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"The Arch of Dignity, Equality, and Justice," Judith F. Baca
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Chicana art as a specific genre emerged as part of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and used art to express political and social resistance.[1] Through different art mediums both past and contemporary, Chicana artists explore and interrogate traditional Mexican-American values and embody feminist themes through different mediums including murals, painting, photography, and more. The momentum created from the Chicano Movement spurred a Chicano Renaissance among Chicanas and Chicanos. Political art was created by poets, writers, playwrights, and artists and used to defend against their oppression and societal marginalization.[2] During the 1970s, Chicana feminist artists differed from their Anglo-feminist counterparts in the way they collaborated. Chicana feminist artists often utilized artistic collaborations and collectives that included men, while Anglo-feminist artists generally utilized women-only participants.[3]

The Woman's Building (1973–1991)

The Woman's Building opened in Los Angeles, CA in 1973. In addition to housing women-owned businesses, the center held multiple art galleries and studio spaces. Women of color, including Chicanas, historically experienced racism and discrimination within the building from white feminists. Not many Chicana artists were allowed to participate in the Woman's Building's exhibitions or shows. Chicana artists Olivia Sanchez and Rosalyn Mesquite were among the few included. Additionally, the group Las Chicanas exhibited Venas de la Mujer in 1976.[3]

Social Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)

In 1976, co-founders Judy Baca (the only Chicana), Christina Schlesinger, and Donna Deitch established the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). It consisted of studio and workshop spaces for artists. SPARC functioned as an art gallery and also kept records of murals. SPARC was created to support youth in areas where gangs are prevalent, which is why community youth was involved in the making of The Great Wall of Los Angeles. SPARC is still active and encourages a space for Chicana community collaboration in cultural and artistic campaigns.[3]

Los Four

Muralist Judithe Hernández joined the all-male art collective in 1974 as its fifth member.[3] The group already included Frank Romero, Beto de la Rocha, Gilbert Luján, and Carlos Almaráz.[4] This was crucial at the time as they were trying to be inclusive and steer away gender roles they grew up knowing.[5] The collective was active in the 1970s through early 1980s.[3]

Street art

Murals

See also: Murals of Los Angeles § Chicano art movement
The Great Wall of Los Angeles, Judy Baca, Los Angeles, 1978[6]

Murals were the preferred medium of street art used by Chicana artists during the Chicano Movement.[3] Murals became largely popular during El Movimiento in the 1970s as they were intended to bring people together. Judy Baca was the first Chicana to create a mural, "Mi Abuelita",[7] she led the large-scale project for SPARC, The Great Wall of Los Angeles. It took five summers to complete the 700 meter long mural. The mural was completed by Baca, Judithe Hernández, Olga Muñiz, Isabel Castro, Yreina Cervántez, and Patssi Valdez in addition to over 400 more artists and community youth. During the creation of The Great Wall of Los Angeles Baca started putting women in leadership roles and trying to get them to become involved in the making of the mural.[8] Located in Tujunga Flood Control Channel in the Valley Glen area of the San Fernando Valley, the mural depicts California’s erased history of marginalized people of color and minorities.[3]

In 1989, Yreina Cervántez along with assistants Claudia Escobedes, Erick Montenegro, Vladimir Morales, and Sonia Ramos began the mural La Ofrenda, located in downtown Los Angeles. The mural, a tribute to Latina and Latino farm workers, features Dolores Huerta at the center with two women arched the history of Los Angeles and met with historians as she originally planned out the mural. The mural was halted after Carrasco refused alterations demanded from City Hall due to her depictions of formerly enslaved entrepreneur and philanthropist Biddy Mason, the internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II, and the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots.[9]

Performance Art

Chicana entertainers have utilized the deconstructive qualities of performance art to challenge thought of character, identity, embodiment, and culture. Starting in the 1970s, Chicana artists began experimenting with street based performances that highlighted their unique role as cultural outsiders to white middle-class norms. Patssi Valdez was a member of the performance group Asco from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. Asco's art spoke about the problems that arise from Chican@s unique experience residing at the intersection of racial, gender, and sexual oppression.[3] Contemporary Chicana performance artists include Xandra Ibarra, Nao Bustamente, and Monica Palacios.

La Panza Monologues

The Panza Monologues is a performance art piece built around the narratives of Chicana women. The Panza Monologues were composed by Virginia Grise and Irma Mayorga and presented as a solo performance by Grise herself. This performance art piece strikingly puts the panza ('belly') in the spotlight as an image that uncovers bits of their insight, viewpoints, lives, loves, misuses, and individual battles.[10] The piece was intended to spotlight something that most times women are made to feel like should be hidden, making it seem shameful, and as a reminder that body images can greatly influence a woman's life.[11]

Xandra Ibarra is Chicana performance artist who coined the term spictacles as a way to describe her performances of Mexican iconography that reveal the ways they function as racist tropes within performance cultures.[12][13]

Photography

Laura Aguilar, known for her "compassionate photography," which often involved using herself as the subject of her work but also individuals who lacked representation in the mainstream: Chicanas, the LBGTQ community, and women of different body types. During the 1990s, Aguilar photographed the patrons of an Eastside Los Angeles lesbian bar. Aguilar utilized her body in the desert as the subject of her photographs wherein she manipulated it to look sculpted from the landscape. In 1990, Aguilar created Three Eagles Flying, a three-panel photograph featuring herself half nude in the center panel with the flag of Mexico and the United States of opposite sides as her body is tied up by the rope and her face covered. The triptych represents the imprisonment felt by the two cultures she belongs to.[14] Laura Aguilar created a collection of work that accepts the human figure as its focal request. The best of her art is from her initial work, known as the Latina Lesbian Series, which started in 1987. The series comprises highly contrasting pictures of ladies who identified as Latina and lesbian. Photographs in this series frequently went with the woman's signature as well.

Delilah Montoya was likewise a powerful Chicana photographic artist. Montoya's assortment of work explores the amendment of female generalizations and symbols and utilizes visual and text-based accounts or narration of a hidden subject. In 2003 Montoya and Orlando Lara went across the Mexico-American border and took pictures of passageways used by immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into America.

Modern work

Though the Chicano movement has passed, Chicanas continue to use art as a way to uplift their perspectives and celebrate Chicana voices. Young Chicana artists like Diana Yesenia Alvarado, who works with sculpture, create art that represent their culture and get little recognition.[15] New art forms have risen as technology has begun to play a more vital role in daily life as artists like Guadalupe Rosales use platforms like Instagram as a part of their work.[16] Rosales uses her role as an artist and an archivist to artfully collect photos and magazines of Chicanas from the 1990s. She portrayed her own understanding of growing up Chicana in East Los Angeles, a predominantly Latino area. On her account Veteranas y Rucas, her photos depict men in baggy pants and women with teased hair making their way through a time of anti-immigrant sentiments and gang violence. What started as a way for Rosales' family to connect over their shared culture through posting images of Chican@s history and nostalgia soon grew to an archive dedicated to not only 1990s Chican@ youth culture but also as far back as the 1940s.[17] Additionally, Rosales has created art installations to display the archive away from its original digital format and exhibited solo shows Echoes of a Collective Memory and Legends Never Die, A Collective Memory.[18] Rosales is the recipient of a 2019 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship.[19] She was the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s first Instagram artist in residence in 2017.[20] Others like poet Felicia "Fe" Montes have gained popularity for their work in Chicana art for still other forms. Montes uses spoken word and slam traditions among other mediums to relate with her Latina following about identity.[21] She reads her poetry in unconventional places and questions women’s historically subservient and lower-serving roles than men. As she writes, she keeps the Chicano culture in Los Angeles in mind, through women's collectives like Mujeres de Maiz.

Themes

La Virgen

Linda Vallejo. "Electric Oaks on the Hillside." 60 x 84 in. Oil on canvas. 2007

Over the years, la Virgen de Guadalupe has been used by Chicana artists to explore themes of repression and feminine strength.[22] She has become a symbol through which artists have attempted to eradicate the stigmas facing women’s place in society and ownership of their bodies. Alma López, Margarita "Mita" Cuaron, Yolanda López and Ester Hernandez are four Chicana feminist artists who used reinterpretations of La Virgen de Guadalupe to empower Chicanas. La Virgen as a symbol of the challenges Chicanas face as a result of the unique oppression they experience religiously, culturally, and through their gender.[23]

Alma López

Alma López focuses on eradicating the stigmas surrounding women. She painted "Our Lady" in 1999, which portrays a modern Virgen de Guadalupe unclothed, supported by an unclothed "angel" with the wings of a monarch.[24] La Virgen wears nothing but flowers, but stands powerfully with her hands at her hips and her face expressing confidence and seriousness. She has reimagined the traditional icon to explore the shamelessness she believes should stem from a woman of today who does not conform to the expectation of society. Especially since La Virgen is typically clothed from head to toe, this piece of art challenges the themes the original pushes forward, including modesty and subservience. She expresses the need for ownership of the indigenous body.[25] Alma López also painted "Lupe and Sirena in Love" in 1999, which depicts the traditional Virgen de Guadalupe, nicknamed Lupe, lovingly embracing a mermaid.[26] This is Alma López's commentary on Catholic Church teaching regarding sexuality and gender. She portrays a sacred individual romantically embracing another woman, directly challenging commonly followed beliefs that ostracize LGBTQ individuals. Alma López pushes the boundaries that confine the common woman, depicting La Virgen de Guadalupe in modern and controversial light as she paints. "Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez's 'Irreverent Apparition'" (2011) demonstrates some of the angry responses she has received for her work. "Irreverent Apparition" is mixed media and is a sacrilegious depiction of La Virgen.

Margarita "Mita" Cuaron

Margarita “Mita” Cuaron’s most famous pieces of Our Lady of Guadalupe are Virgen de la Sandía (1996) and Virgen de Guadalupe Baby (1992). Virgen de Guadalupe Baby (1992) depicts La Virgen de Guadalupe as a baby surrounded by the womb, which is shaped by white, fluffy clouds and is surrounded by La Virgen’s typical yellow, sunlight rays and dark green garments.[27] Within the child's clasped hands is a light red heart. Portraying both ideas of birth and regrowth, Cuaron focuses on a theme of new possibilities and formations.[27] Cuaron’s painting, Virgen de Guadalupe Baby (1992) was recreated again in 2004 through a different kind of artistic medium, as a screen print. “In Nacimiento (2004) Cuaron depicts her first and only child swaddled in the protection of La Virgen's green mantle. She identifies the birth of her child and entry into motherhood as one of the most important moments in her life, extending gratitude to not only her child but birthers of new life everywhere.”[28] Similarly, this print has similar color and design features to her original piece, Virgen de Guadalupe Baby (1992). In Cuaron’s screen print, Virgen de la Sandía (1996), La Virgen de Guadalupe is depicted as a nude woman standing on a crescent–shaped moon at the center of the art piece.[29] The disrobed religious figure is surrounded by a watermelon with red, orange, yellow, and white glow.[29] Scholar, Teresa Eckmann’s analysis of Cuaron's screen print, Virgen de la Sandía (1996), makes a reference to the “sexual metaphor of the sandia, or watermelon, as an image of women's genitalia.”[30] Furthermore, this screen print was recreated in 1997, by using an alternative medium of watercolor paint. This new version of the piece, Virgen de la Sandía (1997) depicts La Virgen de Guadalupe fully clothed in a pink gown covered by her recognizable green mantle with golden sun rays.[31] She is standing on a red crescent–shaped watermelon slice, instead of a crescent moon in the original piece of 1996.[32]

Yolanda López

Like Alma Lopez, Yolanda López also focuses on themes of sexuality and the stigmas of women when she portrays La Virgen de Guadalupe. In her piece, "Love Goddess" from 1978, López merges the image of La Virgen with an image of Sandro Bottecelli's "The Birth of Venus" from the mid 1480s.[33] She makes the commentary that Christian nature rejects the natural appearance of women's bodies by embracing the fact that at an even earlier age, the Greek mythology would embrace it without the shame and fear that has developed.[25] López challenges the virginal image by eradicating the stigma and sin that are often associated; she infuses a sacred religious image with sexuality so as to celebrate it rather than be ashamed.

Ester Hernandez

Ester Hernández references the sacred Virgen de Guadalupe in her painting, La Ofrenda (1988).[34] The painting recognizes lesbian love and challenges the traditional role of la familia. It defies the reverence and holiness of La Virgen by being depicted as a tattoo on a lesbian's back. She also painted La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de Los Xicanos (1975).[35]

Collective memory/correcting history

The idea of sharing the erased history of Chicanas has been popular among Chicana artists beginning in the 1970s. Judy Baca and Judithe Hernández have both utilized the theme of correcting history in reference to their mural works. In contemporary art, Guadalupe Rosales uses the theme of collective memory to share Chicana history and nostalgia.

Notable Chicana Artists

Chicana artist groups

References

  1. ^ Dicochea, Perlita (2004). "Chicana Critical Rhetoric: Recrafting La Causa in Chicana Movement Discourse". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 25 (1): 77–92. doi:10.1353/fro.2004.0032. JSTOR 3347255. S2CID 143518721.
  2. ^ Chicana feminist thought : the basic historical writings. García, Alma M., Garcia, Alma M. New York: Routledge. 1997. ISBN 978-0415918008. OCLC 36029683.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Zetterman, Eva (2016-03-01). "Claims by Anglo American feminists and Chicanas/os for alternative space: The LA art scene in the political 1970s". American Studies in Scandinavia. 48 (1): 61–83. doi:10.22439/asca.v48i1.5361.
  4. ^ "The 'Fiery' Visions of Iconic L.A. Artist Carlos Almaráz". KQED. 2017-09-15. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  5. ^ "Bicultural and Bilingual: Los Four's Legacy and Impact on Art History". KCET. 2022-06-17. Retrieved 2022-10-27.
  6. ^ "Wikimedia Commons". Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  7. ^ "Mur Murs: Murals, Chicanas, and the Female Gaze". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
  8. ^ "Mur Murs: Murals, Chicanas, and the Female Gaze". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2022-10-27.
  9. ^ Vankin, Deborah (30 September 2017). "After 27 years in a warehouse, a once-censored mural rises in L.A.'s Union Station". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  10. ^ "The Panza Monologues" – via IMDb.
  11. ^ Patricia Herrera (2011). "Power to the Panza!: Feminist Body Politics in The Panza Monologues (Video Performance Review)". Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social. 10 (2): 206–211.
  12. ^ Kaplan, Erin (2020-07-21). "La Chica Boom and the Pedagogy of Queer Failure". Theatre Topics. 30 (2): 85–97. doi:10.1353/tt.2020.0015. ISSN 1086-3346. S2CID 226665126.
  13. ^ Ramos, Ivan. "Spic(y) Appropriation: The Gustatory Aesthetics of Xandra Ibarra (a.k.a. La Chica Boom)."ARARA- Art and Architecture in the Americas, no. 12, 2016 pp.1-18. www.essex.ac.uk/arthistory/research/pdfs/arara-issue-12/2.%20Spic(y)%20Appropriations.Ivan%20Ramos.pp.1-18.pdf. Accessed February 5, 2017.
  14. ^ Miranda, Carolina A. (25 April 2018). "Photographer Laura Aguilar, chronicler of the body and Chicano identity, dies at 58". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  15. ^ "Diana Yesenia Alvarado's Sculptures Depict the Sounds, Smells, People, and Colors of Her Neighborhood". amadeus. 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2021-12-08.
  16. ^ Miranda, Carolina A. (19 October 2018). "Guadalupe Rosales used Instagram to create an archive of Chicano youth of the '90s — now it's an art installation". Los Angeles Times.
  17. ^ Smith, Melissa (2018-09-27). "The Veteranas of Chicana Youth Culture in Los Angeles". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  18. ^ Miranda, Carolina A. (19 October 2018). "Guadalupe Rosales used Instagram to create an archive of Chicano youth of the '90s — now it's an art installation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  19. ^ Greenberger, Alex (2019-02-12). "Gordon Parks Foundation Awards Fellowships to Guadalupe Rosales, Hank Willis Thomas". ARTnews. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  20. ^ "Announcing LACMA's First Instagram Artist in Residence | Unframed". unframed.lacma.org. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
  21. ^ "MFA Public Practice Alumni Work". Otis College of Art and Design. Otis College of Art and Design.
  22. ^ Blake, Debra (2008). Chicana sexuality and gender : cultural refiguring in literature, oral history, and art. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-8122-8.
  23. ^ Serna, Cristina (2017). "Locating A Transborder Archive of Queer Chicana Feminist and Mexican Lesbian Feminist Art". Feminist Formations. 29 (3): 49. doi:10.1353/ff.2017.0030. S2CID 149087764.
  24. ^ Lopez, Alma. Our Lady. 1999. Painting.
  25. ^ a b Surage, Chloe, "Art and La Virgin de Guadalupe: Towards Social Transformation" (2011). Undergraduate Honors Theses. 691. https://scholar.colorado.edu/honr_theses/691
  26. ^ López, Alma. Lupe and Sirena in Love. 1999. Painting.
  27. ^ a b Surage, Chloe. Art and La Virgen de Guadalupe: Towards Social Transformation. University of Colorado Boulder, 2011. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/54845924.pdf.
  28. ^ Sanchez, Starlina. “Agency, Accessibility, and Abolition–Exploring Reproductive Justice in Art.” Self Help Graphics & Art, August 12, 2022. https://www.selfhelpgraphics.com/blog/agency-accessibility-and-abolition-exploring-reproductive-justice-in-art.[1]
  29. ^ a b Cuarón, Mita. Virgen de la Sandía. 1996. Self-Help Graphics and Art Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb1290040c/. [2]
  30. ^ Eckmann, Teresa. “Chicano Artists and Neo-Mexicanists: (De) Constructions of National Identity,” no. 36 (2000). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1054&context=laii_research.[3]
  31. ^ Comida y Tradiciones: La Virgen de Sandia, 1997 by Margarita “Mita” Cuarón, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAf5TgSrQgY. [4]
  32. ^ “Comida y Tradiciones Art Exhibit | Hispanic Research Center.” Accessed April 11, 2023. https://hrc.clas.asu.edu/content/comida-y-tradiciones-art-exhibit. [5]
  33. ^ Lopez, Yolanda. Love Goddess. 1978. Painting.
  34. ^ Hernández, Ester. La Ofrenda. 1988. Painting.
  35. ^ Hernández, Ester. La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de Los Xicanos. 1975. Painting.
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