Kathy Vargas

One of the many artists that I found interesting from the past weeks presentations is Kathy Vargas. Some of her images seemed very dark to me but they were about death and love. The image that I have chosen from her work is titled I Was Playing Out My Fantasies When Reality Reared its Ugly Leg #2. Created in 1990-1991, this image is a gelatin silver print with hand-coloring and collage and is 24 x 20 in. This image is a part of a series called Seafood Saints which commodities and consumerism. When speaking of this series, Vargas states “I was forced to a humorous confrontation of my own conspicuous consumership…” (Lippard 18). The top of the image depicts frog legs in a tattered tutu while at the bottom frogs are playing instruments with their hands nailed onto them. There are dollar signs and music notes; Vargas says this represents the modern day reality where we all are victim to the money mania.

This work reminds me of Yolanda Lopez’ work titled Mexican Bag. Like Vargas, Lopez discusses how capitalism and profit are the reality of modern society. For Lopes, tourism has pushed out authenticity in order to profit. Both Lopez and Vargas target capitalism and how money has become more important in modern times.