Distrito Federal

In December 2012, Mauro D’Agati escaped the Art Basel event at Miami Beach in agony and headed south. Distrito Federal is the outcome of almost two months spent in Mexico City. The book represents a cross section of life in the pitiless Mexican capital, which has one of the highest police officer to resident ratios in the world. Like in Napule Shot, one of his former books, D’Agati tells the city’s story through a variety of characters and locations--wrestlers, weddings, local bands, coroners, and gangs of drugged-up youngsters, the Colonia Centro on the roofs of the city or the degraded Colonia Juarez Pantitlán with the highest crime rate in the country. Distrito Federal unfolds the blunt but sometimes beautiful picture of a society deadened by drugs, violence and constant fight for survival.