In December of 2019, Mexico City’s iconic Bellas Artes Palace was besieged by a throng of protesters demanding that one of the paintings on display be taken down—burned, even. The painting in question was La Revolución by Fabián Cháirez, which portrays national hero Emiliano Zapata on horseback, naked save for a pair of high heels and a pink sombrero. His heels are made of gun barrels, and his horse is armed with a raging hard-on.

“I was looking for a combative reference—situation of power,” Cháirez explained when we spoke at his Mexico City studio just a few weeks shy of exactly three years later. “This painting was important to recognizing my personal fight but at the same time the fight for my community.”

The show at Bellas Artes made that fight literal, with enraged protesters assaulting the queer counter-protesters.

“It was a storm,” Cháirez laughs, but then his face becomes serious. “It wasn’t funny. I had a lot of people writing to me on social media saying that they wanted to kill me. Like hundreds. They showed pictures of my family, saying they were gonna die. It’s okay if they mess with me, but not my family. That changed things.”

A few days later a group of some 300 activists, community leaders, and local politicians gathered before the Art Deco-domed palace to denounce the violence. Zapata es de todos, Cháirez told the crowd. Zapata is for everyone.

Born in Tuxtla Gutiérrez—the remote capital of Chiapas, a state with a famously rebellious reputation—Cháirez was not new to the fight for queer recognition, though this was the first time it had thrust him onto the national stage. Before that, his had been a more personal battle.

“Discovering my sexuality was complicated because Tuxtla is kind of conservative and racist,” he says. “In Tuxtla, they really appreciate the white vision of the world, and there is........

© Observer