Emiliano Zapata Family To Sue Ballas Artes And Artist That Created Painting Depicting The Mexican Revolutionary General As Gay With Pink Sombrero And Wearing Heels

Bellas Artes Gallery in Mexico City and artist Fabián Cháirez facing lawsuit from the Zapata family for exhibiting painting of Mexican Revolutionary General Emiliano Zapata as gay wearing a pink Sombrero and women's shoe heels mounted on a horse with an erection.

By H. Nelson Goodson

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

December 9, 2019

Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico - Jorge Zapata, the grandson of the Mexican Revolutionary General Emiliano Zapata announced during a press conference that the family has acquired an attorney and is expected to file a lawsuit against the National Institute of Bellas Artes and artist Fabián Cháirez for exhibiting a painting by Cháirez of Emiliano wearing a pink sombrero and wearing women's shoe heels while riding in a horse with an erection. Jorge says that he has a lot of gay friends and respects them, but to depict Emiliano as gay is an insult to the general and his family.

Jorge described Cháirez as an unknown artist looking for fame as a reason for painting Emiliano as gay.

According to the Cultural Secretariat un México, Fabián Cháirez is a Chiapas painter whose work is part of Neomexicanism. His pieces focus on portraying bodies and scenes that do not fit, differ or disobey archetypes of masculinity. The characters who star in Cháirez's paintings blur the boundaries between masculinity and femininity and question the social impositions related to sexual difference and machismo. In turn, Cháirez resorts to figures of popular culture that throughout history have been considered as "Mexican" shapers as a way of questioning the ways in which identity is generated. His piece,  the revolution questions the macho stereotypes that make up the national identity and makes visible the movements of sexual diversity. This work is exhibited in the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts in the exhibition "Emiliano Zapata Despues de Zapata". Cháirez says on his Facebook page, "If you use the feminine, race or social position as an insult, then you are part of the problem and you are very far from offending me ... because questioning makes us think and thinking will set us free.

The Bellas Artes exhibition "Zapata after Emiliano Zapata/Emiliano Zapata Despues de Zapata" began on November 27, 2019 and will continue until February 16, 2019 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.