Recently, the national discussion surrounding Mexican-American immigration has digressed to insensitivity, racism, and tastelessness. This has come about mostly due to Donald Trump’s campaign against immigration, and his blunt ignorance towards Mexican culture. The Philadelphia Museum of Art aims to put Mexican fine art back into the American mainstream through its new exhibit Paint The Revolution: Mexican Modernism 1910-1950. The exhibit features such acclaimed artists as Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, José Clemente Orozco, and of course, Frida Kahlo, and magnifies how important the Mexican modernist movement was to the progression of art history.
The museum is teaming up with Mexico City’s Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes to give these artists the spectacle their work deserves. Much of the work remains incredibly relevant to today’s political climate, such as Kahlo’s self-portrait above, which depicts her straddling the US and Mexico-border. The exhibit also includes three murals by Rivera that were famous in Mexico City, digitized in actual size.
Kahlo’s portrait couldn’t come to The States at a better time. Kahlo created the work as a 25-year-old artist, as a commentary on how Mexican art tended to travel northward to the United States, and could lose its traditional roots. Three years later, the painter had her first solo exhibit in the US, and remains one of the most famous surrealists in art history.
‘Paint The Revolution: Mexican Modernism 1910-1950’ is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from October 25 – January, 8, 2017.
Credits
Text Annie Armstrong
Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art