Consigna Madre/Zapata Somos Todos

Antonio Valverde Villagrán

Consigna Madre/Zapata Somos Todos, date unknown.

Screenprint.
19 3/4 x 12 7/8 inches.
Cultural ephemera preserved at Interference Archive, Brooklyn, NY.

In the poster Consigna Madre/Zapata Somos Todo (which translates to “Mother’s slogan/We are all Zapata”) dozens of figures and forms —ranging from masked Zapatistas to maize to the Communist star — are chaotically overlaid against an abstracted depiction of Zapata, who is quietly reduced to his identifying features In doing so the artist makes room for lesser-known leaders, Amelio Robles and Rosa Bobadilla, who appear over Zapata’s eye and below his mouth respectively. Robles, a colonel in the revolution, was an openly transgender man, whose transition was institutionally recognized and accepted by the Mexican government.12 Bobadilla led a cavalry unit with her son, becoming a tabloid sensation in Mexico and abroad.13 By superimposing Robles and Bobadilla over Zapata’s image, the artist complicates the historically masculine picture of the Revolution. In keeping with Zapatista ideology, this poster reinforces the relationship between the peasant fighters of the Mexican Revolution and the Zapatistas, while simultaneously critiquing the hierarchy of this historical lineage.

-Rose Bishop ’17