La Jornada: The work of Roberto Montenegro is revalued with an exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts

The works of the painter Roberto Montenegro (1881-1968) resurface in the Palace of Fine Arts with the exhibition Roberto Montenegro: Muralism outside the normmade up of almost a hundred pieces including portraits, murals, a collection of popular art and sketches.

Considered one of the first exponents of muralism, the man from Jalisco “remained relegated from the prominence” that other figures such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera received. The reasons for his exclusion were his perspective on masculinity and the dominant homophobia at the beginning of the 20th century, says curator Daniel Garza Usabiaga.

He added that the exhibition is part of the program that revisits the collection of muralism in Mexico. “We were interested because in the museum we have a fragment of one of his pieces, but there is no record about it and we don’t know what was around. His first mural was done in 1921 and the last in 1934.

“Montenegro was one of the most prolific painters of his time. He began in the post-revolutionary period, he went through realism, surrealism and modernism. In his works he revalued both popular cultures and the self-taught tradition of the 19th century, and he even wrote the first book that rescues the history of that pictorial current –Mexican Painting 1800-1860–, in which he recovers figures such as Hermenegildo Bustos; In fact, he returned to that aesthetic in his work,” says the curator.

“We cover its male representation, which in its time caused a lot of controversy because it did not coincide with the revolutionary ideal that the State wanted,” commented Garza Usabiaga.

Censorship

The exhibition is divided into four cores installed on the second floor of the venue. Among the pieces that make up it is tree of life (1922), the first mural commissioned by the then Secretary of Education, José Vasconcelos. The artist was forced to modify this work because it represented the figure of Saint Sebastian in an allusion to homosexuality.

The set of murals also stands out Reconstructionwhich began with the work The festival of the Holy Crosslocated in the Old College of San Pedro and San Pablo, where the headquarters of the National Center for Conservation and Registration of Movable Artistic Heritage (Cencropam) is now located.

“For Montenegro, the mural is like books: a practical means for the dissemination of ideas, knowledge and sensitivity. He participated with Gabriel Fernández in the initiative of free textbooks.”

You can also see the portraits she made of her artist friends Frida Kahlo, Dolores Olmedo and Pita Amor, as well as the filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.

Montenegro experimented with surrealism and criticized the war in the painting titled Hecatombe; He made caricatures of the dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolfo Hitler and, in addition, he resumed the transition between the revolutionary period and peace, as seen in the mural. Disarmamentwhich is also part of Reconstruction.

“He was a multifaceted man, he worked until the last day of his life. It is an act of social justice that his works can be enjoyed again. It gives us an overview of the lifestyle of a century ago. Perhaps the clash he had with other figures such as Carlos Chávez and Diego Rivera were another of the reasons why he remained almost in the shadow of oblivion,” he said.

After the death of Roberto Montenegro, his work was left in the hands of a niece, who donated part of the collection to Cencropam and the other is in the Center for the Study of History of Mexico, owned by Carlos Slim.

According to the expert, his work disappeared from national life due to the way in which the history of muralism was told. “Greater emphasis is placed on Siqueiros, Rivera, Orozco, undoubtedly because Montenegro was homosexual, but, if we realize, their works are so avant-garde that they touch on contemporary issues.

“He was an artist who produced a lot. It is impossible for me to think of an exhibition that summarizes everything that Montenegro did: he designed sets, founded museums, participated in the Hispanic American Fair in Brazil, made books. The best thing is that a large part of his collection is available for public consultation,” commented Daniel Garza.

At the close of the exhibition, a triptych was placed made up of untitled pieces cataloged as Science and technology, Trade and transportation y Work and savings. There are also self-portraits in which he studies the baroque spherical perspective.

The sample Roberto Montenegro: Muralism outside the normwill be open to the public until September 6, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Palacio de Bellas Artes Museum.