Nestled into the ground floor of a 1920s building on a residential street in Roma Norte, Mexico City is Casa Ahorita. Part design gallery and part shop, it is an aesthetic and philosophical extension of its proprietor Su Wu. Wu, who grew up in Northern California, and settled in Mexico City via Los Angeles, following a brief period in Joshua Tree, is a curator and writer but utmost a poet. Through the vocabulary and discernment of poetry, she approaches her work with an expanded notion of time, a sensitive ability to witness beauty and bring together ideas and objects from a wide range of time periods and sources. She explains that she “approaches beauty as a philosophical inquiry and not as a practical one.” Though, if you encounter Wu she possesses a beauty of generosity, an acute ability to hone the present moment and make those in her orbit feel seen and to share knowledge about the objects or ideas she is thinking about at the moment.
Wu’s ethos and that of the Casa is exemplified in its title. In an interview with the Financial Times Wu explains that “when I first moved to Mexico I heard the word ahorita used a lot and assumed it meant ‘now’. I soon learnt that it meant ‘nowish’. It’s a soft now – the ‘not quite yet’ or ever imminent. I love that. It speaks to my natural inclinations.” It is this elastic approach toward time that allows Wu to bring objects from different histories into conversation and to seemingly allow a pause when you are in her presence. Beyond her role as a collector of beautiful objects, she is a gatherer of people and a fiercely kind and collaborative thinker. In addition to Casa Ahorita, she has contributed writing to publications such as T
Magazine and n+1 and most recently has curated a series of exhibitions for MASA, a nomadic gallery that bridges the gap between art and collectible design.
Neta Vere Sat spoke with Su Wu about her ideas on beauty, non-routines, and the power of objects to bend time.
SU WU: NETA VERE Q&A
As a curator and gatherer of objects, how do you define beauty?
I wrote this in a journal years and years ago, before I was a curator, in an exceptionally angsty phase but also maybe as close as I’ll ever come to prescience: “There’s no supporting moral dimension to art or to beauty, except when it’s awkward or forced, and I think that is what makes beauty freeing and worth confronting and like death, except not funny.”
What did beauty mean to you growing up? How have your ideas of beauty changed over time or when living in different places?
I don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t made a distinction growing up to approach beauty as a philosophical inquiry and not as a practical one. I think beauty is more significant than how we misuse it – that we press it into the service of our anxieties and grifts when it has the capacity to be a conveyance for so much that we are otherwise incapable of expressing, about what matters. It’s what I love most
about being a curator and writer, this reason to consider an object beyond whether I like it or not, beyond pretending at choice.
Which has led to the surprise of late, despite my foundational belief in rigor – and all that formative time studying philosophy of art instead of art history – of how much of a classicist I’ve become. I mean, I translate mythologies and luxuriate in my own susceptibilities and feel comfortable making value judgments, about sensitivity and courage and even of taste, and I don’t belabor it so much anymore.
What personal routines for beauty & wellness do you maintain, and how do they relate to time? To history? To ritual?
I’m terrible at ritual and routine – every day is newly bewildering. The other morning I went to a meeting and realized I had forgotten to brush my teeth, which until that moment a few weeks ago might have counted as a certain part of my daily maintenance. But I do really love baths, and massages and saunas, and these are all sort of measures of time, I guess.
Can we talk about the transporting power of objects? To a different time? Emotional state? Etc? How can objects bend time?
There’s this creeping suspicion I’ve been having, that sounds a little cuckoo but whatever, that what links certain artworks and objects is that they were not intended for an audience of anyone alive. What I mean is that I think some objects bend time not because of what memories or emotional states we attach to them, but because they were made to bend time, intended by the artist or maker as an attempt to transcend material and transmit across sentient intelligence. I feel like I’m deliberately misunderstanding your question but I think speculative communication is something objects can do, that nothing else I know can do as well.
