Week 10 Reflection

Before taking this class, I had hardly known any Chicana artists. Through this one quarter class, I learned about many great Chicana female artists and opened the door to a whole new world for me. I was most impressed with artist Xandra Ibarra, whose performance art, installations and photography I really enjoyed. I think she has her soul and ideas wrapped up in each of her artworks.

Of her body of work, I especially like Xandra's sculptures. She has said that the materials she uses for her sculptures are often the same materials she uses in her performances. I really like one of her sculpture series named Strobelite Honeys (2019). I felt a huge visual impact about this work when I first saw it. The scene is very reminiscent of nightlife divas in the nightclub life, where you can even imagine them taking off their heavy cheap furs, extinguishing the burning cigarettes in their hands, and then walking onto the dance floor to finish a pole dance with the music. The scene is both pleasant and depraved. Xandra's work is undeniably vivid, full of conflict and contradiction, and Xandra has stated that she draws inspiration for her sculptures from sexual subcultures, which are inherently controversial and contradictory. These cultures are inherently controversial and full of contradictions. Just like Strobelite Honeys, there is pleasure, desire, beauty and cheapness in this work.

Xandra does not directly respond to her political commitments in her work, but she does personally engage in immigrant justice and feminist activism. Xandra's art is always breaking down barriers, which is why I admire her work and her philosophy. Art is supposed to be bold and rebellious like that. I am very happy to have learned about such a great artist this semester.