The Feathers Burning in Flight (Madrid)

Barcelona’s Imaginart gallery has produced and curated the exhibition “Las plumas ardiendo en vuelo” (Burning Feathers in Flight), the second exhibition in Spain by Mexican artist Fabián Cháirez (Chiapas, 1987). The exhibition will open on June 28th at 12 p.m. at the Museo La Neomudéjar in Madrid. Fabián Cháirez is one of the most provocative and controversial visual artists on the Latin American cultural scene.

His works are known for their critical nature and their exploration of the male and racialized body through the lens of gender performativity. In December 2019, his painting “The Revolution,” exhibited at the Museo del Palacio de las Bellas Artes, sparked massive protests in Mexico: the piece depicted the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata naked, wearing heels and a pink hat, riding a horse with an erection.

The artist works with codes that ravage consciences and force the viewer to consider other ways of expressing sexuality, gender, and race. Cháirez presents bodies in non-normative attitudes, which function as a counterpoint to the hegemonic masculinity of the heterosexual white man.