Historic Mexican Art Academy Faces Controversy after Court-Ordered Closure of ‘Christianophobic’ Show

On Friday, March 7, as yet another museum censorship controversy roiled Mexico’s art scene, a group of around 250 protesters flying rainbow flags gathered at the shuttered entrance of Mexico City’s Academy of San Carlos, the oldest art school on the American continent.

Founded in 1783, the Academy of San Carlos houses one of the finest art collections in Mexico, with works ranging from prints by Dürer and Rembrandt to plaster casts of works by Michelangelo, Cellini, and Ghiberti. But over the past week, it has gained notice not for its holdings but for the censorship of an exhibition there by artist Fabián Cháirez.

Cháirez is known for homoerotic scenes showing members of the Catholic church in ecstasy. He is no stranger to controversy: his campy depiction of revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919), La Revolución, generated strident protests back in 2019, and in one instance devolved into violence. The painter’s Academy of San Carlos show, “The Coming of the Lord,” has stoked indignation among religious groups since it opened during Mexico City’s Art Week last month.

There was no violence at the Academy on Friday, where drag queens, bears, and members of the leather community stood listening to queer community leaders and religious allies passionately defend Cháirez’s show, which was suspended by Judge Francisco Javier Rebolledo Peña on Monday, March 3. The plaintiff, a group called Abogados Cristianos (Christian Lawyers), is active across Spain and Latin America promoting “the fundamental rights of religious freedom, life, and family.”

The show has received persistent criticism from influential figures on the right, including Senator Lilly Téllez, who called it “a cheap and desperate attention grab.” Chanting protesters have occupied the galleries on more than one occasion, and on February 14, a religious group even staged a makeshift altar outside the Academy to lead prayers while they held up a banner that read, “No to Christianophobia in Mexico.”

Judge Rebolledo Peña has not yet reached a ruling, but he sided with the plaintiffs when he granted a temporary suspension of the exhibition. Cháirez has called this “a pyrrhic victory,” since the show was slated to close on March 7. The paintings cannot be moved and will remain in the darkened galleries of the Academy until the matter is resolved in the next few weeks.

Unlike the two cases that preceded it at the Museo Tamayo and the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo (MUAC), where the museums decided to cancel or remove artworks from view following public pressure by activists and social media firestorms, the case at the Academy of San Carlos is being decided in a court of law at a time when both the law and federal courts in Mexico are under radical transformation. In September 2024, a divisive judicial reform was pushed through when Morena, the ruling party, was successful in poaching three senators from the opposition to reach a supermajority in both houses of the legislature. The judicial reform will replace all federal jurists in two elections, in 2025 and 2027. Judge Rebolledo Peña’s seat will be up for election in 2027.

According to Jaime Cárdenas Gracia, an expert in constitutional law and candidate for one of the seats on the Supreme Court in 2025, well over half of the articles in the Mexican constitution have been amended or altered since Morena came to power.

“The Mexican Constitution is very different from the American Constitution—it’s reformed a lot,” Cárdenas Gracia explained, noting that many people believe a nation’s constitution should provide stability and guaranteed rights. In Mexico, “constitutional changes have to do with wider cultural changes in society and the political environment.”

Even so, the judicial suspension of “The Coming of the Lord” is unprecedented—Cárdenas Gracia called it “aberrant”—and the UNAM, the degree-granting institution to which both the MUAC and the Academy belong, has been wary of making public statements while the case is still before the court.

Cháirez does not share this cautious approach. Clad in a rubber gimp mask and red-stained arm bandages, he addressed the crowd that he and his fellow organizers had summoned to the Academy over just three days of social media posts. “Art has been a historic collaborator in the struggle for freedom and democracy because it helps us imagine worlds that do not yet exist, remember atrocities we should not repeat, and envision realities that the powerful do not want to reveal and do not want us to discover,” Cháirez said at the protest.

The proud and gleeful mood that had characterized the gathering—promoted as a celebratory “closing ceremony” rather than a protest—started to grow solemn at his words. Cháirez continued: “Above all, art helps us understand ourselves as individuals and as a society. May we always remember that freedom is strengthened when we fight for the freedom of others.”