Throughout this course I enjoyed learning about how Chicana/x art is meant to raise awareness and challenge the social inequalities impacting marginalized and historically disadvantaged communities. The work of Chicana/x artists is at the forefront of artistic innovation and decolonization discourse because they have broken through the bonds of oppressive gender roles through their creativity. Chicana/x artists haven’t been given the credit they deserve for their vast contributions to Chicanx artistic productions. They’re commonly overlooked and disregarded in art historical scholarship, exhibitions, and art museums, demonstrating the evident role of sex and racial segregation in shaping the world of art and art history. Their diverse styles and techniques have redefined what it means to be a Chicana/x artist by creating coalitions, destroying stereotypes, and building solidarity to address social justice issues. One of the artists I enjoyed learning about was Yolanda M. López and the pivotal role she played in producing several notable artworks that take influence from a diverse array of sources like the U.S.-Mexico border, her nontraditional upbringings, the Black Panther Party, and her graduate school professors. These transformative influences helped her become a simultaneous conceptual artist, feminist artist, and political artist with a commitment to address urgent matters regarding human rights and social justice throughout the Chicano civil rights movement and beyond. López redefined Chicana representation through her Guadalupe triptych portraits by displaying ordinary working-class women of all different ages as the Virgen de Guadalupe in a dignified manner. In Free Los Siete, López demonstrates the United States’ failure to promise the rights to liberty and justice stated in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance to the seven Central American boys accused of killing a police officer. In Who’s the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?, she challenges xenophobic treatment towards Latinos and corrupt immigration policies to provoke political and ideological change. Yolanda M. López’s iconic artwork has addressed urgent social justice issues and the invisibility of women throughout different cultural and social matters.
Who’s the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? by Yolanda M. López
I love how you mention that Chicanx Art is at the forefront of decolonization because the fact that it is even labeled as such implies that colonization is still powerful and holds influence over the art world. This, plus the fact that Chicanx artists aren't given the recognition they deserve indicates that colonization clouds peoples perception of what is "respectable" art.
ReplyDeleteGreat final blog post! I completely agree with what you are saying in terms of art and activism. Although we see art everywhere, in our communities, in protests, in galleries that speak to the many injustices our communities face, there was still a disconnect for me. I did not think about art being just as important to movements and is another action, not intentionally. More specifically how women that play major import roles can be left out of conversations or movements, even within my own discourse (without even realizing). Overall great post.
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