Lopez, Julian (Week 6, Xandra Ibarra)

 From what I can see throughout her works, she's involved with the representation of the queer aesthetic; they revolve their art around the idea of showing/ proving/ demonstrating the world the interests and beauty of it all. One of her art works that gave me this impression would be her series, Free To Those Who Deserve It, because the sexual pleasure from torture is something prominent in the community. The subject to me is representing a person, the base is whatever the person is being held up by, and the restraints/ ropes for binding in this case would be the pressure from both ends of the contraption that is squeezing the subject into place. The piercings as well, all over the subject, gives a sense of pain. As a viewer, we use our senses when analyzing art, and in this series, the pain is visible through the metal rods piercing through the subject. Furthermore, the placement of the subject itself depicts a form of fragility, the subject is just carelessly flopped to the side, as if a human body where to fully relax on a chair, just flopped to the side - as if allowing/ offering itself to whatever/ whomever. 

Another work of art that I thought brought forward the queer aesthetic would be, The Hook Up/ Displacement/ Barhopping/ Drama Tour, not only from the art pieces, but from the title itself. I immediately thought of how hyper sexual the queer community can be overall and she captures that with the environment and setting of her images and subjects, but also through the title and the other other piece which was a flyer. In the flyer, it basically is an invitation for an event that basically just involves sex. The flyer is subtle but doable sentitdo; for example, "Transfer to new owner [la pure cream y neta]" which is referencing ones sperm. Along with the inclusion of bottoms and tops while including some subtlety like, "...(blouse) tops" being discreet yet clear for those who can understand. Which is also funny since in the queer world, a lot of people tend to claim being discreet or down low, yet it's so obvious to the people in the same community. It's as if Ibarra is mocking the people who claim to be discreet/ down low but don't realize how obvious it is to others.