Week 2: CARA / La Virgen de Guadalupe

Despite my distance from understanding Chicano/a culture, both presentation expanded my horizon in this subject matter.  I feel that art works which carry artists’ sense of humor have more influence on the audience. Because of that humorous aspect, the audience may have second thought on the subject that they are looking at, and they spend more time to understand these works. I think this is the ultimate goal of the artists in large exhibitions because on average, people only spend a few seconds on each art work. This was how I approached Our Lady. It first got my attention when I realized that this is a version of the holy figure, and she is not fully covered. Then, I started analyzing this work by reading the essay in order to find the reasoning behind this art work and meaning of the employed elements and symbols.

Since I was born and raised in Iran, I did not grow up with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Iran is an Islamic country; there are female and male religious figures, however only images of the male figures can be found in the cities. Generation after generation, Iranian people moved away from believing in religious figures and thoughts because the religion has control and power over politics. The long history behind the connection of religions and politics brings up some fundamental questions; for instance, it is possible that religions are not as divine as we are told to believe. Maybe religions are created by the Man to have control over majority of people at various times. 

I may not feel related to the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, however, I do understand the notion of social injustice; especially in this subject, gender issues have universal aspects. It does not matter from what part of this world we came from, we can hardly overlook the male privileges. Throughout the history, clergymen who interpret (holy) books were men! Furthermore, they were not innocent as they claimed to be. So it is highly possible that they manipulated the (holy) messages, and they pictured a perfect woman as they desired. Therefore, it is every individual’s right to question religious icons, and protesting against this right are either from people who benefit from this religious system or those who find life absurd without having a religion.