Exhibitions
The mirror as a trench: six decades of dissent in the work of Nahum B. Zenil
Until August 30, 2026, a major exhibition dedicated to Nahum B. Zenil offers an intense journey through more than half a century of artistic production. Born in Veracruz in 1947, Zenil has built a profoundly introspective and, at the same time, radically political body of work, where the body becomes the stage for tensions between power, spirituality, desire, and national identity.
From his earliest works in the 1970s, the artist embraced a strategy that would define his entire career: the persistent use of self-portraiture. Through it, he not only revisits his biography and family background, but also reconfigures a collective memory marked by silences, stigmas, and resistance. In his images, the intimate becomes public, and the personal acquires social resonance.
Nahum B. Zenil, Untitled, 1978, Artist's Collection.
One of the most unique elements of his imagery stems from his childhood experiences in the circus in Veracruz. That circus aesthetic—laden with theatricality, symbolism, and ambiguity—reappears constantly in his work as a space of transgression. There, norms are suspended, and desire, particularly homoerotic desire, finds ways to manifest itself freely, even though it has historically been repressed.
But Zenil has not only been a prolific creator; he has also played a key role in bridging the gap between art and activism. In 1986, he participated in organizing the Gay Culture Day at the Museo Universitario del Chopo, a pioneering event that the following year evolved into the Lesbian and Gay Cultural Week. These initiatives marked a turning point in the visibility of sexual minorities within the Mexican cultural sphere.
Nahum B. Zenil, You will look at yourself in the clear mirror of my eyes, 2000, Artist's Collection.
The exhibition at the Museo Universitario del Chopo underscores precisely this dual dimension of his legacy: that of an artist committed to his time and that of an activist who understood art as a space for debate, affirmation, and community. His work not only engages with the conflicts of his era but continues to challenge new generations to imagine other forms of belonging, affection, and resistance.
Curated by Sol Henaro Palomino and Miguel A. López, this exhibition presents itself as an invitation to look—and to look at oneself—without compromise. In Zenil's mirror, what appears is not just a face, but a shared history that is still being written.
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