Curated by Sharon Jazzan, Ariadna Patiño Guadarrama, and Victoria Giraudo

Newly resurgent under the directorship of Agustín Pérez Rubio (who took the helm of the institution in 2014), MALBA presents “México Moderno: Vanguardia y Revolución,” a sweeping survey of artistic production in Mexico during the early twentieth century. Presenting more than 120 artworks (many of them loans), the exhibition focuses specifically on the ways in which artists—including many women—used visual expression as a means to codify a uniquely Mexican identity. The show will track the influence of four key forces: the emergence of early modernism in academies and via the European avant-garde; the dynamism of metropolitan life; the rise of popular politics, including indigenous movements; and the arrival of Mexican Surrealism. Expect to see masterpieces by such renowned artists as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo alongside lesser-known works by the Stridentists and practitioners of magical realism.  

— Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy