Ernesto’s training backpack and mat That Guevara, as well as Fidel Castro Ruz’s pajamas and robes with which the fighters went out to the ring, coexist with the prints illustrated by José Guadalupe Posada in 4 revolutions of Mexico and Cuba in the Vanegas Arroyo printing press, exhibition that opened yesterday at the Vlady Center. The exhibition is part of the program of activities that commemorate the centenary of Castro Ruz’s birth, which will be celebrated in 2026.
Of around 250 pieces, including prints and objects, the exhibition is put together like a head-to-head between free and social wrestling.
Most of the pieces were lent by the descendants of the publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (1852-1917), who still have the house bought by the printer and where they arrived. That and Castro, in addition to being trained by his grandson, the fighter Arsacio Kid Vanegas.
4 revolutions… It focuses on the work of the printing press, not on Posada’s work, which, in some way, “has overshadowed the Vanegas Arroyo family,” says Fernando Gálvez, director of the Vlady Center. The exhibition freely covers the 145 years of the printing press, founded by the publisher in 1880, to the current generations, who continue to disseminate its legacy. Every year, Luz María and Inés Cedeño Vanegas, at their location at the Zócalo International Book Fair, show prints from original plates or images, such as the Parlor games folder, published by his great-grandfather with illustrations by Posada.
A life of a novel
Gálvez met Kid Vanegas in 1998, when Demián Flores dedicated his exhibition to him Mexico Arena at the Museum of Mexico City: “After listening to him on the two occasions I was with him, I understood that his life and family history made up a story that far surpassed any literary novel.” He found as a common thread “the history of two countries that is intertwined through the printing press and then the life of Arsacio Vanegas.
But what revolutions are they talking about? “The one about the independence of Cuba began to appear in the Vanegas Arroyo printing press, which did not usually publish international news. Arsacio said that when José Martí lived in Mexico, he had been a friend of his grandfather. In fact, Martí lived a few steps from the printing press when it was half a block from the Zócalo. The family even said that the printing press had published texts and poems for him, however, Arsacio spent years searching through the dozens of thousands of printouts without finding anything “On the other hand, he found corridos dedicated to Antonio Maceo; that is, news about the Cuban independence revolution.”
▲ Detail of a 1902 print depicting Antonio Maceo with his new collection of modern songs.Photo courtesy Vlady Center
The second revolution recorded by the printing press is “the centenary of the Independence of Mexico”; then, prints appear alluding to Miguel Hidalgo and the Grito de Dolores.” A third is the Mexican one from 1910 and the fourth is the Cuban one from 1959. “We exhibit the galley proofs, corrected by hand and pen by Castro Ruz, of the manifestos of July 26, made in the printing press.”
According to Gálvez, this first approach of the Cubans with Arsacio, through the fighter Drake Medrano, occurred due to the possibility of printing materials that would be sent to Cuba from Mexico. Subsequently, “a type of subscription was printed that Castro Ruz carried or sent to the United States, on various occasions, to raise funds for the revolutionary movement.”
Over time, they asked Kid to be his physical trainer. It was not just about helping the Cubans achieve “a physical condition of resistance: Arsacio also taught them hand-to-hand fighting techniques that would be useful to them.”
The exhibition has a small room that alludes to the presence of Cubans in Mexico. The photographs exhibited were provided by the Cuban embassy in Mexico.
Apart from the section dedicated to wrestling, the exhibition ends with a nucleus like a “fifth revolution”: aesthetics.
Apart from showing Posada’s contribution, “we show that before him there was Manuel Manilla. By seeing both Manilla’s art and that of the illustrators, who have often remained anonymous, we realized that Vanegas Arroyo had an editor’s style that detonated the great artist Posada, since his imprint of journalism and the work carried out by the printing press suited him well.”
The exhibition 4 revolutions of Mexico and Cuba at the Vanegas Arroyo printing press It will be exhibited from November 20 to February 15, 2026, at the Valdy Center (Goya 63, Insurgentes Mixcoac neighborhood).