CARA Exhibit: Gaspar de Alba

In the third chapter named "Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask: The Mirror of Machismo" Alicia Gaspar de Alba begins with describing the layout of the exhibit and notices that there is a bigger proportion of work from Chicano male artists than there is of Chicana females. Then throughout the chapter, Gaspar de Alba explains that this difference demonstrates the "sexual politics of the Chicano Art Movement, which can be played by the CARA exhibit" (Gaspar de Alba, 122). One of the things that I found interesting is at the end of the chapter where Gaspar de Alba explain the Frida Kahlo painting. What I found interesting is that the CARA exhibit would put up an piece of artwork of Frida Kahlo by a male Chicano artist and how Gaspar explains it to be, " the interpretation of a Chicano/Latino gay man who fetishizes Frida Kahlo the same way the some whit gay men fetishizes Marylin Monroe" (157). Then Gaspar de Alba explains that this would be different than how a Chicana lesbian women would relate to Frida Kahlo and the same experiences that they both went through in their lives being women of color. What I took from this is how males can't really relate to what women are truly feeling and how they can't relate to the struggles that Chicana and more broadly, women of color, face in society. I believe that they can empathize with the type of struggles women of color are facing but they will never truly understand. Concluding, I really enjoyed reading this chapter from Gaspar de Alba and how this chapter illustrates the machismo within the Chicano/a community of art.