Publications by Erin L. McCutcheon
The New Public Art: Collectivity and Activism in Mexico Since the 1980s, 2023
In this chapter, I examine three of Guadalupe García-Vásquez's works, X/U/MAR (1990), Árbol de la... more In this chapter, I examine three of Guadalupe García-Vásquez's works, X/U/MAR (1990), Árbol de la Victoria (Victory Tree, 1992), and the workshop "Presencia africana en México" ("African Presence in Mexico," 1995). As performances rooted in an Indigenous and Afro-descendant knowledges, García-Vásquez's works create spaces for visibilizing these populations and histories that, in the process, provide new ways to conceptualize "the public." By drawing from her embodied knowledge and repertoire, I argue García-Vásquez's works expand the reach of the public beyond and outside of linear conceptions of space and time. They articulate the possibility for the existence of what might be referred to as a "necropublic," which effectively returns from the past to address the injustices of the present. I examine here the implications this public has for the writing of art history and the potential effects of its performative resurrection in the world of the living.
Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions Magazine, 2022
The article considers the context of recent feminist interventions into public monuments in Mexic... more The article considers the context of recent feminist interventions into public monuments in Mexico City, notably Antimonumenta-Justicia, as tied to a longer local history of women's activism and revision of monuments and public spaces since the 1970s.
Public Art Dialogue, 2022
OnCurating, 2021
Is the concept of a retrospective antithetical to feminist-aligned politics and histories? How ca... more Is the concept of a retrospective antithetical to feminist-aligned politics and histories? How can a retrospective effectively account for the achievements of an artist whose practice was indelibly interwoven with feminist collectives? What possibilities and limitations does working in a museum institution pose for feminist curating? To engage these questions, this article provides a case study of the exhibition, When in Doubt… Ask: a Retrocollective Exhibition of the Work of Mónica Mayer (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, 2016), a long overdue survey of the work of a central figure in the feminist art movement in Mexico.
Instituting Feminism OnCurating Issue 52, 2021
"Instituting Feminism,” this issue of OnCurating, reflects on the efforts of curators, artists, a... more "Instituting Feminism,” this issue of OnCurating, reflects on the efforts of curators, artists, and community organisers to move beyond identifying inequities in the cultural industries to devising tools that can foster structural change. Exploring how curators have developed projects informed by feminist politics and aesthetics, contributors also look beyond representational formats to highlight the infrastructures and co-dependencies upon which cultural production relies. They understand that feminism’s integration into the mainstream art world has been accompanied by a tokenistic “pink-washing,” and thus raise questions about the terms under which gestures of “inclusion” and “participation” occur. Envisaging feminist instituting as an active, relational practice, articles discuss curatorial, artistic, and organisational initiatives that seek to forge alliances with struggles for ecological and social transformation. The projects and perspectives represented here foreground the need for new subjectivities, caring alliances, and support structures that offer alternatives to toxic contemporary labour conditions, including those endemic to art and curating. They hold out promise for more equitable and reciprocal ways of working, producing, and coexisting.
Romane Bernard, Nanne Buurman, Sofia Cecere, Ève Chabanon, Emelie Chhangur, Anna Colin, Angela Dimitrakaki, Berit Fischer, Jennifer Fisher, Thelma Gaster, Nandita Ghandi, Janna Graham, Althea Greenan, Jeanne Guillou, Husseina Hamza, Merete Ipsen, Joyce Jacca, Tracey Jarrett, Daria Khan, Sharlene Khan, La Sala (Alba Colomo and Lucy Lopez), Barbara Lefebvre, Séraphine Le Maire, Oksana Luyssen,Rosa Martínez, Alex Martinis Roe, Erin McCutcheon, Rose Moreau, Camille Morineau, Adele Patrick, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Jeanne Porte, Laurence Rassel, Helena Reckitt, Maura Reilly, Dorothee Richter, Secretariat for Ghosts (SKGAL), Nizan Shaked, Cornelia Sollfrank, Ann Sutherland Harris, The Two Talking Yonis, Miska Tokarek, Elena Zaytseva, Catherine de Zegher
H-ART. Revista de historia, teoría y crítica de arte, 2020
This article is a reflection on the potential of craftivist pedagogies to disrupt the neoliberal ... more This article is a reflection on the potential of craftivist pedagogies to disrupt the neoliberal university model and work towards building international solidarity networks. It offers a case study centered on the incorporation of the craftivist collective Bordeamos por la Paz into two distinct US-based classrooms and disciplines: Art History and Latin American Studies. Part of a nationwide, yet grassroots movement in Mexico, Bordeamos works to memorialize victims of disappearance and violence through the collective creation of hand embroidered panels. Reflecting on the shared experience of crafting a community-engaged service-learning (CESL) curriculum with Bordeamos, we advocate for the ways these courses enabled a space of civic responsibility rooted in embodied knowledge and "being with" in order to resist replicating problematic power dynamics.
H-ART, 2020
This article is a reflection on the potential of craftivist pedagogies to disrupt the neoliberal ... more This article is a reflection on the potential of craftivist pedagogies to disrupt the neoliberal university model and work towards building international solidarity networks. It offers a case study centered on the incorporation of the craftivist collective Bordeamos por la Paz into two distinct US-based classrooms and disciplines: Art History and Latin American Studies. Part of a nationwide, yet grassroots movement in Mexico, Bordeamos works to memorialize victims of disappearance and violence through the collective creation of hand embroidered panels. Reflecting on the shared experience of crafting a community-engaged service-learning (CESL) curriculum with Bordeamos, we advocate for the ways these courses enabled a space of civic responsibility rooted in embodied knowledge and "being with" in order to resist replicating problematic power dynamics.
#ERRATA, 2018
As US feminist art historian Amelia Jones has argued, “curatorial practice is one of the most imp... more As US feminist art historian Amelia Jones has argued, “curatorial practice is one of the most important sites for the constitution of both historical narratives about feminist art (the histories of feminist art) and feminist theories of curating and writing histories (the feminist histories and theories of art).”[1] How can artists, historians, and curators visualize feminist cultural histories without relying on masculinist exhibition models and traditional historical categorizations? Is it possible to curate from a feminist perspective, as well as clearly articulate a situated history of feminist practice for a non-specialized audience? In this collaborative conversation, Mexican feminist artist, activist, and writer, Mónica Mayer, Mexican feminist art historian and curator, Karen Cordero Reiman, and US feminist art historian Erin L. McCutcheon discuss Mayer’s recent 2016 retrospective, When in Doubt… Ask: a Retrocollective Exhibition of the Work of Mónica Mayer, in relation to the critical presentation of emerging global feminist histories in the 21st century. Conceived as a “retrocollective,” rather than retrospective, this exhibition attempted to visualize a simultaneously personal and communal history of feminist art practice in Mexico from the perspective of one of its central figures. Considering its feminist curatorial strategies and goals, from conception to implementation, Mayer, Cordero Reiman, and McCutcheon examine the exhibition’s significance as an active feminist space and model of intervention into art’s histories.
[1] Amelia Jones, “Feminist Subjects versus Feminist Effects: The Curating of Feminist Art (or is it the Feminist Curating of Art?).” OnCurating 29 (2016): 5 – 20 (5).
https://issuu.com/idartes/docs/errata_17_mayo_28-
Si tiene dudas… pregunte: a Retrocollective Exhibition of the Work of Mónica Mayer, Feb 2016
Si tiene dudas… pregunte: a Retrocollective Exhibition of the Work of Mónica Mayer, Feb 2016
Mónica Mayer, Puta-Whore. De la serie La última-From the series The Last One. Del proyecto Novela... more Mónica Mayer, Puta-Whore. De la serie La última-From the series The Last One. Del proyecto Novela rosa o me agarró el arquetipo-From the project Romance Novel, or, the Archetype Got Me, 1986 [Cat. 53]
The future of feminism depends not only upon its pasts, but also upon how these pasts are imagine... more The future of feminism depends not only upon its pasts, but also upon how these pasts are imagined in our present. One of feminism’s lasting legacies has been its critical interventions into methods of historical inquiry. However, as this issue suggests, feminism currently faces a “critical moment of erasure.” Feminist historians often remain trapped in divisive and deci- dedly non-feminist models of thinking about histories since the 1970s. This essay combats a lack of examples of “doing” feminist art history by demonstrating strategies that disrupt the writing and researching process. Drawing from my current research experience with wo- men artists in Mexico, I demonstrate how methods such as oral history, grounded theory, social movement, and postcolonial theories, provide the tools necessary to imagine tales of feminist pasts in ways that better solidify their relevance to a shared present and future.
Artelogie, n° 4, Janvier 2013., Oct 2013
Recent gestures in feminist and Latin American exhibitions do not sufficiently account for the un... more Recent gestures in feminist and Latin American exhibitions do not sufficiently account for the unique position of Latin American artists engaging with feminist aesthetic practices. Looking to the space given Mexican artists in three recent blockbuster exhibitions, I demonstrate that the resulting curatorial constructions activate art historical mythologies that work to further solidify exclusion from the international art world. In examining the effects these in/visibilities have on collective knowledge of Latin American feminist art histories, I ultimately suggest possibilities for change rooted in critical and conceptual cartographies that speak both from and to feminism’s folds, activating intergenerational networks vital to maintaining feminism’s unfolding historical and contemporary relevance.
The Journal of Curatorial Studies
Conference Presentations by Erin L. McCutcheon
CAA 2021 ANNUAL CONFERENCE, Feb 11, 2021
Following the 1920 Revolution, women’s maternal role in Mexico became central to liberal politica... more Following the 1920 Revolution, women’s maternal role in Mexico became central to liberal political philosophy, with women’s “feminine duties” tied to patriotic obligations essential to the maintenance of its new modern society. In response to a “threat” of relaxed gender controls stemming from Euro-American “first wave” feminist organizing, the patriarchal construction of motherhood in Mexico both rationalized women’s social function within the nation, while at the same time excluded women from rights as citizens. With its firm ideological and visual solidification, scholars have argued motherhood was the only acknowledged form of female citizenship following the Revolution.
This paper considers the post-1968 period in Mexico as a close mirror to these complexities. A time of upheaval, the maternal archetype was again posed against a “threat” of Euro-American feminism; however, Mexico now had its own active women’s movement, one that utilized maternal identity as a core of its social, cultural and political projects. Mainstream discourse tends to consider the maternal as it relates to art made by women as intimate, passive and/or apolitical expression. In contrast, this paper focuses on the practices of a group of artist-mothers who, beginning in the 1970s, utilized maternal identity as a multivalent strategy to not only communicate personal experiences, but also enter into and critique political and artistic discourses. Situating their works within a history of subversive maternal performance, this paper accounts for women’s strategic aesthetics within Mexican art history as they relate to the particularities of embodied subjectivities, rather than predetermined expectations of “feminine” experiences.
Tied to notions of birth, national citizens are necessarily located within complex and collective... more Tied to notions of birth, national citizens are necessarily located within complex and collective constructions of the maternal. Following the 1920 Revolution, motherhood in Mexico became central to liberal political philosophy, with women’s “feminine duties” tied to patriotic obligations essential to the maintenance of its modern society. In part a response to the perceived threat of relaxed gender controls stemming from Euro-American “first wave” feminism, this patriarchal construction of motherhood rationalized women’s social function within the nation, as well as excluded women from certain rights as citizens. An ideological and visual project, scholars have argued motherhood became the only acknowledged form of female citizenship in the wake of the Revolution.
This paper considers the post-1968 period in Mexico as a mirror to these historic complexities. A time of upheaval in its own right, the maternal archetype was again posed against a “threat” of Euro-American feminism; however, Mexico now had its own active women’s movement that utilized the identity and archetype associated with motherhood as a core of its socio-political projects. This paper focuses on the practices of a group of artist-mothers who, since the 1970s, have utilized maternal identity as a multivalent activist and artistic strategy to creatively disrupt and collectively reconstruct patriarchal expectations of women’s identities in the public sphere. Situating their works within an iconographic history of embodied maternal performance, this study offers an art historical reassessment of subversive maternal aesthetics that have fundamentally rearticulated this critical marker of gendered identities and notions of belonging in Mexico.
Feminist strategies of investigation have worked to complicate the location of women’s bodies in ... more Feminist strategies of investigation have worked to complicate the location of women’s bodies in art history since the 1970s. During this period, the artists Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti were “rediscovered” by feminist art historians in their efforts to deconstruct patriarchal narratives and locate “new” feminist subjects on a global scale. Working in post-revolutionary Mexico City, Kahlo and Modotti not only shared similar social circles and political views, but also inhabited the nebulous position as women creators during a celebrated moment of modernist art history – both participating in and bumping up against its dialogues.
Though often included in exhibitions of their respective bodies of work, virtually no formal attention has been given to nude images taken of these artists by their male contemporaries from the United States. This paper attends to the complex position negotiated by Kahlo and Modotti in their actions as nude models. Rather than dismissing these images, I argue they showcase creative avenues for participation in global modernist and feminist dialogues that were otherwise foreclosed to these artists within Mexico. By expanding the boundaries in which we allow marginalized subjects to exhibit agency, this paper attends to anxieties regarding female sexual subjectivity in Mexico, forging new pathways towards their reconsideration from complex and heterogeneous positions.
While closely linked with one of mankind’s oldest and most advanced civilizations, Mexico is in m... more While closely linked with one of mankind’s oldest and most advanced civilizations, Mexico is in many ways a new nation, still in the midst of forging its post-revolutionary identity. Public art has historically been utilized in that negotiated space of collective identity, most famously during the period of muralism during the turn of the 20th century. It was here that modern artists began to craft Mexico’s history of violence and upheaval into a cohesive visual narrative that would unite State and nation. Political reforms would later reshape Mexico’s socio-economic realities, and scholars have asserted that these, combined with a growing dissatisfaction with muralism’s close relationship with the State, caused the movement to essentially die off. In recent years, debates have been renewed regarding muralism’s legacy and relationship to contemporary art practices in Mexico, focused mainly on its revival in the late 1980s. Though an important reinvigoration of its legacy, this dialogue, and the narratives it has produced, glosses over practices from the 1970s – a period characterized by the formation of a plethora of vibrantly active artist collectives in Mexico City. Historically known as los grupos, these collectives focused on conceptual projects and street interventions that would bring politically and socially motivated artworks into the Mexico’s public sphere once again.
This paper bridges the gap between the two aforementioned areas of investigation, arguing that muralism’s legacy can also be located within this moment of collective public art action of the late 1970s. I argue both the ideology and visual vocabulary developed by modern muralists during the 1920s and 30s was revitalized amidst new socio-political realities that emerged for artists and citizens in post-1968 Mexico City. Focusing primarily on the street interventions of the collective Grupo Suma, I analyze how the work of these collectives both deploy and subvert the tools of muralism to form a new vision of Mexican nationalism, one forged around collective notions of citizenship and urgent ruptures between State and nation.
By intervening traditional notions of art history in Mexico, generally articulated of as a series of distinct ruptures, I suggest a reading of creative production as a fluid project, with collective memories of aesthetic legacies taking on different forms under new historical conditions. Considering muralism as a an unending project allows it the space to operate as a tactic within Mexico – a blending of civic participation with aesthetics – rather than simply a defined style with a list of goals, artists and works. Ultimately, muralism’s legacy of public cultural production combined with its ability to adapt to new political conditions, suggests the transformative power of visual culture to articulate collective notions of citizenship in a nation historically marked by many revolutions.
In recent decades, thousands of women have been brutally tortured, raped and murdered throughout ... more In recent decades, thousands of women have been brutally tortured, raped and murdered throughout Latin America, their bodies geographically and psychologically caught on the borderlines of a complex system of globalization, poverty, gender, race and class. Numerous artists and organizers have responded within the region, using public actions and artworks to bring visibility to this growing epidemic, now collectively known as feminicide. Art has long been utilized for its potential to expose complex problematics within society, and at times provide a means to correct those inequalities. Unfortunately, while born from noble intentions, certain images and subsequent memories of trauma these artists create more often than not reflect back an assumed natural order of women’s places, and fates, within their respective localities.
As these bodies continue to pile up, it has become increasingly urgent that we approach depictions of women affected by this specific trauma through a critical lens, in order to interrogate the effects they have on the collective psyche of a society living in the shadow of a profound loss. Through this paper, I will argue that hegemonically influenced images at best preserve social stigmas of gender in Latin America that might further perpetuate this kind of violence, and at worst, eroticize the brutal fates of these women. To unpack this underlying paradox, I will utilize feminist art historical strategies of visual analysis to suggest more nuanced and productive engagements with the shared traumatic event of feminicide throughout Latin America.
"No men in uniform, no children, no dogs, no women" read the signs posted outside cantinas at Mex... more "No men in uniform, no children, no dogs, no women" read the signs posted outside cantinas at Mexico's most prestigious art school, the Academy of San Carlos, in 1975. Although seemingly living during a dawning age of feminist activism, Mexican women found themselves last on the list as women artists. Historically these artists perilously negotiated between an active local feminist movement that dismissed their art as bourgeois, and an art world that rejected their feminist politics as irrelevant - a problem that remains present to this day. Current trends in feminist, contemporary and Latin American exhibitions and art historical scholarship do not account for the unique position of these women artists. Why does not only the international art world, but also the international feminist arts movement, continue to ignore these histories?
Through an examination of three separate retrospective exhibitions where some of these artists are included, I will venture a nuanced critique of this historic and concurrent inconsistency. When included, what identities are being ascribed to these artists? What effect do the mis/non/re/presentations perpetuated by these recent exhibitions have on collective future knowledge of their histories? What does this speak to regarding the decolonization of "marginal" histories of Latin America in general? This project is not merely an unearthing of these artists and their socio-political and cultural environment, but an examination of the complex problematics involved in negotiating ghettoisation/assimilation and the developing of a transnational feminist discourse.
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Publications by Erin L. McCutcheon
Romane Bernard, Nanne Buurman, Sofia Cecere, Ève Chabanon, Emelie Chhangur, Anna Colin, Angela Dimitrakaki, Berit Fischer, Jennifer Fisher, Thelma Gaster, Nandita Ghandi, Janna Graham, Althea Greenan, Jeanne Guillou, Husseina Hamza, Merete Ipsen, Joyce Jacca, Tracey Jarrett, Daria Khan, Sharlene Khan, La Sala (Alba Colomo and Lucy Lopez), Barbara Lefebvre, Séraphine Le Maire, Oksana Luyssen,Rosa Martínez, Alex Martinis Roe, Erin McCutcheon, Rose Moreau, Camille Morineau, Adele Patrick, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Jeanne Porte, Laurence Rassel, Helena Reckitt, Maura Reilly, Dorothee Richter, Secretariat for Ghosts (SKGAL), Nizan Shaked, Cornelia Sollfrank, Ann Sutherland Harris, The Two Talking Yonis, Miska Tokarek, Elena Zaytseva, Catherine de Zegher
[1] Amelia Jones, “Feminist Subjects versus Feminist Effects: The Curating of Feminist Art (or is it the Feminist Curating of Art?).” OnCurating 29 (2016): 5 – 20 (5).
https://issuu.com/idartes/docs/errata_17_mayo_28-
Conference Presentations by Erin L. McCutcheon
This paper considers the post-1968 period in Mexico as a close mirror to these complexities. A time of upheaval, the maternal archetype was again posed against a “threat” of Euro-American feminism; however, Mexico now had its own active women’s movement, one that utilized maternal identity as a core of its social, cultural and political projects. Mainstream discourse tends to consider the maternal as it relates to art made by women as intimate, passive and/or apolitical expression. In contrast, this paper focuses on the practices of a group of artist-mothers who, beginning in the 1970s, utilized maternal identity as a multivalent strategy to not only communicate personal experiences, but also enter into and critique political and artistic discourses. Situating their works within a history of subversive maternal performance, this paper accounts for women’s strategic aesthetics within Mexican art history as they relate to the particularities of embodied subjectivities, rather than predetermined expectations of “feminine” experiences.
This paper considers the post-1968 period in Mexico as a mirror to these historic complexities. A time of upheaval in its own right, the maternal archetype was again posed against a “threat” of Euro-American feminism; however, Mexico now had its own active women’s movement that utilized the identity and archetype associated with motherhood as a core of its socio-political projects. This paper focuses on the practices of a group of artist-mothers who, since the 1970s, have utilized maternal identity as a multivalent activist and artistic strategy to creatively disrupt and collectively reconstruct patriarchal expectations of women’s identities in the public sphere. Situating their works within an iconographic history of embodied maternal performance, this study offers an art historical reassessment of subversive maternal aesthetics that have fundamentally rearticulated this critical marker of gendered identities and notions of belonging in Mexico.
Though often included in exhibitions of their respective bodies of work, virtually no formal attention has been given to nude images taken of these artists by their male contemporaries from the United States. This paper attends to the complex position negotiated by Kahlo and Modotti in their actions as nude models. Rather than dismissing these images, I argue they showcase creative avenues for participation in global modernist and feminist dialogues that were otherwise foreclosed to these artists within Mexico. By expanding the boundaries in which we allow marginalized subjects to exhibit agency, this paper attends to anxieties regarding female sexual subjectivity in Mexico, forging new pathways towards their reconsideration from complex and heterogeneous positions.
This paper bridges the gap between the two aforementioned areas of investigation, arguing that muralism’s legacy can also be located within this moment of collective public art action of the late 1970s. I argue both the ideology and visual vocabulary developed by modern muralists during the 1920s and 30s was revitalized amidst new socio-political realities that emerged for artists and citizens in post-1968 Mexico City. Focusing primarily on the street interventions of the collective Grupo Suma, I analyze how the work of these collectives both deploy and subvert the tools of muralism to form a new vision of Mexican nationalism, one forged around collective notions of citizenship and urgent ruptures between State and nation.
By intervening traditional notions of art history in Mexico, generally articulated of as a series of distinct ruptures, I suggest a reading of creative production as a fluid project, with collective memories of aesthetic legacies taking on different forms under new historical conditions. Considering muralism as a an unending project allows it the space to operate as a tactic within Mexico – a blending of civic participation with aesthetics – rather than simply a defined style with a list of goals, artists and works. Ultimately, muralism’s legacy of public cultural production combined with its ability to adapt to new political conditions, suggests the transformative power of visual culture to articulate collective notions of citizenship in a nation historically marked by many revolutions.
As these bodies continue to pile up, it has become increasingly urgent that we approach depictions of women affected by this specific trauma through a critical lens, in order to interrogate the effects they have on the collective psyche of a society living in the shadow of a profound loss. Through this paper, I will argue that hegemonically influenced images at best preserve social stigmas of gender in Latin America that might further perpetuate this kind of violence, and at worst, eroticize the brutal fates of these women. To unpack this underlying paradox, I will utilize feminist art historical strategies of visual analysis to suggest more nuanced and productive engagements with the shared traumatic event of feminicide throughout Latin America.
Through an examination of three separate retrospective exhibitions where some of these artists are included, I will venture a nuanced critique of this historic and concurrent inconsistency. When included, what identities are being ascribed to these artists? What effect do the mis/non/re/presentations perpetuated by these recent exhibitions have on collective future knowledge of their histories? What does this speak to regarding the decolonization of "marginal" histories of Latin America in general? This project is not merely an unearthing of these artists and their socio-political and cultural environment, but an examination of the complex problematics involved in negotiating ghettoisation/assimilation and the developing of a transnational feminist discourse.
Romane Bernard, Nanne Buurman, Sofia Cecere, Ève Chabanon, Emelie Chhangur, Anna Colin, Angela Dimitrakaki, Berit Fischer, Jennifer Fisher, Thelma Gaster, Nandita Ghandi, Janna Graham, Althea Greenan, Jeanne Guillou, Husseina Hamza, Merete Ipsen, Joyce Jacca, Tracey Jarrett, Daria Khan, Sharlene Khan, La Sala (Alba Colomo and Lucy Lopez), Barbara Lefebvre, Séraphine Le Maire, Oksana Luyssen,Rosa Martínez, Alex Martinis Roe, Erin McCutcheon, Rose Moreau, Camille Morineau, Adele Patrick, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Jeanne Porte, Laurence Rassel, Helena Reckitt, Maura Reilly, Dorothee Richter, Secretariat for Ghosts (SKGAL), Nizan Shaked, Cornelia Sollfrank, Ann Sutherland Harris, The Two Talking Yonis, Miska Tokarek, Elena Zaytseva, Catherine de Zegher
[1] Amelia Jones, “Feminist Subjects versus Feminist Effects: The Curating of Feminist Art (or is it the Feminist Curating of Art?).” OnCurating 29 (2016): 5 – 20 (5).
https://issuu.com/idartes/docs/errata_17_mayo_28-
This paper considers the post-1968 period in Mexico as a close mirror to these complexities. A time of upheaval, the maternal archetype was again posed against a “threat” of Euro-American feminism; however, Mexico now had its own active women’s movement, one that utilized maternal identity as a core of its social, cultural and political projects. Mainstream discourse tends to consider the maternal as it relates to art made by women as intimate, passive and/or apolitical expression. In contrast, this paper focuses on the practices of a group of artist-mothers who, beginning in the 1970s, utilized maternal identity as a multivalent strategy to not only communicate personal experiences, but also enter into and critique political and artistic discourses. Situating their works within a history of subversive maternal performance, this paper accounts for women’s strategic aesthetics within Mexican art history as they relate to the particularities of embodied subjectivities, rather than predetermined expectations of “feminine” experiences.
This paper considers the post-1968 period in Mexico as a mirror to these historic complexities. A time of upheaval in its own right, the maternal archetype was again posed against a “threat” of Euro-American feminism; however, Mexico now had its own active women’s movement that utilized the identity and archetype associated with motherhood as a core of its socio-political projects. This paper focuses on the practices of a group of artist-mothers who, since the 1970s, have utilized maternal identity as a multivalent activist and artistic strategy to creatively disrupt and collectively reconstruct patriarchal expectations of women’s identities in the public sphere. Situating their works within an iconographic history of embodied maternal performance, this study offers an art historical reassessment of subversive maternal aesthetics that have fundamentally rearticulated this critical marker of gendered identities and notions of belonging in Mexico.
Though often included in exhibitions of their respective bodies of work, virtually no formal attention has been given to nude images taken of these artists by their male contemporaries from the United States. This paper attends to the complex position negotiated by Kahlo and Modotti in their actions as nude models. Rather than dismissing these images, I argue they showcase creative avenues for participation in global modernist and feminist dialogues that were otherwise foreclosed to these artists within Mexico. By expanding the boundaries in which we allow marginalized subjects to exhibit agency, this paper attends to anxieties regarding female sexual subjectivity in Mexico, forging new pathways towards their reconsideration from complex and heterogeneous positions.
This paper bridges the gap between the two aforementioned areas of investigation, arguing that muralism’s legacy can also be located within this moment of collective public art action of the late 1970s. I argue both the ideology and visual vocabulary developed by modern muralists during the 1920s and 30s was revitalized amidst new socio-political realities that emerged for artists and citizens in post-1968 Mexico City. Focusing primarily on the street interventions of the collective Grupo Suma, I analyze how the work of these collectives both deploy and subvert the tools of muralism to form a new vision of Mexican nationalism, one forged around collective notions of citizenship and urgent ruptures between State and nation.
By intervening traditional notions of art history in Mexico, generally articulated of as a series of distinct ruptures, I suggest a reading of creative production as a fluid project, with collective memories of aesthetic legacies taking on different forms under new historical conditions. Considering muralism as a an unending project allows it the space to operate as a tactic within Mexico – a blending of civic participation with aesthetics – rather than simply a defined style with a list of goals, artists and works. Ultimately, muralism’s legacy of public cultural production combined with its ability to adapt to new political conditions, suggests the transformative power of visual culture to articulate collective notions of citizenship in a nation historically marked by many revolutions.
As these bodies continue to pile up, it has become increasingly urgent that we approach depictions of women affected by this specific trauma through a critical lens, in order to interrogate the effects they have on the collective psyche of a society living in the shadow of a profound loss. Through this paper, I will argue that hegemonically influenced images at best preserve social stigmas of gender in Latin America that might further perpetuate this kind of violence, and at worst, eroticize the brutal fates of these women. To unpack this underlying paradox, I will utilize feminist art historical strategies of visual analysis to suggest more nuanced and productive engagements with the shared traumatic event of feminicide throughout Latin America.
Through an examination of three separate retrospective exhibitions where some of these artists are included, I will venture a nuanced critique of this historic and concurrent inconsistency. When included, what identities are being ascribed to these artists? What effect do the mis/non/re/presentations perpetuated by these recent exhibitions have on collective future knowledge of their histories? What does this speak to regarding the decolonization of "marginal" histories of Latin America in general? This project is not merely an unearthing of these artists and their socio-political and cultural environment, but an examination of the complex problematics involved in negotiating ghettoisation/assimilation and the developing of a transnational feminist discourse.
The 1970s also showed a merging of second wave feminist action and artistic practice, a defining point of feminism and art, and the beginnings of an international feminist art project. In addition to the political conferences of 1975, Mexico City´s museums staged women-centered exhibitions to coincide with the UN declaration. Three major shows were held – the largest at El Museo de Arte Moderno, titled La Mujer Como Creadora y Tema del Arte.
Through this presentation, I will argue that the images and identities portrayed in this exhibition worked to further reproduce gendered stereotypes regarding not only women artists, but also women in general, within Mexico. Through an in depth investigation of both the exhibition and the experiences of women artists working in Mexico, I will explore the space available for the “modern” Mexican woman, the woman concerned with the events of 1975. By presenting the alternative curatorial and feminist strategies employed by these artists in an effort to react to the implied, but never realized, notion of equality and progress, I hope to achieve a more nuanced picture of the events of 1975 in historical perspective.