Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba reflects on the traveling CARA exhibition, meant by its namesake to represent Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmations. As pointed out by Professor Alba, the exhibition falls radically short of that. Most notably, this exhibition lacks an inclusion of Chicana artists, such as las Mujeres Muralistas. Further, Prof Alba notes that there were far more male artists than female, which runs in line with "the fact that, in the early years of el Movimiento, more men were plying their artistic vocation that women" (125).
Additionally, what I find so surprising is the fact that exhibitions like this - one meant to be inclusive and representative of a population - falls so short or this inclusivity. How can an exhibition so drastically lack women's art?
Alba continues that one section of the exhibition, "Feminist Visions", is meant to display Chicana feminist art as a means to critique social issues. Although on their own they convey powerful messages about life as a Chicana, as a group it ends up reproducing the sexist ideology of el Movimiento. This is a prime example of how this exhibition as a whole falters - the intentions of the curators were unlikely malicious, but the final product was excusatory and lacking.
As the article writes, the dominant narratives of this exhibition are created by the organizers, which clearly lack a feminist view point. This leads me to wonder: How can curators avoid such large issues in the future, both with who they do and don't include and how they represent these people?
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