and propose pieces that
are relevant to our times, that
can appeal to the people, make
them feel and think.” Lanza’s
furniture, made from local
hardwoods and powder-coated or
painted metal, incorporates com-
plicated hinges that allow it to fold
and move in unexpected ways.
“There are makers everywhere
here,” says Primack. “At AGO,
we’re open to exploring all differ-
ent kinds of creative expression.”
ago-projects .com. —Fanny SingerSTUDY IN DESIGNFERTILE GROUND
With their new Mexico City gallery, two
design-world veterans are tapping into thecapital’s thriving creative culture.
DOUBLE PLAY
Rudy F. Weissenberg
and Rodman Primack
at their Mexico City
gallery, AGO Projects.Horror Stories
Best known for her influential
1993 album, Exile in Guyville,
rocker Liz Phair lays it
bare in this poignant look back
at pivotal moments in her life
and career (Oct. 8).High School
Identical twins Tegan and
Sara Quin’s document of their
teenage years coincides with
Hey, I’m Just Like You, new
recordings of unreleased songs
they wrote back then (Sept. 24).Face It
Now 74, Blondie frontwoman
Debbie Harry tells all—from her
former heroin addiction to her
attempted kidnapping by a man
she thinks was Ted Bundy to
her star turns onscreen (Oct. 1).Year of the Monkey
Patti Smith, the National Book
Award–winning author of Just
Kids and M Train, blends fact
and fiction as she reflects on her
life and American politics dur-
ing an eventful 2016 (Sept. 24).From punk pro-
genitors Patti Smith
and Debbie Harry to
indie darlings Liz
Phair and Tegan and
Sara, some of the
most exciting women
in rock have written
four of the fall’s
must-read memoirs.
—Mark YarmMUSICAL
NOTES