Prodigal Patrimony
Mexico’s jurisdiction over its cultural heritage has been an ongoing topic of debate, most recently centred on the artwork of Frida Kahlo and other 20th-century masters (more on this below). As criticism of the government’s handling of the export of the privately-owned Gelman Collection has ballooned, often disproportionately, this week the administration highlighted the 4T’s successes in repatriating Mexican heritage from abroad. Since Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration began this campaign, the country has recovered 17,878 archaeological, historical and ethnographic pieces.
Of that total, 3,716 objects have been repatriated since Claudia Sheinbaum took office, which is ten times the figure recovered during Enrique Peña Nieto’s entire six-year term. According to INAH’s statistics, 351 pieces were recovered under Peña Nieto (2012–2018), 5,479 under Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), and 14,162 during López Obrador’s presidency (2018–2024).
President Sheinbaum noted that some of the recovered pieces have been returned directly to their communities of origin, while Culture Secretary Claudia Curiel de Icaza emphasised the recoveries are part of a broader alliance-building strategy with other countries.
The campaign “Mi patrimonio no se vende” (”My heritage is not for sale”) was an interinstitutional effort launched by the Culture Ministry and INAH in 2019, with the Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic network playing a central role and additional support from the Attorney General’s Office and the National Guard. The campaign has become one of the most active heritage-recovery programmes in Latin America. Its legal basis rests on the 1972 Federal Law on Archaeological, Artistic and Historic Monuments and Zones, which empowers INAH to pursue the recovery of monuments of particular national value under Article 16 — though the campaign’s broader practice of seeking the return of objects regardless of individual significance has drawn some debate over its prioritisation criteria.
International cooperation has been central to these efforts, both bilaterally and through Mexico’s status as a signatory to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on prohibiting illicit trafficking in cultural property, under which Mexico has itself returned objects to countries including Colombia, Cuba, Spain, Guatemala and Nigeria. Between 2019 and 2024, the United States returned 11,809 objects to Mexico, Spain 2,526, Italy 840 (via the Carabinieri’s specialist cultural heritage unit), Canada 425 and the Netherlands 260. Just this week, Italian authorities handed over a further 27 archaeological and paleontological objects recovered by the Carabinieri’s Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, including Mexica, Maya, Zapotec and Nayarit artifacts and Cretaceous-period fossils.
Emblematic recoveries include the Olmec Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo (known as the “Portal to the Underworld”) traced to a private collection in Colorado through decades of research by archaeologist David C. Grove, who died shortly after its repatriation in 2023; and also a Maya brazier from Palenque, recovered from Texas ahead of a planned Arizona auction with help from epigrapher David Stuart. More contentious has been the case of the Teotihuacán murals collected by Harald Wagner in the 1960s, whose legal status was complicated by the fact his removal of them predated the 1972 law; after a decade of negotiation, the collection was split between San Francisco’s de Young Museum and Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology (MNA), a compromise that remains controversial, but has preserved access to the murals in both countries.
Among the more significant recent recoveries is a Mixtec human skull inlaid with turquoise mosaic, shell, jadeite and quartz originating from the region spanning present-day Oaxaca and Puebla. Formerly held at Leiden’s Museum of Ethnology, it is now on display in Villa de Tututepec, on the Oaxaca coast. Also repatriated from New York was a carved Late Classic Maya panel from Chiapas (600–900 AD) depicting Bird Jaguar, ruler of the ancient city of Yaxchilán.
The holy grail for this patriotic pursuit of patrimony is the resplendent Penacho de Moctezuma, which has been in Europe since the 16th century. Despite diplomatic efforts by multiple Mexican presidents (most vocally by AMLO), the delicate pre-Columbian feather headdress – which Austrian experts say is too fragile to move – is still housed in the Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna. In October 2025, the Chamber of Deputies’ Comisión de Pueblos Indígenas y Afromexicanos, led by Asael Hernández Cerón, called on Sheinbaum to open formal diplomatic proceedings with Austria to seek the artifact’s return, with indigenous representatives arguing that Vienna had shown more openness to citizen-led initiatives than the Mexican government itself had shown institutional resolve; four bills already before the Austrian parliament support restitution, though Mexico has yet to submit a formal request.
There may also be a more pragmatic route. The British Museum, under its chairman and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has been in talks with the Greek government over a possible long-term loan arrangement for the Parthenon Sculptures, better known as the Elgin Marbles. The idea is to find a formula that allows some of the works to return to Athens without forcing either side to concede the underlying ownership dispute. If Britain and Greece can make progress on an issue that has been politically charged for decades, perhaps Mexico and Austria could explore something similar: a renewable loan, shared stewardship or temporary return of the Penacho that respects both Mexico’s cultural claim and Austria’s concerns over its fragility.
Frida on the Docket
The Supreme Court’s decision to take up the fate of Frida Kahlo’s Autorretrato con medallón (1948) has drawn cultural and legal commentators into a debate that, while framed publicly as a clash between the right to culture and the right to private property, some lawyers argue is really more a technical question of legal hierarchy.
The case originated when Banco Ve por Más, acting as trustee for the painting’s owner, sought permission from INBAL in 2024 to export the work permanently, only to be refused on the basis of a 1984 presidential decree — issued under Miguel de la Madrid — declaring Kahlo’s entire output an Artistic Monument and barring its definitive export, whether in state or private hands. The bank’s amparo challenge argues that this restriction exceeds what is actually permitted under Article 16 of the 1972 Federal Law on Archaeological, Artistic and Historic Monuments and Zones, which allows privately owned monuments to be exported, temporarily or permanently, with the relevant institute’s authorisation.
Legal experts have pointed out that Mexican law places statutes passed by Congress above regulations or presidential decrees, and neither the 1975 regulation to the 1972 law nor the 1984 decree can lawfully introduce a prohibition the law itself does not contain. Cultural law specialist Luis Cacho, formerly head of the legal affairs unit at the Culture Ministry and at INBAL, has noted that circuit courts have historically sided with the law over the decree in similar amparo cases, and that definitive exports of Artistic Monument-declared works, including by Kahlo and other muralists such as Siqueiros, Orozco, Rivera and María Izquierdo, have in fact occurred before.
Not everyone accepts that framing. Some argue the more fundamental issue is what obligations the state assumes when it issues a heritage declaration in the first place, warning that permitting definitive export would turn such declarations into a marketing asset for international sales rather than a protective measure.
Both lawyers and cultural experts agree the ruling’s real significance lies beyond this single artwork: a decision favouring the bank would set binding precedent for any privately held work carrying a similar Artistic Monument declaration — a list that includes Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, Dr Atl, Saturnino Herrán, Remedios Varo and María Izquierdo, and one directly relevant to the much-debated Gelman Collection. That collection, privately held by the Zambrano family and administered under an agreement with Banco Santander, is relying on renewable temporary export permits to send a selection of its monument-declared works on a multi-year international tour, following its record-breaking run at Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno this summer. The collection is scheduled to return to Mexico for an exhibition in Monterrey in 2028.
Hilda Trujillo, who spent eighteen years directing the Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul), warns that if the court authorised permanent export, it would leave Mexico “without Fridas,” given the artist’s limited output and the intensity of international demand, and would deprive Mexicans unable to travel abroad of access to her work — aside from a selection of works held in the Dolores Olmedo collection in Mexico City. She considers a ruling against heritage protection unlikely but not impossible, calling it potentially “devastating” for the wider legal framework protecting Mexican patrimony, which extends well beyond a handful of twentieth-century artists to pre-Hispanic, colonial and architectural heritage generally.
And the Ariel Nominees Are…
The Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (AMACC) announced nominations for the 68th Ariel Awards on 8 July, narrowing a field of 151 submitted productions down to 49 nominees. The ceremony will take place on 3 October in Mexico City, marking the gala’s return to the capital after two years in Jalisco, timed to coincide with the Academy’s 80th anniversary.
En el camino, directed by David Pablos, dominates with 13 nominations across every one of the categories it competes in, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Original Score, Art Direction, Costume Design and several technical categories, along with acting nods for Osvaldo Sánchez and Mariano López Sosa. Shot entirely in Ciudad Juárez and produced by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s companies Animal de Luz Films and La Corriente del Golfo, the film is a road trip drama following Veneno, a drifter who talks long-haul trucker Muñeco into giving him a lift. A romance develops between them along the journey as Veneno’s past ties to organised crime closes in. Pablos has said the project grew out of a chance encounter years ago with the world of long-haul truckers, via a photographer who had been documenting drivers on the northern highways. He chose to set the story on the desolate roads around Ciudad Juárez for their stark, almost post-apocalyptic quality, likening the landscape to something out of Mad Max movie and treating the border itself as a source of dramatic tension. Newcomer Víctor Prieto, who plays Veneno, is nominated for Best New Actor; almost the entire cast is made up of non-professional actors, a choice made to heighten the film’s rawness and emotional realism.
The film premiered in the Orizzonti section at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, where it won that section’s top prize and the Queer Lion, before further recognition at Valladolid and Morelia, including Best Cinematography and Best Actor for Prieto and Sánchez. Its haul of Ariel nominations has also fuelled speculation that it could become Mexico’s submission for the Academy Awards, though it faces competition from other strong contenders this year, including Diego Luna’s Cenizas en la boca and Fernando Eimbcke’s Moscas.
The Venezuelan-Mexican co-production Aún es de noche en Caracas, produced by Edgar Ramírez, follows with nine nominations, including Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Make-up, Sound and Special Effects. El diablo fuma (y guarda las cabezas de los cerillos quemados en la misma caja), directed by Ernesto Martínez Bucio, secured eight, among them Best Picture and Best Director. The Best Picture race is completed by La libertad de Fierro, O último azul and Vainilla, spanning fiction, documentary and independent work.
The Academy will present its honorary Ariel de Oro to actress Rosita Arenas and documentarian Demetrio Bilbatúa in recognition of their careers. This year’s nominating round also saw the AMACC use an algorithm for the first time to randomly distribute films among voters, in order to even out the number of viewings each production received; AMACC president Daniel Hidalgo clarified that the mechanism applied only to the nominations stage, with Academy members required to watch all 49 nominated films before casting final votes. Nominated titles will be available free via Festival Open, alongside roughly 500 screenings nationwide as part of the Rumbo al Ariel circuit.
The celebrations also come after a difficult period for the Ariel Awards themselves. Although they remain Mexico’s most prestigious film prizes, their institutional footing has often been precarious: the ceremony disappeared altogether between 1959 and 1971 amid a broader crisis in the national film industry, while more recently the AMACC has struggled with shrinking public support and chronic funding shortages. In late 2022, the Academy initially suspended the 2023 edition, warning that it faced a “serious financial crisis”. The awards were eventually rescued through contributions from Academy members, private-sector support and funding from the Jalisco government, but the episode exposed how vulnerable one of Mexican cinema’s central institutions had become. The financial pressures have not entirely disappeared: in recent years the Academy has repeatedly depended on ad hoc backing from state governments and private sponsors, fuelling concerns within the industry about the lack of a stable funding model for an institution widely regarded as the guardian of Mexico’s cinematic heritage. The gala’s return to Mexico City for the AMACC’s 80th anniversary therefore carries significance beyond the change of venue: it is also an attempt to restore stability and momentum after several turbulent years.
A Way of Seeing: Paulina Lavista at 81
Photographer Paulina Lavista, who turns 81 this year, is enjoying what she calls an unexpected “resurgence.” Her exhibition Temáticas en blanco y negro, curated by Felipe Leal at the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana’s Galería 526, surveys five decades of her career across five thematic sections: El teatro de la vida (inspired by a Walter Raleigh poem translated by Elizondo), Arquitecturas del hombre, Personajes de la Cultura, a series of “photo-texts,” and a documentary sequence on the Japanese dance troupe Sankai Juku, shot at Teotihuacán in 1981. Most works are 11×14-inch prints mounted in 40x50cm frames, some of them images up to sixty years old that survive intact thanks to a refined enlargement technique Lavista credits to the now largely artisanal darkroom process. For the Sankai Juku series, she avoided the bureaucratic permits INAH required for tripods and larger-format cameras such as the Hasselblad by shooting instead on a nimble 35mm camera with just three lenses and three rolls of film.
The show is intended as a springboard towards a return to the Museo de Arte Moderno in 2027, nearly forty years after she last exhibited there in large format, against the prevailing convention, associated with Manuel Álvarez Bravo, of printing photographs only at their original small scale.
Lavista’s career began in cinema: at 21 she was one of five women in the first graduating class of UNAM’s Escuela de Cine (CUEC) in 1963, working as a production assistant on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Fando y Lis before moving from film to still photography. Her formative years were shaped by an upbringing steeped in Mexico City’s cultural world, and later by her decades-long relationship with the writer Salvador Elizondo, whom she married in 1968 and whose literary legacy, including his novel Farabeuf, she has spent much of her career championing, at points prioritising his work over her own.
Her largely commissioned portraiture brought her into close contact with Latin American literary elite. She recalls Octavio Paz as brilliant but domineering, Borges as almost ethereal in his blindness during their one meeting, and Rulfo as shy and deeply well-read, hiding his own photographic work from her for years.
The Last Golden-Age Diva
Actress Elsa Aguirre, one of the last emblems of Mexican cinema’s Golden Age, died on 14 July at her home in Cuernavaca, Morelos, at the age of 95. She has been celebrated both for her dramatic talent and for being considered one of the era’s most beautiful faces.
Born in Chihuahua on 25 September 1930 into a comfortable household supported by her father’s military career, Aguirre’s family relocated to Mexico City during the Second World War in search of better opportunities. In 1945, she and her sisters entered a contest run by Clasa Films Mundiales, earning her a small role in El sexo fuerte (1946) and launching a career spanning nearly six decades until her retirement in 2004. Her best-known films include La estatua de carne, Cuatro noches contigo, Ojos de juventud, Algo flota sobre el agua, Lluvia roja (with Jorge Negrete), La liga de las muchachas, Amar fue su pecado, Cuidado con el amor and Casa de mujeres. Of her on-screen chemistry with Pedro Infante, she recalled in a recent video that she had lived rather than acted the romance, savouring every scene between them. She also worked alongside figures including Agustín Lara, Mapy Cortés, Joaquín Pardavé, Silvia Pinal and Miroslava Stern, and received the Mayahuel de Plata at the Guadalajara film festival.
President Sheinbaum paid tribute this week, calling Aguirre “a symbol of Mexico” whose elegance and artistry helped shape the country’s cultural identity. Off-screen, Aguirre found lasting solace in yoga, a deep love of animals, and remaining close to her admirers, at times sending them autographed photographs through her team.
The Culture Ministry, through IMCINE and the Cineteca Nacional, will hold a posthumous tribute on 22 July with a special screening of Cuatro noches contigo (1952), followed by a discussion of her contribution to Mexican film; a photographic exhibition will follow in August at Cineteca Nacional Chapultepec.
Chatter Box
Cenote Discovery: INAH has launched a research project after human skeletal remains, believed to belong to a young woman, were found in the Cenote Yaakun near Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo. Researchers named her Yatzil (”beloved person”), echoing the cenote’s Maya name, which relates to “to love.” Following reports from site custodians and technical divers in late 2025, underwater archaeologist Gustavo García García conducted five days of dives between 42 and 53 metres, identifying two distinct concentrations roughly 30 metres apart: one of ceramic vessels, likely Late Postclassic (1200–1521 CE) and associated with the eastern coast’s Maya culture, and another of human remains, alongside animal bones. Osteological analysis by Salvador Isab Estrada suggests the individual was aged 18 to 25. Some skull fragments had been disturbed, prompting protective measures including a boundary fence and calls for diving groups not to disturb the site. No bone samples were recovered this season; a planned 2027 field season aims to extract dental material for DNA analysis.
200 Years of Franco-Mexican Relations: Mexico and France will mark two centuries of diplomatic ties with “La Gran Fiesta Franco-Mexicana,” a programme of roughly 200 events across 21 cities from 1 September to 30 November, involving some 250 participants and institutions including the Mexican Culture Ministry, the French Embassy, IFAL, the Centre Pompidou and the Comédie-Française. It opens with the exhibition “Francia-México, 200 Años de Relación y Amistad” at the Biblioteca Vasconcelos and includes France as guest of honour at the 54th Festival Internacional Cervantino, a Centre Pompidou show at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, and a simultaneous exchange of the Códice Azcatitlán and Códice Boturini between the Museo Nacional de Antropología and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Literary highlights include appearances by J.M.G. Le Clézio and Emmanuel Carrère at the Guadalajara and Monterrey book fairs, and a stage adaptation of Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux’s L’événement. FICUNAM’s 16th edition will honour French filmmaker Julie Delpy with the Filmoteca UNAM Medal.
A Surrealist Crime: A 26-year-old man identified only as Iván “N” has been detained by Mexico City’s Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) over the theft of bronze sculptures and plaques from the Parroquia de los Santos Cosme y Damián in the San Rafael neighbourhood, after the parish priest released security footage appealing for help. Among the stolen works are Leonora Carrington’s “Perro Negro” and a bronze by César Ruiz Cureño inspired by Remedios Varo’s “Mujer saliendo del psicoanalista,” nodding to the artists’ ties to the neighbourhood. A suspect was detained nearby with marijuana in his possession; the pieces, valued unofficially at 150,000–200,000 pesos, remain unrecovered.
GIFF’s 29th Edition to Screen 203 Films from 55 Countries: The 29th Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF), running 24 July to 2 August in Guanajuato capital and San Miguel de Allende, will present 203 films from 55 countries, 155 of them in competition, festival director Sara Hoch announced. Actress Cecilia Suárez will receive a national tribute along with the GIFF Silver Cross and the UNAM Filmoteca’s Silver Medal, while Mujeres en el Cine y la Televisión will honour actress Marina de Tavira and producer Inna Payán. The festival will also pay tribute to the late Spanish actress Marisa Paredes, screening her final film, Emergency Exit. Three new competitive sections join the programme: Mavericks y Luminarias, GIFF Premiere and Iridiscencia. The Mexican feature selection numbers 14 titles, ten of them world premieres, alongside an eleven-film international documentary strand. As part of the Qatar-Mexico Year of Culture, GIFF will also showcase eight contemporary Qatari films.
Elton John Says Adiós: Sir Elton John will return to Mexico for the first time in 14 years with two concerts on 2 and 3 October at the Estadio Banorte, part of his “The One” tour under the “Farewell México” banner. His last Mexican appearances were two special “Elton & Ray Cooper” shows at the Auditorio Nacional in 2012. Presale tickets ran from 13 to 15 July, and general sales opened on 16 July. The singer said Mexico City had always held a special place in his heart and that the pandemic’s disruption of his farewell tour’s Latin American leg made this return especially meaningful. Having sold over 327 million records and won six Grammys, two Oscars, a Tony and an Emmy — EGOT status — John has recently found renewed popularity among younger audiences through his “Cold Heart” remix with Dua Lipa.
“80 Movimientos” Dance Season Honours Guillermo Arriaga: The Palacio de Bellas Artes opened a year-long programme marking the centenary of choreographer Guillermo Arriaga (1926–2014), a pioneer of Mexican modern dance, with a panel featuring researcher Margarita Tortajada, dancer Carmen Correa and choreographer Rodrigo González. Highlights include the Premio Nacional de Danza Guillermo Arriaga and an INBAL-UAM choreography competition (26 August–1 September), during which the Compañía Nacional de Danza will revive Arriaga’s landmark 1953 work “Zapata,” alongside a November book on the competition’s 22-year history. The same evening, INBAL launched its “80 Movimientos” season, marking the institute’s eightieth anniversary, with the premiere of Alicia Sánchez’s “500 lúmenes. El matiz de lo imperceptible,” running 7–30 July at Bellas Artes. The season continues with works addressing migration, disappearance and identity, alongside flamenco and folkloric programming from companies nationwide.
Culture Outing
Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería Summer Programme
The Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería’s Summer Programme 2026 runs through 30 August at the Sala Silvestre Revueltas and the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Guest conductors Giancarlo Guerrero and Jeannette Sorrell join director Carlos Miguel Prieto, with soloists including Vadim Gluzman, Augustin Hadelich and flautist Alejandro Escuer. Highlights include Ludsen Martinus’s world-premiere cello concerto and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis closing gala.
Culture Conversation
“Fotografié a Borges, García Márquez y Octavio Paz” | Paulina Lavista, photographer
“I don’t have a style, I have a way of seeing.”
Paulina Lavista (81) gives a sparkling talk about her life’s work and her encounters making portraits of the giants of Mexico’s literary scene and of ordinary people living far less visible lives. Lavista also warns of the risks that digital photography and artificial intelligence pose to collective memory, stressing the importance of preserving physical archives.