The Museum of Modern Art exhibits an artistic portrait of the Revueltas brothers.

▲ To create the exhibition "Aesthetic Revolts: A Vanguard Family," 36 public and private archives and collections were analyzed. Photo by Germán Canseco

Angel Vargas

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, August 24, 2025, p. 2

The history and legacy of one of the most emblematic, creative, and transgressive artistic lines of 20th-century Mexico comes to the Museum of Modern Art with the exhibition Estética Revueltas: Una familia de vanguardia , which will be on view until February 2026.

Comprising 147 pieces—including paintings, sheet music, photographs, books, prints, posters, films, and documents—it constitutes a diverse melting pot of the artistic, social, political, and cultural contributions of four of the 12 Revueltas siblings: Fermín, painter; Silvestre, musician; Rosaura, dancer, actress, and set designer; and José, writer and revolutionary.

Originally from Durango, the Revueltas family is "an unusual phenomenon" in the artistic world, according to Brenda Caro and Carlos Segoviano, curators of the exhibition: "There are few examples in Mexico, and perhaps in the world, of a family whose members developed in different disciplines, and yet, when brought together, they allow us to construct a profound account of the country's cultural life."

During a tour prior to the opening, researchers emphasized that this is the first time that an exhibition of this magnitude has been organized about this unique family clan, the result of an immersion in 36 public and private archives and collections.

These include the national centers for research, documentation and information on theater (Citru), music (Cenidim) and plastic arts (Cenidiap), of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature.

The exhibition takes place in the context of the 125th anniversary of Silvestre's birth and the 90th anniversary of Fermín's death, and the 2026 anniversary of José's death.

The exhibition reveals the approaches and proposals that each of these four brothers developed in their respective fields, the curators emphasized.

Silvestre knew how to combine multirhythms and polyrhythms with the academy's musical heritage, as well as incorporate certain elements of Mexican vernacular music that forged the sound that distinguished him and changed the course of symphonic music in our country, they explained.

Fermín, for his part, moved from open-air painting schools to the 30-30 movement and muralism, with a body of work marked by powerful visual ruptures.

At a younger age, Rosaura and José became involved in modern dance, literature, and film, respectively. She renewed choreographic discourse in Mexico and achieved international prestige, while he transformed the screenplay into a literary genre, while consolidating a narrative and political oeuvre of great impact and influence.

Among the pieces on display are several previously unpublished materials, such as some recently discovered early scores by Silvestre Revueltas, as well as documents that attest to the Durango family's transition to Mexico City and abroad.

Political dimension

A central focus of the exhibition is the political dimension of the Revueltas movement. Fermín painted, drew, and engraved workers and peasants; Silvestre presided over the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists and supported the Spanish Republic; José became one of the most critical voices of the Mexican left, with novels such as Los días terrenales and El luto humano .

Meanwhile, Rosaura starred in The Salt of the Earth (1954), a film about Chicano miners that cost her political persecution in the United States and Mexico, but also took her to the stages of socialist Europe and to collaborate with Bertolt Brecht's theater.

The exhibition allows us to discover the Revueltas brothers' collaborations with emblematic figures of national culture such as Diego Rivera, Carlos Mérida, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Roberto Gavaldón, among others.

It also constitutes a review not only of the individual careers of these emblematic creators, but also of the intersections between them.

According to the curators, the four brothers never worked on the same project, although some of them did collaborate on certain initiatives, thus forging the interdisciplinary nature of Mexican art in the first half of the 20th century.

For example, they noted, Rosaura starred in the only play written by José, El Cuadrante de la Soledad , with stage design by Diego Rivera; Silvestre collaborated with modern dance companies; and Fermín established himself as a pioneer in graphic design and editorial illustration.

With this exhibition, which will later tour to Michoacán and Durango, the Museum of Modern Art offers the public the opportunity to reconnect with a family that, through music, literature, painting, dance, and film, revolutionized the artistic and political forms of its time. A clan that, true to its surname, "knew how to turn everything upside down."

▲ In the age of social media, young women consider themselves unattractive with geometric designs on their faces, arms, and hands. Moving away from their villages also contributes to the loss of this centuries-old practice. Photo: Afp

AFP

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, August 24, 2025, p. 3

Umerkot. After mixing charcoal with a few drops of goat's milk, 60-year-old Basran Jogi turns his needle toward his guests of the day: two Pakistani girls who have come to get their first traditional tattoo.

In Hindu villages on Pakistan's eastern border, near India, tattoo artists have been using needles to draw dotted lines, circles, and other geometric designs on the faces, arms, and hands of young girls for centuries.

“First, we draw two straight lines between the eyebrows,” Jogi explains. “And then we gently insert the needle between those two lines until the blood appears,” he continues.

Pooja, 6, grimaces as the dots begin to form circles and triangles on her forehead and chin. Her older sister, Champa, 7, grows impatient: “I’m ready too!”

This once common sight has become increasingly rare in recent years as more Hindu families—barely 2 percent of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's 255 million people—move to live in the city.

“The last generation”

“These tattoos make us identifiable in a crowd,” says Durga Prem, a 20-year-old computer engineering student from Badin, a city in the southern province of Sindh, where the Hindu minority is concentrated.

"Our generation doesn't like them anymore. In the age of social media, young women avoid getting facial tattoos because they believe such designs would make them look different and unattractive," she told AFP.

Her sister Mumta also refused to get the tattoos of the dots that adorn the faces of her mother and two grandmothers.

But "if we had stayed in the village, we would probably have those tattoos on our faces or arms," ​​he says.

In a country where non-Muslim minorities feel discriminated against in many areas, "we cannot force our daughters to continue" getting tattoos, says Hindu rights advocate Mukesh Meghwar.

"It's their choice. But sadly, we may be the last generation to see tattoos on women's faces, necks, hands, and arms," ​​she adds.

In his opinion, some of the comments from other Pakistanis are also "unfavorable," since some schools of Islam condemn tattoos.

This would mean the end of a centuries-old practice, deeply rooted in the culture, according to anthropologists. So much so that most Hindus interviewed by AFP defend the tattoos, but admit they cannot explain their meaning.

“To ward off evil spirits”

"These symbols are part of the culture of peoples originating from the Indus civilization," during the Bronze Age, says anthropologist Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro.

“These 'marks' were traditionally used to distinguish members of a community” and to “ward off evil spirits,” he describes.

For Jogi, tattooing is above all “a passion” for beautifying women’s faces.

“They’re not done for any particular reason, it’s a practice that’s been around for a long time,” he explains, while carefully inspecting Pooja and Champa’s newly tattooed faces.

Now the dots that adorn their foreheads are a deep black and then they will turn dark green and remain until their last days.

Basran Jogi and Jamna Kolhi can attest to this.

“These tattoos were drawn for me by a childhood friend who died a few years ago,” says Kolhi, 40.

"When I see them, I think of her and our youth. It's a memory that will last a lifetime," he says.