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SHOOTING FROM THE WILD ZONE

A Study of the Chicana Art Photographers Laura

Aguilar, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Delilah Montoya, and

Kathy Vargas

Asta M. Kuusinen

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

To be presented, with the permission of the

Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki,

for public criticism in Auditorium XII of the

University Main Building on May 15

th , 2006 @ 2006 by Asta Kuusinen

All rights reserved

ISBN 952-92-0196-6 (paperback)

ISBN 952-10-3089-5 (PDF)

Helsinki University Press, Helsinki, 2006

Cover photo by Delilah Montoya, La Loca & Sweetie from the series El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

Layout by Asta Kuusinen

ii

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

PREFACE 1

PART I : CONTEXTS 8

1. INTRODUCTION 9

Critical Theory, Chicano Studies 9

Race or no Race 26

2. MYTHOLOGIES AND HISTORIES 37

El Norte, the Southwest, Aztlán 37

Regional Histories, Borderline Identities 52

3. IMAGES AND MEANINGS 77

Reading the Imagery of Chicanidad 77

Discourses on (Art) Photography 90

PART II : ESSAYS 99

4. HISTORY AS THE SITE OF IDENTIFICATION 104

The Machine in the Desert: El Límite by Celia Álvarez Muñoz 107 Behold the Unblinking Eye: My Alamo by Kathy Vargas 127

5. COMMUNITY AS THE SITE OF IDENTIFICATION 146

Comadres Corporation in Labor: Stillness and Motion by Laura Aguilar 149 Para mijitas y todos los carnales: El Sagrado Corazón /

The Sacred Heart by Delilah Montoya 168

6. THE BODY POLITIC OF CHICANA REPRESENTATION 192

Queering Walden Pond: Nature Self-Portraits and Centerby Laura Aguilar 197 The Pinto"s Flayed Hide: La Guadalupana by Delilah Montoya 218 Presence in Absence: Fibra y Furia: Exploitation is in Vogue and If Walls Could Speak /Si Las Paredes Hablaran by Celia Álvarez Muñoz 236

7. DISCUSSION 254

Predicaments of Identity: ¿No está la familia? 254

Conclusion 267

ILLUSTRATIONS 273

BIBLIOGRAPHY 312

iii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, El Límite, two photo scanner murals 243.8 x 457.2 cm each, installed

on adjoining walls painted yellow, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Photograph

Asta Kuusinen.

2. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, El Límite, photo scanner mural, left panel, 243.8 x 457.2 cm, Mexic-

Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Photograph Asta Kuusinen.

3. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, El Límite, photo scanner mural, right panel, 243.8 x 457.2 cm, Mexic-

Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Photograph Asta Kuusinen.

4. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print with hand coloring, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 1995. From

the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco: Mexican

Museum, 1995.

5. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print, hand coloring, silver powder, 50.8 x 40.6 cm,

1995. From the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco:

Mexican Museum, 1995.

6. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print with hand coloring, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 1995. From

the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco: Mexican

Museum, 1995.

7. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print, hand coloring, silver powder, 50.8 x 40.6 cm,

1995. From the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco:

Mexican Museum, 1995.

8. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print with hand coloring, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 1995. From

the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco: Mexican

Museum, 1995.

9. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print, hand coloring, silver powder, 50.8 x 40.6 cm,

1995. From the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco:

Mexican Museum, 1995.

10. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print with hand coloring, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 1995. From

the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco: Mexican

Museum, 1995.

11. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print, hand coloring, silver powder, 50.8 x 40.6 cm,

1995. From the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco:

Mexican Museum, 1995.

12. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print with hand coloring, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 1995. From

the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco: Mexican

Museum, 1995.

13. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print, hand coloring, silver powder, 50.8 x 40.6 cm,

1995. From the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco:

Mexican Museum, 1995.

14. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print with hand coloring, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 1995. From

the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco: Mexican

Museum, 1995.

iv

15. Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, gelatin silver print, hand coloring, silver powder, 50.8 x 40.6 cm,

1995. From the West: Chicano Narrative Photography. Chon A. Noriega, ed. San Francisco:

Mexican Museum, 1995.

16. Laura Aguilar, Motion #59, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 1999. Courtesy of the artist.

17. Laura Aguilar, Stillness #41, gelatin silver print, 30.5 x 22.9 cm, 1999. Courtesy of the artist.

18. Laura Aguilar, Stillness #35, gelatin silver print, 33 x 45.7 cm, 1999. Courtesy of the artist.

19. Laura Aguilar, Stillness #27, digital print, detail, 1999. Exhibition brochure. International

Artist-in-Residence exhibition at ArtPace gallery. San Antonio, Texas, 1999.

20. Laura Aguilar, Stillness #28, digital print, detail, 1999. Exhibition brochure. International

Artist-in-Residence exhibition at ArtPace gallery. San Antonio, Texas, 1999.

21. Laura Aguilar, Motion #54, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 1999. Courtesy of the artist.

22. Laura Aguilar, Motion #55, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 1999. Courtesy of the artist.

23. Laura Aguilar, Motion #56, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 1999. Courtesy of the artist.

24. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Without Innocence,How Can

There Be Wisdom?, collotype print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

25. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; La Malinche, collotype print,

25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

26. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; La Genizara, collotype print, 25.4

x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

27. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; El Aborto: In Homage to Frida,

collotype print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

28. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Rudolfo, collotype print, 25.4 x

20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

29. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; La Loca & Sweetie, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

30. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; El Grito de la Gitana, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

31. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Mom"s Angels, collotype print,

25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

32. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Madonna and Child, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

33. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; El Corazón de Maria, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

34. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Curanderisma, collotype print,

25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

35. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; El Misterio Triste, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

36. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; El Misterio Triste Suéltame,

collotype print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

37. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; cover, collotype print, 25.4 x 20.3

cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

38. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; La Familia, collotype print, 25.4

x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

39. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Jesús, collotype print, 25.4 x 20.3

cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

40. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; God"s Gift, collotype print, 25.4 x

20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

v

41. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; Los Jóvenes, collotype print, 25.4

x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

42. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; El Matachín/Moro, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

43. Delilah Montoya, El Sagrado Corazón / The Sacred Heart; La Muerte y Infinity, collotype

print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

44. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, If Walls Could Speak / Si Las Paredes Hablaran; page 1, Embassy

Hotel & Auditorium, circa 1915. The Power of Place Project. Arligton, Texas: Enlightenment Press, 1991. From the original. Courtesy of the artist.

45. Laura Aguilar, Nature Self-Portrait #4, gelatin silver print, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, 1996. Exhibition

catalogue El jo divers. Barcelona, Spain: Fundació "la Caixa," 1998.

46. Laura Aguilar, Nature Self-Portrait #11, gelatin silver print, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, 1996. Exhibition

catalogue El jo divers. Barcelona, Spain: Fundació "la Caixa," 1998.

47. Laura Aguilar, In Sandy"s Room, gelatin silver print, 35.6 x 45.7 cm, 1989. Courtesy of the

artist.

48. Laura Aguilar, Center #79, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 2000. Courtesy of the artist.

49. Laura Aguilar, Center #80, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 2000. Courtesy of the artist.

50. Laura Aguilar, Center #81, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 2000. Courtesy of the artist.

51. Laura Aguilar, Center #82, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 2000. Courtesy of the artist.

52. Laura Aguilar, Center #92, gelatin silver print, 22.9 x 30.5 cm, 2000. Courtesy of the artist.

53. Laura Aguilar, Don"t Tell Her Art Can"t Hurt, gelatin silver prints with hand writing, 127 x

406.4 cm, 1993. Courtesy of the artist.

54. Laura Aguilar, Nature Self-Portrait #8, gelatin silver print, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, 1996. Exhibition

catalogue El jo divers. Barcelona, Spain: Fundació "la Caixa," 1998.

55. Laura Aguilar, Nature Self-Portrait #9, gelatin silver print, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, 1996. Exhibition

catalogue El jo divers. Barcelona, Spain: Fundació "la Caixa," 1998.

56. Delilah Montoya, El Guadalupano, gelatin silver print, detail, 1998. Courtesy of the artist.

57. Delilah Montoya, La Guadalupana, Kodacolor photo-mural with installation, 304.8 x 91.4

cm, Museum of New Mexico, Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1998.

Courtesy of the artist.

58. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Fibra y Furia: Exploitation is in Vogue, mixed-media installation,

Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Photograph Asta Kuusinen.

59. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Fibra y Furia: Exploitation is in Vogue, mixed-media installation,

detail, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Photograph Asta Kuusinen.

60. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Fibra y Furia: Exploitation is in Vogue, mixed-media installation,

detail, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Photograph Asta Kuusinen.

61. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, La Sirena, lambda digital print, 152.4 x 101.6 cm, 1997, and Furia,

lambda digital print, 152.4 x 101.6 cm, 1999, part of Fibra y Furia: Exploitation is in Vogue, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas, 2003. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Stories Your Mother Never Told You. Exhibition catalogue. Arlington, Tx: The Gallery of UTA, Campus Printing

Service, 2002.

62. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, If Walls Could Speak / Si Las Paredes Hablaran; cover page, The

Power of Place Project. Arligton, Texas: Enlightenment Press, 1991. From the original.

Courtesy of the artist.

63. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, If Walls Could Speak / Si Las Paredes Hablaran; inside cover, The

Power of Place Project. Arligton, Texas: Enlightenment Press, 1991. From the original.

Courtesy of the artist.

vi

64. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, If Walls Could Speak / Si Las Paredes Hablaran; page 12, The Power

of Place Project. Arligton, Texas: Enlightenment Press, 1991. From the original. Courtesy of the artist.

65. Celia Álvarez Muñoz, If Walls Could Speak / Si Las Paredes Hablaran; page 2, The Power of

Place Project. Arligton, Texas: Enlightenment Press, 1991. From the original. Courtesy of the artist.

66. Laura Aguilar, Three Eagles Flying, gelatin silver print, 61 x 152.4 cm, 1990. Courtesy of the

artist. Reproduction of the photographs are by courtesy of the artists; The Mexican Museum in San Francisco, California; ArtPace gallery in San Antonio, Texas; Fundació "la Caixa" in Barcelona, Spain; and The Gallery of UTA in Arlington, Texas. vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I decided to apply to the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, little did I know that about ten years later one of the upshots of that decision would be a doctoral degree in North American Studies at the University of Helsinki. Nothing gives me more pleasure than recollecting the four years in Albuquerque, which changed my life in many ways. My perception of the United States as the home ground for a unified "American culture" was radically changed by the astonishing diversity of New Mexican people and their cultures. Most of all, I cherish the memories of volunteering at the KUNM Public Radio, which taught me not only the ropes of radio production, but also the ideals of community empowerment through the media. My fellow students and the teachers at the UNM College of Fine Arts taught me how to collaborate in building a mutually supportive intellectual and social environment, geared to help each of its members achieve her/his full potential. I wish to thank particularly Geoffrey Batchen, my graduate advisor, whose unflagging enthusiasm, good humor, and commitment to his students guided my first steps toward critical thinking. Both artistically and intellectually, I owe thanks to such inspiring teachers as Lydia Madrid, José Rodríguez, Charlene Villaseñor Black, Holly Barnet, Patrick Nagatani, and Enrique Lamadrid. Over the last three years, the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California in Los Angeles and the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin have generously welcomed me to conduct research under their auspices. Without access to their human and library resources, particularly the CSRC Library and Special Collections and the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, this study would never have materialized. At the University of Helsinki, I am grateful to Markku Henriksson, my supervisor at the Renvall Institute for Area and Cultural Studies, for paving my way to resettle in Finland by ushering me into the North American Studies doctoral program and helping me receive funding for writing my dissertation. It has been a great pleasure to do research and teach at Renvall fellow doctoral students Daniel Blackie, Florencia Quesada, and Yukako Uemura for friendship, viii collegial support, and lively company. Michael Coleman, Benita Heiskanen, Jeffrey Meikle, Leena-Maija Rossi, Mikko Saikku, and Mark Shackleton graciously took the time to read portions of my manuscript, providing me with much appreciated feedback. I particularly wish to thank Mimi White for her thoughtful attention to my chapter drafts, as well as my pre-examiners, Tutta Palin and Jennifer González, for reading through the whole manuscript with great care and consideration. With funding from the Academy of Finland and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, I had the extraordinary privilege of being able to work fulltime on research and attend conferences overseas. The Chancellor"s Office at the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Graduate School for North and Latin American Studies, and Amici Instituti Iberoamericani Universitatis Helsingiensis also contributed to my conference fund, for which I am grateful. A special note of appreciation goes to the artists Laura Aguilar, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Delilah Montoya, and Kathy Vargas for their openness and support for my project. Besides admiring them as artists, during our meetings and dialogues I have also grown to regard them as friends and astute commentators on my ideas. A biggest dept I owe to my close friend and collaborator Delilah Montoya, who got me involved with Mezcla, an Albuquerque-based group of Chicana/o artists. Amid her tenure track efforts at Houston University, she has always found time to get together, respond to my requests for help, and connect me with good people in Mexican American arts and academic communities. I would especially like to thank Chon Noriega for giving me his support and traveling overseas in order to act as the Opponent at the public examination of my dissertation. The assistance of loving friends, Marvin and Becky Dykhuis, was invaluable in navigating the ins and outs of Austin, Texas. My compañero and life partner, Joseph K. Warnes, deserves very special recognition for unflinchingly walking the meandering trail with me from Albuquerque to Helsinki to Austin, Texas, and then back to Finland again. He shared in every phase of this project, spending countless hours nursing my style, explaining points of grammar, pruning academic obscurities, and keeping my thoughts on a sound ground. In negotiations of cultural differences, he has been my tireless guide and best source of information. Appreciating and sharing his love of birds, I wish to dedicate this study to the stunningly beautiful wild birds of Texas, who cheered us up and kept me company during the long days of sorting through research material in East Austin, Texas, during the U.S.-Iraq war and thereafter.

PREFACE

IN DECEMBER of 1999, I finished a Masters degree at the University of New Mexico. In March, 2001, about nine months after my departure from New Mexico, a friend of mine who was still living in Albuquerque started to send me articles cut out of the leading local newspaper. The articles vividly described how in New Mexico"s capital, Santa Fe, crowds of angry people were marching in protest against the city"s International Folk Art Museum, threatening the museum administration with sanctions, lawsuits, and public scandal. The cries of sacrilege were directed against a c. 30 by 35 centimeter digital image titled Our Lady by Latina artist Alma Lopez. The image was on display in the newly opened exhibition "Cyber Arte: Tradition Meets Technology," which featured four artists of Latina/Chicana/Hispana origin and was curated by New Mexican art historian Tey Marianna Nunn. Lopez"s depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe, dressed only in flowers and a bikini, ignited a fierce battle of images between some very influential Santa Fe Catholic leaders and the artist, who defended her legacy on this popular religious symbol and her freedom to endow it with personal meanings relevant to her own experiences. (For a description of the history and meaning of Guadalupe in Mexican American culture, see pages 81-83.) In June, the battle was drawing to its close. The New Mexico Museum Committee on Sensitive Materials recommended that Alma Lopez"s image stay on exhibit, while the protesters had, for the most part, exhausted their energies. It was a partial victory, though, because something had changed; on a visit to Albuquerque that summer, I met signs of underlying fear and uneasiness throughout the community of local Mexican American professionals and artists. A rift that had emerged became visible in an exhibition titled "Las Malcriadas: Coloring out of the Lines," organized in support of Alma Lopez by her artist friends in New Mexico. In the closing reception of this exhibition, Alma Lopez and the local female artists were celebrated by their supporters for their courage and endurance, but the unity of the audience was disrupted by the tacit voices that remained absent. Later on, while visiting museums and galleries in New Mexico, I frequently paid attention to ominous notices at exhibition entrances warning viewers about display material that might be sensitive or offensive. It seemed, indeed, that Lopez"s concerns about possible future censorship, including self-censorship, and subtle restrictions on the freedom of speech were not unwarranted after all. 1 Guadalupe"s daughters had helped the Virgin run away from the 2 Church (once again, one could add), but there was no refuge. Since moving from Albuquerque, I have shelved my printmaker"s profession to follow the winding paths of Chicana artists from Texas to California in an attempt to write down something meaningful about their work, which has engaged my intellectual curiosity for over five years. Inevitably, questions about my own identity have surfaced as happens to any "resident alien" who finds her/himself befuddled by strange encounters with American life. In America (i.e., the United States), they claim I am Caucasian; I used to greatly enjoy causing confusion by insisting that I am Finno-Ugric, in fact, and that the Caucasians for me are just a mountain range over yonder. I am not a U.S. citizen, Catholic, indigenous, or of racially mixed ancestry. I was born on the peninsula of Finland, which lies between Sweden and Russia, to a middle-class, non-religious family of presumably Finnish origin. The 1990s recession in Finland drove me out of the country to study at the University of New Mexico and work in the same lithography shop with Delilah Montoya, one of the subjects of this study. What brought us together was our love of cross-country skiing, and it was during our long skiing trips to the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado that I first learned about Latin cultures in the United States. Subsequently, as Montoya introduced me to her friends and relatives, the Albuquerque Hispanic/Chicano community in a way adopted me, I guess, which was particularly nice for a resident alien student during such family holidays as Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have to admit, though, that this is not the entire story. Long before I learned what "otherness" meant by reading academic literature, I had numerous disturbing encounters with it, which are documented in my travel journals. In a journal from 1978, for example, there is a drawing of an old Native man in rags somewhere in New York City, reaching out his hand and saying, "Ma"m, give a quarter to a stupid Indian," and a diary entry about a visit to distant relatives in British Columbia, who drove me in their truck through some dismal Indian reservation in order to prove that real Indians loved to live in squalor and decay. There are diary entries about long journeys on Greyhound busses where tense encounters between passengers without a common language sometimes happen. And there also are entries about dinner parties in affluent homes of doctors, professors, and art collectors, not all of them white Americans. I could make little sense of what I saw around me but often felt alienated, uncomfortable, and fascinated all at the same time. Only several years later I realized that a woman named Gloria Torres, whose friendship had helped me survive a year in Las Vegas, Nevada during the early 1980s, was actually - a Latina. Fluent in both English and Spanish, her home language, she never spoke a word of Spanish in my presence, not even to her Colombian parents. Torres moved from Las Vegas to San Diego, went to college, became emancipated, and one Christmas sent me Gloria Anzaldúa"s Borderlands/La Frontera: The

New Mestiza (1987).

2 Anzaldúa"s book opened my eyes, and I started to understand a little better what I had seen. This study, however, is not about a quest for one"s double in the revered tradition of European self-searching narratives, or an inquiry into reverse identification through the "Other," invoked by postcolonial cultural critics. Rather, I like to refer to some feminist writers, who, instead of identities, use the term affinity in their endeavor to envision some common framework of interaction between disparate people, communities, and nations. By 3 preferring to use this provisional term, I wish to suggest a mental distance from celebratory configurations of cultural difference that strive to find a common ground of action without recognizing the basic realities of United States socio-political history. 3

Of course, my

approach is influenced by geography and other conditionals that situate me in an outsider subject position with its pros and cons. Studying American society from a northern European vantage point yields a different prism than, say, that of the research on Mexican American culture conducted by scholars of Mexican descent at UT at Austin, Texas. For better or worse, however, looking at American society through another society, in many ways polar opposite to it, yields yet another level of difference and interpretation, sometimes revealing subtle ironies, sometimes bordering on the absurd. Described in his essay collection Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back (2000), Guillermo Gómez-Peña"s nightmarish experiences in Finland during his visit at a performance festival in Helsinki in 1999 serve as an acute as well as rather amusing example of the slippery surface of subjectivity. The border artist Gómez- Peña"s astutely self-reflective gaze instantly maps the foreign landscape inside the parameters of his own world view, transforming whiteness at first strange beyond interpretation and then the same - regardless of national geographies. "In my imagination, Finland is a clearly superficial and 'other" space than Montana. I don"t have informants there capable of filtering back my memories, I am clearly a colonial anthropologist in reverse," 4 concludes mystified

Gómez-Peña.

Why don"t I, then, feel haunted by the academic code of politically correct inter-racial conduct, which often seems to stifle trans-cultural dissemination in the name of appropriation or touristing? Oddly enough, I do not feel the burden of the privileged subject that recasts difference into sameness. Instead, I feel that this road goes two ways: projecting one"s selfhood against the surface of otherness involves gradual shifts of fixed categories and formerly self-evident distinctions; the change is bilateral and irreversible - the exposure to a foreign tongue, foreign images, and foreign ways cancels out a simple return to the old home that has ceased to even exist. In a similar vein, in his book Migrancy, Culture, and Identity (1994), Iain Chambers discusses the role of the artist in the postmodern world by quoting the

Mexican American novelist Arturo Islas:

To live 'elsewhere" means to continually find yourselves involved in a conversation, in which identities are recognized, exchanged and mixed, but do not vanish. Here differences function not necessarily as barriers but rather signals of complexity. To be a stranger in a strange land, to be lost, is the condition typical of contemporary life. [...] Now that the old house of criticism, historiography, and intellectual certitude is in ruins, we all find ourselves on the road. Faced with the loss of roots, and the subsequent weakening of the grammar of "authenticity," we move into a vaster landscape. Our sense of belonging, our language and the myths we carry with us remain, but no longer as "origins" or signs of "authenticity" capable of guaranteeing the sense of our lives. They now linger as traces, voices, memories and murmurs that are mixed with other histories, episodes, encounters. 5 4 Likewise, through studying and relating to Chicana artists, I inevitably also look at myself by default and trace these voices and murmurs, which become all the more compelling the farther I stray from home. Yet I tend to disagree with most of Islas" claims: to live "elsewhere" does notper se entail participation in the negotiation of identities, nor does it necessarily mean engaging in cultural or academic "touristing," for that matter; the old house of intellectual certitude still stands up and erect on the mainstay of traditional, discrete academic disciplines; in popular and political discourses, the grammar of "authenticity" is still thriving as strong as ever. What I am interested in, nevertheless, could be called the cracks in the wall, sometimes also referred to as "worm holes," 6 through which one can see the human landscape colored slightly outside of the lines, slightly off-white, if you will.

The Topic and Location of the Study

The primary material of this study consists of the photographic work of the following artists: Laura Aguilar from Los Angeles, California, Celia Álvarez Muñoz from El Paso and Arlington, Texas; Delilah Montoya from Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Kathy Vargas from San Antonio, Texas. All four artists are self-identified Chicanas, and each has, since the

1980s, participated in several major art exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, and worked as

teachers, art curators, and cultural activists in their respective communities. Therefore, the similarities and differences of their lives, careers, and art work also reflect the regional histories of Mexican American dispersal over the Southwest United States. This is one of the areas I am particularly interested in, since regional divides within the Mexican-origin population have only recently appeared as a commonly recognized factor in negotiations of cultural inclusion versus exclusion, which have predominantly concentrated on the issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation. My gaze is interdisciplinary, by default, admittedly biased in the sense that I do like the object of my study, and influenced by a desire to make this art more widely acknowledged and understood. Unlike art criticism, on the other hand, this research does not aspire to make qualitative judgments about the aesthetic merits or relevance of Chicana photography in the contemporary art world; yet it tries to say something intelligent about it. Although it applies semiotic tools, among other methods, to achieve this goal, it is not merely a (post)structuralist exercise in turning images into readily readable texts. Unlike mainstream art history, it does not search for evolutionary genealogies, inferred in assertions about style, technique, school, or socio-political progression. Just like art history, however, it focuses on the work and life histories of individual artists of substantial reputation. Although it utilizes some concepts associated with so-called new history, it does not - unlike historiography as a rule - propose to offer any new, ameliorated model of explanation, periodization, or paradigm. Attentive to the insights of Chicana writer Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, this study aims to be strategically driven, empirically grounded, theoretically sophisticated, contextually defined, and reflexive about its own status. 7

My theoretical approach thus being rather

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[PDF] zombie the cranberries tab

[PDF] zombie the cranberries chords

[PDF] conflit nord irlandais

[PDF] répertoire pour chorale adulte

[PDF] chanson en anglais pour cm1 cm2

[PDF] chanson anglais cp hello

[PDF] chorégraphie danse maternelle

[PDF] danse petite section foulards

[PDF] comment enseigner la musique ? l'école primaire

[PDF] quel est le message du chant des partisans

[PDF] chant d'espérance français