Cuerpo, Gesto e Historia
For Art Week Mexico 2026, SAENGER Galeria will present Cuerpo, Gesto e Historia on January 29 — a group painting exhibition that creates a dialogue among artists whose practices span over a century of Mexican art history. The exhibition explores an expanded genealogy of painting and drawing as living, bodily languages.
The exhibition brings together works by:
Gilberto Aceves Navarro (1931–2019)
David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974)
Cecilia Barreto (1985)
Fernanda Brunet (1963)
Robert Janitz (1962)
Kikyz1313 (1988)
Dr. Lakra (1972)
Diego Rivera (1886–1957)
Iván Trueta (1977)
Rafael Uriegas (1982)
The selection brings together works by Gilberto Aceves Navarro (1931–2019), Cecilia Barreto (1985), Fernanda Brunet (1963), Robert Janitz (1962), Kikyz1313 (1988), Dr. Lakra (1972), Diego Rivera (1886–1957), David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974), Iván Trueta (1977), and Rafael Uriegas (1982); artists who, from diverse historical, political, and formal contexts, share a conception of the image as a space of tension between body, gesture, and history. Rather than establishing a chronological reading, the exhibition proposes a constellation of affinities in which time folds in on itself and painting persists as a field of thought and action.
The body—represented, fragmented, deformed, or activated through gesture—occupies a central place in all the practices brought together here. From the public and monumental dimension in Rivera and Siqueiros to more intimate and symbolic explorations in later generations, the human figure appears as a territory upon which collective memories, cultural identities, and personal experiences are inscribed. In this sense, the body functions not as a theme, but as a conceptual structure.
Painting and drawing are presented here as physical and energetic acts. Gesture, the materiality of the surface, and the trace of the artist’s body reveal a direct relationship with making, understood not only as expression but as embodied knowledge. Throughout the exhibition, the work constantly oscillates between figuration and abstraction, destabilizing the image and avoiding any form of closed representation.
The exhibition is curated by Bernardo Saenger, director and founder of Saenger Galería. From this position, the project also assumes a personal dimension: the responsibility of bringing together, in the same space and time, fundamental artists from the history of Mexican art alongside contemporary voices that continue to expand its possibilities. This encounter does not seek hierarchies or nostalgia, but rather aims to highlight the continuity, friction, and vitality of painting in the present.
—Bernado Saenger
