Spanish-born Santiago Sierra is one of a group of young expatriate artists who live and work in Mexico City, perhaps seduced by that singular setting—huge, chaotic, polluted—and the way in which the country’s complex and contradictory social, political, and cultural conditions are made manifest on every street.

For his recent exhibition, curated by Taiyana Pimentel as part of the Museo Rufino Tamayo’s new Sala 7 program, Sierra presented 465 personas remuneradas, 1999, a kind of performance that took place on the opening night of the show. Visitors to the space (after that night) were greeted by