Informed by overlapping layers of history—ancient civilizations, Spanish conquest and the

Casa Lamm Cultural Center, in the Colonia Roma Norte district.

shaping of a modern nation—Mexico City has long been an important cultural center for Latin America. Now, building on the strengths of world-class arts institutions and the allure of its unique history and setting, the Mexican capital is staking its claim as an international cultural center, too. For art collectors, it offers opportunities for unexpected discoveries set against a backdrop of richly blended indigenous, European and North American styles.

With a population of more than 20 million, the capital is a high-altitude megalopolis whose central zones were developed based on principles of European urbanism. Visitors tend to focus on these districts, where hotels, museums, markets and historic sites are concentrated. Among them are the Centro Histórico, or downtown historic center, which was built on the ruins of an Aztec city; the Zona Rosa; Colonia Roma; Colonia Condesa; and Colonia Polanco.

Most galleries are located in the latter three neighborhoods, and several important museums are situated in Chapultepec Park, just south of Polanco. They include the Museo de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art), a repository of Mexican modernism (with works by Frida Kahlo, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Carlos Mérida and Francisco Toledo) and the internationally oriented Rufino Tamayo Museum. Also in the park is the renowned National Museum of Anthropology, whose vast collections document the rise and fall of the Mayans, the Olmecs and the Aztecs.

To gain a chronological sense of the scope and diversity of Mexico’s visual arts history, start with a visit to the anthropology museum to see such treasures as an Aztec carved-stone calendar; the Olmecs’ giant, stone heads from the jungles of Tabasco and Veracruz; and Mayan face masks made of jade. Before visiting the modern art museum right across the avenue that bisects the park, head north to Polanco for lunch at master chef Patricia Quintana’s Izote restaurant on Presidente Masaryk, the chic district’s main thoroughfare.

Quintana, a famed creator of nueva cocina Mexicana (new Mexican cuisine), literally wrote the book (Mulli: the Book of Moles) on one of Mexico’s exquisite national dishes: mole (pronounced “MO-leh”). The curry sauce of Mexico, mole is made with peppers, nuts, spices and a dash of unsweetened chocolate, and is normally served on chicken. Quintana offers a duck version, as well as tamales filled with huitlacoche, Mexico’s own black-corn truffle.

In Polanco, Praxis Arte Internacional showcases the work of young Mexican artists, like Hugo Lugo’s witty paintings of men in business suits wrestling with giant Life Savers and photographer Graciela Fuentes’ hallucinatory images of rivers. “Some of the most interesting work is being made by artists like these from beyond the capital region,” says Praxis director Alfredo Ginocchio.

Nearby, dealer Ubaldo Kramer’s KBK Arte Contemporáneo, a gallery in one of Mexico City’s classically modernist buildings, shows the work of Mexicans and other Latin Americans. Kramer’s artists include fellow Argentine Esteban Pastorino Diaz, who makes mysterious, black-and-white photographs of Art Deco-era buildings in Argentina’s provinces, and Guatemalan Darío Escobar, whose baseball bats sheathed in ornately decorated silver evoke the over-the-top style of the Spanish-colonial baroque.