NoEsUnaGalería
This Is Not A Gallery
NoEsUnaGalería is an independent, international community of artists organising exhibitions, events, and residencies across Mexico, the Netherlands, and beyond. It was founded in 2017 in a self-made studio in Mexico City — born out of a simple but radical need: to be independent from mediators, to show and sell work on our own terms, and to create the conditions that the existing cultural landscape was unwilling to provide.
The name says it clearly. NoEsUnaGalería — This Is Not A Gallery. It is a reclamation. A space in which artists retain their autonomy, manage their own cycles of production and exposition, and leave room to experiment without the weight of industry expectation.
How It Began
In the summer of 2018, artists from Mexico and the Netherlands met during a shared residency at Art House Holland in Leiderdorp. What followed was not a project — it was a connection. Over the years that followed, those ties deepened into a sustained international collaboration between the Mexico City community (led by Ricardo Santos) and a Dutch branch founded in Utrecht, led by Harmke Datema-Chang.
Years of travel, expanding horizons, and shared risk. That is what NoEsUnaGalería is built on.
Mexico City
In Mexico City, NoEsUnaGalería remains highly active. Alongside ongoing exhibitions and events, the community has been organising De Arte Chingón — a series of artist-run auctions whose name translates loosely as 'cool art' — since 2021. In February 2026, during Mexico City Art Week, NoEsUnaGalería presented a performance night featuring new works by members of the community.
Utrecht
The Dutch branch has been active since 2019. In Utrecht, NoEsUnaGalería has organised two large-scale exhibitions at NDSM Fuse (2021), welcomed residents from Mexico to live and work in the city, and co-produced the BUY OR BURN events — durational performative auctions in which unsold works are publicly destroyed. In 2019, the community was invited by the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen to create a mural and installation for the exhibition Intens Mexico! during its art week programming.
Events (Selection)
Netherlands
– Intens Mexico! — Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, 2019
– Por Aqui — NDSM, Amsterdam, 2019
– Under Kunstruction — NDSM, Amsterdam, 2020
– NDSM Fuse Exhibition I & II — Utrecht, 2021
– Buy or Burn — Utrecht & Miami, 2021
– Uncloud Festival — Utrecht, 2021
– Buy or Burn — 7seasmotel, Miami, 2022
– Buy or Burn: Relics of the Future — presented with ODISSI, an initiative by Harmke Datema-Chang, Brutus Rotterdam, 2025
Mexico City & International
– Resiliencia — Mexico City, 2019
– Dutch Dragon — Mexico City, 2020
– OOPS WE DID IT AGAIN — Mexico City, 2021
– Casa10 — San Miguel de Allende, 2021
– Casa Frissac — Mexico City, 2022
– Monolito — Mexico City, 2022
– ODISSI online launch exhibition — Mexico City, 2023
– Performance Night — Mexico City Art Week, February 2026