February 23, 2002

Subject: a "Frankenstein Guadalupe" (was AlmaLopez/PedroRomero dialogue)
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 09:56:46 EST
From: Sedeno7@aol.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
CC: almalopez@earthlink.net, GMendoza@aol.com, dadsacp@hotmail.com

Dear Alma Lorena Lopez    m.f.a.,  
Thanks for engaging in the dialogue we started 3 weeks ago.   >From it, I have become  more educated about your work. In turn, if anything, I hope you see by now that my voice is distinct and independent from the body of criticism which arose out of New Mexico last year against the work and the Museum of New Mexico's inclusion of it in its exhibition CyberArte.  
           In  this dialogue,  you made an observation about the use of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe by the forces of colonialism,  a valid observation,  as art can be used as propaganda for a number of things.  I wonder if your use of the Guadalupe is, in a sense, a counter-propaganda effort.  It can be read as a response or declaration to ecclesiastical authority which is intolerant of your sexual orientation  and/or worldview.  Please know I am trying to understand your intent as an artist who makes a secularist statement using religious subject matter such as the Guadalupe.  Am I correct in assuming that you view the Guadalupe as a religious subject matter, or is this  subject matter to you just a pop/cultural  icon and/or a  political propaganda tool?  How does your digital print function as art as opposed to propaganda for your particular concerns as a Chicana?   Please consider my opinion as at least a serious examination of possible answers to these questions.  I make no apologies about the subject heading; it is the most apt and relevant title I could find :
_____________________________________________________________________           
a FRANKENSTEIN GUADALUPE       ------ Pedro Romero Sedeño  2/23/2k2   
         Religious issues aside,  the print "our lady" does not support what Alma Lopez and her supporters say it is, i.e. an "interpretation" of Our Lady of Guadalupe.   The Guadalupe is a matriarchal archetype, understood by millions of viewers as such for centuries.  Alma's print is devoid of any signifiers of motherhood, except possibly an obscure one, a reference to flowers, but where's the seed?   
           
        The pose of the woman in Guadalupe is non-threatening, albeit shy, subservient, if you will, but dignified.  Gentleness in strength is communicated.  This image is consistent with the legend (as in legend of a map) i.e. namoicnohuacanantzin, "It is I who am your compassionate mother", as attributed to Guadalupe by the Nican Mopohua.    Alma Lopez's female figure, however, depicts an alternative vision of strength, physical, exultant, defiant, perhaps even reactionary.  Alma's pose is consistent with what Alma writes is her concern, i.e. depicting her concept of female strength.  Yet Alma and her print is in denial of the strength required and acquired in maternity. This is the most salient shortcoming  of the piece.  In this, Alma fails at interpreting Guadalupe in any substantive way.  In addition, two gazes, one of humility, offered in deference to the viewer, the other gaze with a different intent, confronts the viewer, confrontational, "in your face", could be interpreted as that of a threatening chola.   One cannot equate the two gazes and their distinct messages, no way, no how.  Alma creates an interpretation of a Chicana celebrity or warrior , La Raquela, yes, but fails to recognize, much less value (respect?),  the enduring humility of  the campesina-maiden called "Our Lady of Guadalupe",  La Morenita.
          
            The Guadalupe figure communicates a pious and modest beauty.   Alma offers in its stead Raquela's new-found ownership of her body, a pride in her sensuality, her carnal self.   In the Guadalupe image,  a majestic modesty is the trademark, if you will, a depiction of a spiritual value, a serenity, a vision seen and felt beyond the five senses.  Alma's "vision" is tied to the senses. Alma replaces a spiritual value of piety with her own secular values, away from modesty and towards sensuality, a sensation-al image. .  This sensationalistic departure from the Guadalupe expression of beauty may have appeal, and even shock-value, in the artworld and in the Chicana/o expereince,  but it leaves the work extremely isolated from the Guadalupe image itself.

     The Guadalupe-derivations appear to function merely as gimmicks or props to empower a photo of one of Alma's models, and the print languishes as a seductive gender political statement about physical beauty and strength.  Possibly seen as a strong statement by some, the "our lady" pales in comparison to the overpowering sublimity inherent to the Guadalupe.

            This "Guadalupe-brand" political statement may have relevance to a  community Alma infers as "Our...", but her "...Lady" separates itself from the integrity of the Guadalupe context.   Alma has stated that her use of nudity in the work is out of concern to challenge how men look at women's bodies, how the Catholic church looks at women's bodies, how women look at their bodies, etc.  These are actually boundary-issues, and the Raquela pose and gaze can be interpreted to be as that of a setter-of boundaries.   However, the Guadalupe image and context is not about boundaries at all. Its innocence, along with its matriarchal context, is all-embracing, a mother the viewer can touch and who touches them.   

          The work is also contradictory within its minimal layers of meaning with Alma's reference to the Coyolxauqui-stone imagery she uses to replace the manta of Guadalupe.  The garments of Guadalupe, modified or removed in Alma's piece, have been analyzed and are considered to be painted canvases or codexes in themselves.  Studies have shown that the stars on the manta are a star map of the Mexican sky, Winter Solstice 1531. (A Handbook on Guadalupe, Park Press, 1997), in essence, a date-stamp of the work, of the amoxtli, tilma codex.   Alma's Coyolxauqhui reference has a tangential connection to stars (from my understanding, in  Mexica mythology , Coyolxauqhui is dismembered by her brother Huitzilopochtli who hurls her body parts to the heavens and they become a constellation), but the connection is too obscure, unsupported by anything else in the work (except maybe the moon) , to support a strong connection to Guadalupe.  The incoherency of the work here is also compounded by the nature of the myth.   An act of revenge by a male-brother-entity upon a sister-entity for her jealous machinations upon him when he was in the womb of their mother-Coatlicue.  What has this (an ancient war of grievances?) got to do with the Guadalupe context which is about a compassionate-parent-entity?  Nada.

           Along with  a number of other  symbols, the Guadalupe is connected by her stars to Mexica mythology more directly  to Tonantzin, not Coyolxauqhui.  Tonantzin, "our-mother-revered" , and also the fosterer of corn (the stars on her manta like the  toasted maize-grains which signified Tonantzin.)  Also,  ten eight-petalled flower designs on the tunic are identified as Nahuatl glyphs for Venus, the Morning Star, which is connected to Quetzalcoatl, the Lord of the Dawn, whose benign message to the pre-Columbian world presaged  that of Guadalupe and her son, the Christ .

              There is a wealth of symbolism in the Guadalupe iconography and Mexica mythology too immense to fully examine in this analysis.  Suffice it to say that Alma's  superficial reference to any of that symbolism leaves the work, at best, as a weak caricature of the Guadalupe icon, her female figure sort of a burlesque and thoughtless impersonator.  Alma 's reference to the Coyolxauqhui myth may add a layer of meaning to her concern about healing within her sister community, but it functions formally as an insignificant connection to the Guadalupe "myth" (characterized as so by Alma on her website).

            Ideologically,   Alma Lopez's "our lady" is a statement of a stance against misdeeds or misthoughts towards women's bodies.  It is a statement about grievances.  The viewer is left stuck by Alma in this world of bodies and grievances.    The Guadalupe context is one of protection and goodness-aborption of all grievances.  Lopez's stance would be unneccesary if Alma  would examine and apply the true (dare I say spiritual?) meanings behind the Guadalupe icon.  

           Alma's "our lady" has been read by Brent Beltran of Calaca Press as a "dig" at religion.  I read it as such also, but a shallow one.  Even with its Guadalupe-derivative formal elements,  the "our lady" functions  politically, at best, as a political poster against an intolerant ecclesiastical authority, and at worst, as a caricature which does not go beyond being a snicker at organized religion. Without the Guada-gimmicks, the work could read as  commercial art  advertising "better brown feminism through physical conditioning and creative underwear".  Let's not even get into the Kandy Kane "angel" bit.  And on a cultural level, don't mention what this American caricature may garble about Guadalupe, a Mexican historical and cultural national icon.

           A hodge-podge of ideas digitally mixed by Alma Lopez, and serving the gender-political agenda of the curators of the Museum of International Folk Art of the Museum of New Mexico,  the "our lady" has caused quite a stir.  It "struck a nerve", as artist Magu has noted it did with many, but with me not for the reasons most critics mention.  Mary Shelly wrote a novel about one Dr. Frankenstein who, in his lab, assembled human body parts, and was able to fabricate or interpret his own kind of being.  When I hear the fiction that Alma Lopez actually created an interpretation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I shudder to think that her digitally-mastered collection of Guadalupe parts, the Frankenstein Guadalupe (the most apt title I have personally found),  is actually revered by some as such, an pseudo-interpretation.       

----Pedro Romero Sedeño    mfa    2002