Keep Frida in Mexico! Many object to move of marquee exhibit to Spain

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Set us as preferred MEXICO CITY — Many soccer aficionados in town for the World Cup took time out for a change-of-pace culture fix: a visit to an emblematic collection of 20th century Mexican art, featuring signature works of Frida Kahlo, the taboo-breaking painter turned global feminist icon.“Fabulous,” concluded Álvaro Muñoz, 41 a university professor from Colombia, after viewing the paintings of Kahlo and others.

But Muñoz was shocked to learn that many Mexicans fear that the private collection’s future in Mexico may be in doubt.“The paintings are the patrimony of all Mexicans,” he said.The works are scheduled to go on display in Europe, and the trove’s impending departure has ignited one of Mexico’s most heated cultural controversies in recent memory.

Hundreds of intellectuals and others have signed letters and online petitions expressing fears of a disastrous denouement: the collection’s prolonged — and possible permanent — absence from Mexico.“These works deserve to be preserved forever for the people of Mexico,” said Francisco Berzunza, an art historian.The 68 works — including 10 oil paintings by Kahlo — went on display at the Museum of Modern Art in February, the first public showing in Mexico in almost two decades.The exhibit, reflecting an especially vibrant period in Mexican history, has drawn record crowds, exceeding 300,000.

World & Nation Long condemned as a traitor, Malinche is being reimagined as a brilliant Indigenous survivor whose intelligence and resilience helped shape Mexico, amid a feminist and cultural reckoning that is rewriting her place in history.The show is scheduled to end Sunday and hit the road for a European tour, beginning with a star turn in the September opening of the glitzy new Faro Santander museum in Spain, Mexico’s onetime colonial overlord.T...