Blog Post Week 3

This week's very short essay by art historian Shifra Goldman discusses the iconography of Chicano self-determination in terms of race, ethnicity and class. For this week's blog post briefly discuss the essay, then select an image by Yolanda M. Lopez to discuss in terms of her own Chicana self-determination. Obviously her iconography of Chicana self-determination includes race, ethnicity, class and gender.

Professor Gaspar de Alba

Chicano Art by Professor Gaspar de Alba

On Wednesday, our guest speaker will be Professor Gaspar de Alba. She is a founding faculty of the UCLA Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies and current chair of the LGBT Studies Program. She is the author of eleven books:  three novels, three poetry collections, and five academic publications. Her historical novel titled Sor Juana’s Second Dream brings to lesbian life the prolific 17^th century Mexican feminist nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. This novel is currently being adapted into a full feature film. The Mexican actress, Ana de La Reguera (Nacho Libre) will play the role of Sor Juana. This film will also include Bruno Bichir (El callejon de los milagros), Joaquin Cosio (The Lone Ranger) and Adriana Barraza (Babel).

Professor Gaspar de Alba will be presenting and leading a discussion on two essays on Chicana art that will provide a historical perspective on the gendered politics in Chicana art production and exhibitions. One of the essays is “Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore’s Mask: The Mirror of Malinchismo” from her book titled Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition (UT Press, 1998). 

If time allows, she will also discuss the essay, “There’s No Place Like Aztlan: Embodied Aesthetics in Chicana Art.” A revised version of this essay is included in her most recent academic publication titled (Un) framing the “Bad Woman”: Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui and Other Rebels with A Cause (UT Press, 2014).

Students: After reading above two essays (which are PDFs on the course website), write down a question for each essay that you would like to ask speaker. Do not just ask the question since the questions themselves won't add up to the required 200-300 words. In your post include why you are interested in such questions as well as perhaps the possible answers to such questions which you can extract from the essays you read. As always, the posts are due before or at 6 pm on Saturday.

From this week on, late posts will not be counted. Make sure to label your post before posting (F2015LastNameFirstName). If no label, then I won't be able to count it either. Make sure to check spelling and grammar. Read previous comments and questions so that you are not repetitive but adding to the discussion.

"Name an Artist" Collective Exercise

These are photos documenting our "name an artist" collective exercise. It's hard to read some of the names from these photos, but it seems to me that there are about 70 names. About 20 are women. And of those 20, 7 are Chicana artists. This is an impressive list of artists. Obviously many of you look and study lots of art.

As we reflect on the exercise, perhaps we can ask ourselves some questions. Why is it so easy for us to come up with more than 2x more men than women artists? Who are we missing? What other questions should we be asking?

Thanks to Azi, Anna, Rosalva and Jose for volunteering to jot down these names for us.

Lopez, Alma

Prof. Lopez drawing stencil for silk screen

My name is Alma Lopez. I am the instructor for the Chicana Art & Artists course. I am a Mexican-born queer Chicana visual artist. The mediums I focus on are public art, acrylic painting, silk-screening, digital photography, digital video, and photo-based digital prints. I earned my BA at UC Santa Barbara and my MFA at UC Irvine. Both degrees are from Art Studio departments where students usually referred to instructors by their last name. This course is offered by the Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies and is cross-listed with Art and World Arts and Cultures. As an academic department, they prefer instructors be referred by title and last name. So you may refer to me as Professor Lopez.

This is the third time I teach this course at UCLA. Each time, the course is slightly different. This course changes slightly depending classroom setup, days offered, number of students, guest artists, student presentations, and assigned texts as well as classroom discussions. I am always excited about teaching this course because I am able to share artists and art that I find interesting, and sometimes through student presentations, I am introduced to new artists.

The intention of this blog is to serve as an additional discussion space. Classroom time affords us a limited time for discussion. In this blog via short posts, each of us will be able to continue classroom discussions on art, artists, and reading materials.

Students: Your first introductory discussion blog post is due on or before 6pm on Saturday, October 3. In this first post, introduce yourself (name, major, year, interest in this course). If you grew up with the Virgin of Guadalupe, please write about that experience. If you did not, then write about a similar important icon in your home/family. The post should be between 200 – 300 words, which is about 3 paragraphs consisting of 4 to 8 sentences. For example this post is only 346 words. Your post should be titled: LastName, FirstName. It should be labeled: F2015LastNameFirstName. Make sure to check your spelling and grammar.