Mexican Artist Decries “Censorship” of Queer Nun and Priest Portraits 

After sparking fury and legal complaints from some members of Mexico’s Catholic community, contemporary artist Fabián Cháirez’s exhibition featuring suggestive portraits of queer priests and nuns has been suspended per a judge’s orders. Hosted in a gallery at a public university in Mexico City, Cháirez’s La venida del Señor (The coming of the Lord) drew criticism and multiple protests in recent weeks.

In a March 5 statement shared on social media, Cháirez said his exhibition “had been subjected to censorship,” calling the suspension “not only an attack on my work, but also on the fundamental right to freedom of expression, the cornerstone of any democratic society.”

The exhibition opened at the Academia de San Carlos Centro Historico, affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), on February 5, and was scheduled to run through March 7. Consisting of several paintings from the artist’s five-year series Monjes y Cardinales, the exhibition depicted consecrated women and men with their eyes shut and mouths agape in ecstasy from suggestive positions alluding to masturbation, fellatio, and digital penetration with same-sex partners.

In an earlier statement to Hyperallergic, Cháirez explained that the paintings “make a comparison between religious ecstasy and sexual ecstasy, two things that would appear to be opposites but actually have more in common.”

Members of the national chapter of the Association of Christian Lawyers (AAC) and UNAM’s Catholic community were incensed by the exhibition’s contents, with the AAC filing a complaint with the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) alleging that the “Christianophobic” and “blasphemous” work violated the constitutional right to religious freedom without attack. Catholic students and activists staged multiple peaceful protests both outside and within the gallery lambasting what they described as “offensive” depictions of Christianity.

In light of the AAC complaint, Judge Francisco Javier Rebolledo Peña, head of the Sixth District Court for Administrative Matters in Mexico City, granted a suspension order on Cháirez’s show, noting that UNAM must suspend access to the exhibition within 24 hours or face the use of public force for its closure.

UNAM, the Academia de San Carlos, and AAC did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic‘s request for comment.

In his statement, Cháirez said that the university was the sole recipient of all legal communications regarding the complaint and suspension order.

“I was never personally notified of this resolution, nor was I given a copy of the document at the time of writing this statement, leaving me in a state of total defenselessness as I have not been called in this judicial process as an interested third party,” Cháirez wrote.

He also alleged that the lack of public statements from the university and other affiliates of the exhibition “demonstrates their lack of interest in instilling in future generations of artists the defense of their work and freedom of expression.”