One of the world’s most important collections of 20th-century Mexican art, including works by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, is set to be exported to Spain under an agreement with Banco Santander, sparking outrage among Mexico’s cultural community.
Nearly 400 cultural professionals have signed an open letter calling on the Mexican government to offer greater clarity on what the deal means for the masterpieces, particularly the works by Kahlo, which the Mexican state has declared an “artistic monument.”
“It’s a very serious issue,” said Francisco Berzunza, a historian and one of eight people who published the open letter. “She [Kahlo] is the most important artist in the history of our country and it’s easier to see her work outside of Mexico than in Mexico itself.”
Photo: AFP
The row centers on a collection of 160 works from the Gelman collection, rebranded as the Gelman Santander collection. Originally owned by the collectors Jacques and Natasha Gelman, the paintings, sketches and photographs were bought by the Mexican Zambrano family in 2023.
As well as Kahlo and Rivera, the collection includes works by Rufino Tamayo, Jose Clemente Orozco, Maria Izquierdo and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and a selection of Mexican photography.
Under the Santander deal, the collection, currently on public display in Mexico for the first time in nearly 20 years, is to return to Spain this summer, where it will become a cornerstone of the bank’s new cultural center, the Faro Santander.
In announcing the agreement in January, Santander said it would be “responsible for the conservation, research and exhibition” of the collection.
However, the ambiguity of the announcement, which did not say how long the works would remain in Spain, sparked concern.
The concern turned to indignation when Faro Santander’s director, Daniel Vega Perez de Arlucea, told El Pais that legislation governing the works was “flexible” and that the collection would have a “permanent presence” at the new cultural center.
Members of Mexico’s cultural community fear the deal means the works might never return to Mexico and say the law is unambiguous when it comes to these national treasures.
“Current legislation is very protective of these works, specifically those designated as national artistic monuments,” said Gabriela Mosqueda, a curator and another one of the letter’s initial signatories. “It deems them to be of significant value to Mexican identity and to the history of Mexican art.”
The dispute is particularly pertinent to Kahlo’s works, which received the “artistic monument” status in 1984: The presidential decree states clearly that her oeuvre may leave Mexico only temporarily and that the country’s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature is responsible for “repatriating” any works held in private collections overseas.
Artists, curators and others in Mexico’s cultural scene say that with the Santander deal, the institute, which owns only four of Kahlo’s 150 or so pieces, has done just the opposite.
“This decree was specifically intended to put a lock on private collections. To ensure they would not leave the country or be dispersed. That’s why we’re defending it so vigorously,” Berzunza said.
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