Description
Book Synopsis Months before Alma López''s digital collage Our Lady was shown at the Museum of International Folk Art in 2001, the museum began receiving angry phone calls from community activists and Catholic leaders who demanded that the image not be displayed. Protest rallies, prayer vigils, and death threats ensued, but the provocative image of la Virgen de Guadalupe (hands on hips, clad only in roses, and exalted by a bare-breasted butterfly angel) remained on exhibition.
Highlighting many of the pivotal questions that have haunted the art world since the NEA debacle of 1988, the contributors to Our Lady of Controversy present diverse perspectives, ranging from definitions of art to the artist''s intention, feminism, queer theory, colonialism, and Chicano nationalism. Contributors include the exhibition curator, Tey Marianna Nunn; award-winning novelist and Chicana historian Emma Pérez; and Deena González (recognized as one of the fifty most importa
Trade Review
"An exceptionally important and powerful collection of essays, opening new interpretive paths and new tools for the activist-scholar-student. This is the most serious consideration of the oeuvre of Alma Lopez published to date." - --Charlene Villasenor Black, Associate Professor of Art History, UCLA "This book has many great and laudable qualities. First, it doesn't "wax poetic" or try to sound overly intellectual, just strict reporting of events. Secondly, the plain tone of the writing allows for balanced and unbiased reporting; it gives equal weight to both the artist and her critics, without passing judgment on either. The author respects the fact that the icons are important to some people, and Lopez' artwork isn't something they're accustomed to." - Olive Branch United blog
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Our Lady of Controversy: A Subject That Needs No Introduction (Alicia Gaspar de Alba)
- 1. The Artist of Our Lady (April 2, 2001) (Alma López)
- 2. It's Not about the Art in the Folk, It's about the Folks in the Art: A Curator's Tale (Tey Marianna Nunn)
- 3. The War of the Roses: Guadalupe, Alma López, and Santa Fe (Kathleen FitzCallaghan Jones)
- 4. Making Privates Public: It's Not about La Virgen of the Conquest, but about the Conquest of La Virgen (Deena J. González)
- 5. Art Comes for the Archbishop: The Semiotics of Contemporary Chicana Feminism and the Work of Alma López (Luz Calvo)
- 6. Queering the Sacred: Love as Oppositional Consciousness in Alma López's Visual Art (Clara Román-Odio)
- 7. The Decolonial Virgin in a Colonial Site: It's Not about the Gender in My Nation, It's about the Nation in My Gender (Emma Pérez)
- 8. It's Not about the Virgins in My Life, It's about the Life in My Virgins (Cristina Serna)
- 9. Do U Think I'm a Nasty Girl? (Catrióna Rueda Esquibel)
- 10. Devil in a Rose Bikini: The Second Coming of Our Lady in Santa Fe (Alicia Gaspar de Alba)
- 11. It's Not about the Santa in My Fe, but about the Santa Fe in My Santa (Alma López)
- Appendix: Selected Viewer Comments
- About the Contributors
- Index
