Winslow, Nieves week 2

 How has a digital platform expanded the latinx art world? 

Latinx graphic art has been vastly expanded by the digital platform. As described in zapata’s essay digital formats has changed the ways people print and also spread into rendering art works in photoshop  and virtual reality. These then are distributed online, the online distribution of art and digital creation of works gives more latinx artists publish and show their work. They don’t have to wait for it to spread physical community yo physical community or wait till an art curator picks up the work for collection. They fan share the work from their own space, through a digital file or photograph and i think this helps in breaking down the exclusivity of the predominantly white physical art world. 

The digital format however i think brings on of the most essential part of any art and it is a community. It allows people to share images and ideas faster then before. Giving s push to activism / artivism where more voices are able to have a say about movements and protest images. And community needs and wants are more vastly discussed. 

Where i think a downfall is in the digital art world is that it can depersonalize a work, disconnecting them from their creators and intentions. Often people find it easier to take artworks as if they were a image which exists in a void instead of a meaningful, labor intensive work. In this reading we see one work which was created in memory of a bay area latino who was murdered. However it pulls from the black lives matter visual language. Because the words are recognizable and the imagery iconic building works with it is immediately impactful. However when we take from the black lives matter artworks for our non afro latinx community we are also taking away the focus and intention of that work which is for black lives, specifically. When making works about non-black people we need to make works which arent taking the spotlight from black artivism but instead highlighting both movements individually. One example is the art created at my high school where bsu used black love to uplift community and latinx connection used brown pride to uplift community. And both were promoted by both groups to make sure to highlight not overwrite one and others struggle. We must create works together not instead of.