Alexander, Nyah (Week 10)

Going into this class I was excited to continue learning about artists from different cultures, and expand my knowledge on art that I had always been interested in and surrounded by growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. This class was always so interesting and fun, and broadened my knowledge of artists and art styles. As a World Arts and Cultures major I am always in classes that are centered around art and a primary focus of my studies is centered around highlighting and celebrating the efforts of people from all cultures and backgrounds. I was glad to continue this work and expand my knowledge of Chicanx art and artists in this class. 

I enjoyed reading the artist books and being able to dive deeply into learning about multiple Chicana artists, and researching one throughout the quarter. I learned so much more about the cultural significance of art styles such as murals and altars, and learned about new concepts like rasquachismo from our readings and our class discussions. As a Black woman, I resonated with readings and discussions about the struggles of Chicana artists and the lack of recognition they receive in the art world as it is similar within my own community.

Overall, I always looked forward to this class this quarter. It allowed me to expand my knowledge of and appreciation for Chicana art and artists. I also saw an improvement in my writing skills over the course of the quarter with the weekly blog posts and short writing assignments, helping me to become better at discussing art and artists. I really enjoyed deeply researching and learning about Anna María Arevalo Gosen, and the Wiki Project was a great practice in research and uplifting artists that are doing important and amazing work. 

Alexander, Nyah (week 9)

 Continuing to learn about so many different artists has been so fun and I have enjoyed everyone’s presentations and the work they have done to really know their artist! This past week, the presentation on Sand One was one that really stuck out to me because of her unique and nontraditional art style. I love that she creates fun feminist art that appeals a lot to a younger crowd of women. I thought that it was nice that she personalizes each doll that she creates, giving them a zodiac sign and being inspired by the different women she knows in her life.

Her dolls are hyper feminine with curvy figures and adorned with makeup, and are representative of women that are looked down upon and forgotten in her community. This style makes her even more prone to the sexism, classism, and racism that exists in the art world, but she continues to create her dolls and not change her art style just because some people do not find it to be ‘true art’. The doll that is a part of the military was one that stood out to me because it highlights how women can have dangerous and historically male dominant jobs while still staying true to themselves and not having to sacrifice their femininity. Hearing about how interactive she is with her fans on social media and when she is creating public art emphasizes her commitment to creating art for her fans and the care that she has for these women.

Learning about what inspires Sand One’s art is also what made her such a notable artist of the week. It is incredible that she is self taught, and her gaining more notoriety is important to destigmatizing artists that do not have formal education in the arts. Growing up with a single mother and being inspired by her mother’s aesthetic shines through her work and her target audience. It was so great to learn about Sand One, and she is definitely an artists who I will continue to follow and hopefully learn more about!

Alexander, Nyah (Week 8)

 I enjoyed all of the presentations on the muralists from last week, and everyone did a fantastic job presenting! The presentation on Ruby Chacon stood out to me as I really enjoyed her art style, and found her biography to be unique in the ways in which it clearly permeates through her art. I thought that it was interesting how her identities as both a Chicana and a Utah native influence her work, but are also in conflict with one another in her daily life and lived experiences. It was also notable that her struggles with her Mexican identity stemmed from her family, and the lack of exposure they gave her to her Mexican roots.

However, it was inspiring to see how she embraces her culture in her work, and combines her two identities to create what she calls her being a “Utana”. Her efforts to publicly display Chicana art despite some resistance from her community, and her goal of bringing back traditional Utah art was very inspiring. Her use of family members as a tool that all members of the public could relate to makes her art a deeply personal experience. I also admired that she emphasizes the importance of free public art because she understands the struggle of viewing art in traditional spaces when you grow up less privileged. This allows her work to reach its largest audience, and have the most potential to share art and influence young chicanx individuals. Her experience being a first generation student in higher education inspired her to advocate for kids like her to understand that they belong in these spaces and should pursue them. I also enjoyed how she incorporates the ideas of spiritual activism, a newer term for me, and immigrant spirits into her work!

Alexander, Nyah (Week 7 Blog)

Learning about how the use of digital art and digital platforms by Chicanx artists helps to reach a wider audience, and continue the goals of informing people about social injustices, cultural education, and building solidarity across communities was an interesting way to see and understand the value of digital art. I also found it interesting that she finds that the digital art age is not causing the decrease in political posters, but instead “digital modalities offer new opportunities to visualize political resistance” (Zapata 131). It is true that as society continues to develop and technology becomes an increasingly integral part of our lives, art forms, especially those that are political and forms of protest, must adapt to the platforms used by most people and that gain the most traction.

I also enjoyed seeing that in their digital art collections, artists also incorporated photographs and scans of physical art mediums, creating what they called “digital art rasquachismo”, combining two art forms we have learned about in this class. I think the idea of maintaining cultural identity by preserving certain special art forms, versus becoming fully digital and leaving all other styles in the past is important. While digital art offers endless possibilities and has the potential to reach many more people, physical art is important because the impact of hand crafting every element of a work and people being able to experience it in person will always be one of the greatest artistic experiences. The digital art movement is also a great way to display support for communities outside of your own, like the example of the Black Lives Matter digital art and graphics that were created to show support for the movement. Digital art has the potential to connect artists and activists that may have otherwise never crossed paths, and it is essential to the survival of art in the digital age.

Alexander, Nyah (Wiki Draft: Ana María Arévalo Gosen)

 Ana María Arévalo Gosen (born in 1988) is a Venezuelan visual storyteller, singer, and artist who is interested in exploring women’s rights, social justice, the prison system, and migration through photography. She is best known for her awarded project, Dias Eternos (2018), in which she photographed Venezeulan women in pre-trial detention centers to document their daily routines and the realities of prisons in Venezuela. Ana María Arevalo Gosen believes in causing long lasting social impact through her storytelling, and continues to travel to her home country of Venezuela to do so.

 

Early Life and Education

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Gosen was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1988. At the age of twenty one, she moved to Toulouse France where she studied political science at Institut d’Etudes Politiques, and later photography at ETPA Ecole de photographie. Following the completion of her studies, she moved to Hamburg, Germany in 2014 where she began to practice the art of visual storytelling while working for a magazine and doing freelance photography work. She has received a number of awards and recognition for her work since the beginning of her career. 

Notable Art and Career

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Ana María Arevalo Gosen is widely known for her 2016-2017 project, The Meaning of Life, which intimately tells the story of her husband’s battle with testicular cancer. The photo series tells the story of Gosen’s husband’s fight with cancer from the moment that he starts chemotherapy. The Meaning of Life gained a great deal of attention from podcasts and publications about the exhibition to being featured in photography festivals. This notoriety led to the exhibition being used annually since its creation to partner with different organizations to bring awareness to and fund research about testicular cancer.

In 2018, Ana María Arevalo Gosen took on what would become one of her most famous and awarded projects to date, Días Eternos. In this project, Arevalo Gosen travels back to her home country of Venezuela to examine and expose the Criminal Justice System and the heartbreaking realities of the women awaiting trial in these prisons and detention centers. The project documents the dangers for women in the specific prison she visited as they are not separated from convicted criminals nor men, the pregnant women receive no level of prenatal care or medical attention, and lack of food and water. 

Women Water Defenders detailed the water shortages in El Salvador and the group of middle-aged women from Santo Tomás that have joined together to bring awareness to the issue and demand that the government provide them with clean water when there are shortages. Her photos document women bathing themselves and their children with bowls and buckets of water, the women of the group meeting and organizing, but also of what their homes and daily lives look like. This project was completed in tandem with National Geographic.

References

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1. Pulitzer Center https://pulitzercenter.org/people/ana-arevalo

2. National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/unlikely-band-women-water-defenders-fight-chronic-shortages-el-salvador 

3. Leica Oskar Barnack Award Foundation https://www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/en/series-finalists/2021/ana-mara-arvalo-gosen.html 

Further Reading

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• Foto Feminas Biography and Portfolio: Ana María Arévalo Gosen

• Lumix Festival Artist Interview with Ana María Arévalo Gosen

• Questions Artist Interview about Días Eternos

External Links

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• Artist Website:  https://anamariaarevalogosen.com/

• Exhibition Coverage: https://phmuseum.com/amgosen/story/dias-eternos-ddbffa8de5 

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/anitasinfiltro 

Alexander, Nyah

Garza’s painting, Curandera is an intimate piece that includes the viewer in the ceremony and brings them into the scene. The curandera is summoned by Garza’s mother to perform a ritual and cleanse one of her daughters who was having a “difficult adolescence”. Carmen and her mother sit in chairs watching the curandera brush the daughter, Mary Jane, with a plant with incense burning in front of her. Her little brother sits on the bed behind Mary Jane, messing around on the bed. The intimacy of this scene and the inclusion of all of her family members adds to the meaning of this work. The inclusion of her family speaks to the actual ritual healing taking place, and how family plays an important role in healing. 

Garza also includes images and sculptures of saints and an altar on the wall in the background of the room. While the combination of religious figures and the curandera may seem contradictory, they actually work together and aid the curandera in healing the troubled daughter. This duality speaks to the holistic approach that curanderas take in order to see the most success. The composition of the painting allows every detail to be noticed and considered, and each detail is important to the entirety of the piece. I enjoyed how it felt as though I was in the room with her family watching this event unfold. Being able to make people feel the intimacy of this moment is made possible by the composition of the room, the warm colors, and the empty space that seems as if it was left for one more person.

I really enjoyed this painting and how it is both a shared intimate moment and representative of her culture and its customs and rituals.

Alexander, Nyah

Rasquachismo was a term that I had never heard of before, but reading Gonzalez’s essay on this word was very interesting. Rasquachismo is defined as the perspective of the “downtrodden”, people who are oppressed by those who have power, the underdog. Rasquachismo is a combination of resistance and resilience that permit Chicano men to live their lives with dignity. 

I thought that it was interesting that she referred to rasquachismo as being similar to holding something together with the most broken down items, or art activists taking and repurposing new items to create new aesthetics using rasquachismo as a tool. Artistically, rasquachismo allows Chicano artists to reflect on how they are portrayed in popular culture and explore their own sense of identity. Also important to the definition, is understanding the historical and social treatment of Chicanos in society, and how oppression, among many other things, created the need for rasquachismo in Chicano communities. 

In my own life, rasquachismo was reflective of the life of my great grandmother. Being in a single income household in San Francisco and raising five children with her husband, money was tight. However, she was always resourceful and found ways to reuse items and create things out of nothing to give her family the best life possible as it continued to grow with some of my mom’s generation living with them in her home too. One of my favorite things that she would do was take old glass bottles and turn them into vases and candle holders for decor around the house. I would help her find bottles and paint them fun colors, and even today I do the same thing with my roommates and repurpose glass bottles into functional and unique pieces. She saved money for her family while simultaneously creating something new and exciting, and I always admire the job she did building our family and working to help them have the best lives possible.

Alexander, Nyah

 Ana María Arevalo Gosen

Source 1: https://anamariaarevalogosen.com/

This is the artist’s official website that includes a lot of valuable information about herself and her art. It details some of her background and highlights her goals as an artist and what she hopes to achieve through her art. She includes images of her work, exhibitions, her social media, and news about herself on this website.

Source 2: https://pulitzercenter.org/people/ana-arevalo

This article gives more information on Ana María Arevalo Gosen and includes many articles within itself about the various projects that she has completed. This will be a valuable source for my paper because it documents ten of her completed projects which will be important for the article. These articles explain the meaning behind her projects and give more insight about Gosen as an artist.

Source 3: https://phmuseum.com/amgosen/story/dias-eternos-ddbffa8de5

This source details a specific 2019 project completed by Ana María Arevalo Gosen and provides historical and social analysis about the project and its subjects. It highlights the intended impact of this project along with how it was critiqued by the public. It relates her origins to the subjects and subject matter in a meaningful way, and speaks to her motivation and inspirations as an artist.

Alexander, Nyah

I was baptized Catholic and grew up attending Catholic school and church for the first six years of my education. Going to a Catholic school in San Francisco, the imagery of the Virgin of Guadalupe was prominent and was something that I saw frequently in many different forms. Many of my friends and I  wore necklaces and bracelets of her image, she would be painted on large buildings, be a part of stained glass in churches, and candles with her image were common household items within the Catholic community. 

I always knew that this image was important to the Catholic Church and understood it as a depiction of the Virgin Mary that was highly respected because of her virtue and service to God when I was younger. In high school I was able to take multiple art history classes where we studied various artistic renderings of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and I learned more about the history behind the image. I came to appreciate the various elements of pearls, roses, and other adornments common in artist images of the Virgin that are representative of aspects of the story of the Virgin revealing herself to Juan Diego.

My experience with the Virgin of Guadalupe has evolved as I have grown as a person and experienced new things. As a young girl that was constantly surrounded by Catholicism on a daily basis, the Virgin was a symbol of who I wanted to resemble and honor in my life. When I switched schools for middle and high school and was no longer learning about Catholicism as an integral part of my education my experiences with the Virgin changed. It still was a religiously significant image, but was something I admired the history and imagery of rather than acting as an iconic figure and standard to meet.

Arevalo Gosen, Ana Maria

 2. Guadalupe Rosales

 3. Star Montana

Alexander, Nyah

Hi Everyone! My name is Nyah Alexander (she/her/hers) and I am a third year here at UCLA! I am a World Arts and Cultures and Communications (WAC) double major in the school of Arts and Architecture. As both a WAC major and a Black woman, learning about the art and the cultural significance outside of the dominant white European standard and outside of my own culture is important and interesting to me. I am interested in ethnographic research methods and studies that allow me to directly interact with and learn from the groups that I am educating myself on. Talking and working directly with people from cultures that you are studying is an invaluable research experience that is one of the few ways to accurately portray the group, culture, or individual that you are researching and writing about. 

Growing up in the Bay Area, activism has always been an integral part of my life and I was always surrounded by activists and protests. In San Francisco especially, different communities are covered in amazing art pieces that are significant to the community and the people that have lived there for generations. This course’s focus on Chicanx/Latinx art was really interesting to me because I spent a good amount of time in the Mission District looking at the various murals and always having an interest in them and the artists behind them. Additionally, the concept of art as activism and the evolution of culture through art really interest me. I love the vast mediums of art and how not only the final product, but choices in material and process allow artists to convey a powerful message about their identity or broader messages without words. I am also interested in the accessibility of art and art activism compared to academic texts, and the merit of art in comparison to literature. 

In the reading, “Why no great women artists?” I really enjoyed the commentary on typical answers to that question, especially because some of them are similar to how I may have responded to the question. When studying art history for the AP exam, it was incredible how until the contemporary pieces, women were rarely considered to be a part of the great works and even still female art is not at the forefront of the industry. The conclusion that art making is not so free and up to the artist was really interesting for me. I definitely agree that within the art world if you want to gain notoriety, and if you want to have a profitable career, you are not simply making what you want to make. You are thinking about what will sell and what others want  to see. This led me to think, do artists who never show their art or don’t care for fame also feel this same pressure and influences?

I am so excited to continue discussing the readings and learning with you all this Fall!