In defense of Fabián Cháirez’s La Revolución: Contemporary Art as a Possibility of Queer Resistance

Abstract

This article addresses the work La Revolución by the Mexican painter Fabián Cháirez and the public reception of the painting, considering the events that marked his exhibition at the Museum of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, in early 2020. The analysis focuses on the attacks and defenses that were put forward on the work and the artist himself, taking as a point of reference the three defenses of contemporary art proposed by Anthony Julius: the canonical defense, the formalist defense, and the distancing defense. It concludes that the transgression offered by the artist facilitates a renewal of the figure of Emiliano Zapata, since, by questioning the imaginaries of hegemonic masculinity, the painting serves as a queer piece of resistance. The work in question implies a reappropriation, resignification and a theatricalization of the figure of the “Caudillo del Sur”.