Exhibition Mexico 1900-1950, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco and the Vanguards

Entirely designed in México by Agustín Arteaga, former director and curator of the Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), and jointly prepared by Mexican and French teams (the latter from the Grand Palais), this exhibition stemmed from a bilateral agreement between Mexico and France in response to official decisions made at very high levels. First and foremost, it is a historic exhibition inscribed in a chronology that presents the foundations of Mexican modern art and its international projection. With more than 200 works, the show offers a panoramic view of the artistic production of the first half of the 20th century; fifty years in which the fundamental aspects of Mexican modernity were forged on all art forms (particularly in painting, but also in engraving and photography, two artistic mediums well represented in this exhibition). On the other hand, there are few sculptures aside from the magnificent La ville sans fin, hommage à Frederick Kiesler (The Endless City, a Tribute to Frederick Kiesler, 1961) and Pirámides mexicanas (Mexican Pyramids, 1959) by Mathias Goeritz, which mark the end of the chronology and of the exhibition. The museography expands two levels and consists of four large sections that intersect the chronology; Official Movements (the muralist movement and the Mexican School with its three central figures: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros; Marginal Currents or Artists, with Stridentism and Surrealism; History (the nationalist Revolution); Sociology (the place occupied by women in painting and cinema); and, the Connections Between Mexico and France and Mexico and the United States. Contemporary art is present with works by three artists displayed in several sections: Minerva Cuevas, with the video Buveur (Drinker, 1995); Gabriel Orozco, a graphite on paper work titled Havre-Caumartin, 1999); and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, with the projection titled En el aire: estridentismo (In the Air: Stridentism, 2016), the only work created especially for the exhibition. The museographic concept is based on the demonstration, through these works, of the construction of a modern identity in Mexico or of a modernity that can be defined as strictly Mexican. The walk through the exhibition should offer the French public a look into the creative diversity of Mexican art—its very singular splendor and European influences—in addition to exposure to, as the title indicates, the "Greats" and to Frida Kahlo. Iconic works like Paisaje Zapatista (Zapatist Landscape, 2015) by Diego Rivera; Las dos Fridas (The Two Fridas, 1939) by Frida Kalho, or Las soldaderas (1915) by José Clemente Orozco are displayed alongside lesser known works or works never before shown in France like: El velorio (The Wake, 1889) by José Jara, La mujer y el payaso (Woman and Clown, 1909) by Ángel Zárraga, or El Gran Coronel (Autorretrato) [The Great Coronel (Self-Portrait), 1945] by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Other works of smaller dimensions but equally emblematic also contributed to the construction of that modernity but outside from the almighty Mexican School and its iconographic and aesthetic imperatives, include: Estridentopolis, by Ramón Alva de la Canal (around 1927) and Verano (Summer, 1937) and El sueño de la Malinche (The Dream of Malinche,1939) by Antonio Ruiz, among others. Also noteworthy of mention are the surrealist works by María Izquierdo, Sueño y presentimiento (Dream and Premonition, 1947); cartoons by Miguel Covarrubias like Harlem (1939) and Adolph Hitler (undated); or the beautiful Génie de l'espèce (Genius of the Species) by Gunther Gerzso (1938) and Cuna (Cradle, 1949) by Leonora Carrington y José Horna (1949).