Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez's "Irreverent Apparition"

by Gaspar De Alba, Alicia; Lopez, Alma

• ISBN13: 9780292726420
• ISBN10: 0292726422
• Edition: DVD
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

Months before Alma Loacute;pez'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 Peacute;rez; and Deena Gonzaacute;lez (recognized as one of the fifty most important living women historians in America).Accompanied by a bonus DVD of Alma Loacute;pez's I Love Lupe video that looks at the Chicana artistic tradition of reimagining la Virgen de Guadalupe, featuring a historic conversation between Yolanda Loacute;pez, Ester Hernaacute;ndez, and Alma Loacute;pez, Our Lady of Controversy promises to ignite important new dialogues.

Author Biography

Alicia Gaspar De Alba is Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, English, and Women's Studies at UCLA. Her nine previous books encompass historical novels, poetry, short stories, and a cultural study of Chicano art. Alma Lpez is an artist, activist, and visual storyteller originally from Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico. They live in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

List of Images	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Our Lady of Controversy: A Subject That Needs No Introduction	p. 1
The Artist of Our Lady (April 2, 2001)	p. 13
It's Not about the Art in the Folk, It's about the Folks in the Art: A Curator's Tale	p. 17
The War of the Roses: Guadalupe, Alma López, and Santa Fe	p. 43
Making Privates Public: It's Not about La Virgen of the Conquest, but about the Conquest of La Virgen	p. 69
Art Comes for the Archbishop: The Semiotics of Contemporary Chicana Feminism and the Work of Alma López	p. 96
Queering the Sacred: Love as Oppositional Consciousness in Alma López's Visual Art	p. 121
The Decolonial Virgin in a Colonial Site: It's Not about the Gender in My Nation, It's about the Nation in My Gender	p. 148
It's Not about the Virgins in My Life, It's about the Life in My Virgins	p. 165
Do U Think I'm a Nasty Girl?	p. 195
Devil in a Rose Bikini: The Second Coming of Our Lady in Santa Fe	p. 212
It's Not about the Santa in My Fe, but the Santa Fe in My Santa	p. 249
Appendix: Selected Viewer Comments	p. 293
About the Contributors	p. 311
Index	p. 315
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