Exhibition contrasts the visual discourses of an artist and a politician

In Mexico in the 20s and 30s of the last century, as is the case today, social groups coexisted that appreciated and consumed various artistic currents. In Counterpoint: Alberto J. Pani & Diego Rivera, curators, exhibition presented at the National Museum of San Carlos (MNSC), two visions, or imaginaries, are shown that opted for apparently opposite, although complementary, plastic movements.

That is to say, European classicism, represented by the collection of the engineer and political expert in economics Alberto J. Pani (1878-1955), and examples of Mexican art from the 19th and 20th centuries, at the time selected by the muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957). ) to set up a sample which, by the way, was never carried out, says Ana Garduño, guest curator of the exhibition of 120 pieces, including oil paintings, drawings, photographs and catalogues, spanning from 1920 to 1930.

In Counterpoint The works that Pani acquired in Europe during the interwar period are exhibited; they were sold to the Mexican State in 1926 and are now part of the MNSC collection. Secretary of Finance and Public Credit on two occasions, Pani was also in charge of purchasing another batch of parts by the government. At first, both groups of works were part of the San Carlos Academy and influenced the training of budding artists.

Although they had different tastes and interests, Pani and Rivera shared a passion for art and the former was a patron of the latter. The portrait that the muralist painted of the civil engineer and collector was prepared in Europe, since at that time Pani was Mexico’s ambassador to France.

A politician and an artist, acting as curators, generated visual discourses that we now counterpoint. For the researcher, even though Pani chose painting from old continent and Rivera national work, They were aligned in their academic essence, since both integrate a Western artistic canon and are located in a very general international tradition of customs..

The intention of Counterpoint consists of “pointing out the plurality of artistic consumption that can occur in the same territory and era: neocolonialism and Eurocentrism, forms of cultural imperialism, in confrontation with nationalist projects, are the ideologies in conflict, although in the present exhibition they are exposed as a way of dialogue.

For the general public, Rivera will be more familiar than Pani. In order to clarify doubts, the exhibition opens with two portraits: Self-portrait with hat, that Rivera made in 1907, and an effigy of Pani, also by the painter, both property of the Dolores Olmedo Museum.

According to Garduño, Pani’s was a taste in transition, given that the plastic art from Europe, which adorned the homes of the Mexican elites, was displaced by locally manufactured art as the 20th century went by.. Pani was not an isolated case, but represents a group linked to the bourgeoisie and politics that had built the keys to identity in the Porfiriato and that, at least in its artistic selections, refused to adapt to the nationalist currents promoted by the post-revolutionary State, of which it was a part.

Counterpoint It has its origins in a document found by Garduño in the archives of Diego Rivera of the Bank of Mexico Trust. It was a kind of note in which he proposed several artists for an exhibition; These were teachers who had not achieved great success in life. “Rivera listed names of creators that he considered essential to shape an exhibition; With this he ventured into curatorship. It was born from his need to rescue from oblivion a generation that even today is little visible.

Together with other cultural and intellectual managers, he was convinced that national creators would find their way towards a new classical Mexican art that would displace European models.it is written.

The exhibition features works by national artists, such as Julio Ruelas, Germán Gedovius, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Félix Parra, Carlos Alcalde, Andrés Ríos, Juan Pacheco, Severo Amador and Mateo Herrera, which coexist with pieces by international artists, including Lucas Cranach, Orazio de Ferrari, Francisco de Zurbarán, Jan van Kessel, Thomas Lawrence and Gillis Mostaert The Old Man.

Counterpoint: Alberto J. Pani & Diego Rivera, curators It will remain open until March 9 at the National Museum of San Carlos (Avenida México-Tenochtitlan 50, Colonia Tabacalera).