The presiding judge of the Sixth District Court in Administrative Matters of the First Circuit, Francisco Javier Rebolledo Peña, denied this Wednesday the permanent suspension presented by the Christian Lawyers Association against the exhibition 'The Coming of the Lord' by Mexican artist Fabián Cháirez.
Following the announcement, Fabián Cháirez celebrated on his social media with the word "Victory." The decision to suspend the exhibition one day before its closing at the Academy of San Carlos sparked controversy on social media. Some celebrated the cancellation, arguing that it offended Christian beliefs, while others criticized the censorship of the artist for presenting a reinterpretation of religious figures and images.
After the judge's ruling, which ordered the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to withdraw the exhibition, Fabián Cháirez expressed his discontent in a statement: "This ruling was never personally notified to me, nor have I been given a copy of the document at the time of writing this statement, leaving me completely defenseless as I was not summoned to this judicial process."
The artist claimed that, as the creator of the work, he should have been called to the amparo trial to defend his work and not see his right to freedom of expression affected. Additionally, Cháirez denounced the censorship of his work as an act of intolerance that stifles the possibility of debating and reinterpreting relationships with the divine.
Cháirez called for a peaceful demonstration on the day the exhibition was scheduled to close at the Academy, proclaiming that today they censor his work, but tomorrow other artistic expressions could be affected. This is not the first controversy the artist has been involved in, as he previously sparked debate with the works 'The Revolution' or 'Zapata in Heels' in 2019, a homoerotic reinterpretation of Emiliano Zapata.
'The Coming of the Lord' consists of nine oil paintings on canvas, created between 2018 and 2023, where Cháirez fuses elements of sacred art with eroticism and sexuality, inspired by artists such as Fra Angelico and El Greco.
