When talking about Chicana artists, one of the most prominent names is Amalia Mesa-Bains. Her first traveling career retrospective exhibit, titled Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory, is on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art’s Cowden Gallery. The exhibition is curated by María Esther Fernández, Artistic Director of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, and Laura E. Pérez, Professor of Chicanx, Latinx and Ethnic Studies and the Chair of Latinx Research Center at UC-Berkeley. The exhibit was a must-see for me, as someone who has “fanboyed” over Amalia Mesa-Bains since I first began researching what Chicano artists were as an artist in high school.
Mesa-Bains is known for her altar installations. Altars have had a place in the artist’s life since childhood; her grandmother had one above her dresser and her madrina (godmother) had a capilla (yard shrine). Altars also contain important context in Mexican culture during the fall, as they are made to honor deceased relatives on the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which occurs on November 1st and November 2nd.
Altars are spiritual places for Mesa-Bains, personally and culturally. For decades, she’s transformed the home altar from its more domestic purposes into layered installations that touch on anthropology, womanhood, and mysticism. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on how Mesa-Bains juxtaposes objects and altars to create spaces that honor women figures.
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Venus Envy Chapter I: First Holy Communion, Moments Before the End, 1993/2022. Photo: Daria Lugina.
Entering the Cowden gallery, visitors are first confronted with Venus Envy Chapter I: First Holy Communion. This artwork represents the earlier stages of Mesa-Bains’s life. There is a push-and-pull between the Catholic faith and the artist in this sacred, yet confined space. Here, we see a communion chair, with a bouquet of flowers resting on the chair. Mesa-Bains has long investigated the idea of the chair as the space of trauma for Chicanas, beginning in 1492 with the Conquest of Mexico.
The artist converts the dresser into an altar through the objects inserted onto the space, including a printed image of Coatlicue, figurines of the Virgin Mary, pearls, a chalice, perfume containers, shells, and photographs of herself. Mesa-Bains creates a decorative landscape of personal significance. She presents to us that she was a good Catholic child, but the spirit of her indigenous ancestry, via the imagery of Coatlicue embedded on the mirror, stares back at her at the readying desk for her communion.
While Coatlicue’s imagery is grey and subdued, one of the Virgin statues glows brightly on the dresser. Even at this young age, did Mesa-Bains feel a side of her Chicana identity that was repressed, and yet, extremely visible? This visual contrast speaks to the dominance of Catholicism over her indigenous roots in her early life. This sparks a larger sociocultural discussion on patriarchy, and the “good” Chicana being passive, like the Virgin who glows and does not speak.
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Circle of Ancestors, 1995; mixed media installation including candles and seven hand-painted chairs with mirrors and jewels; 168 in. diameter; courtesy of the artist and the Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
In her Glasstire article, Jessica Fuentes writes further about how Mesa-Bains appropriates chairs, turning them into the altars of women in the Chicana realm whose voices rise above limitations for women in society. Mesa-Bains’s Circle of Ancestors is a tribute to these figures, with eight chairs dedicated to extraordinary women, such as Judy Baca, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Coyolxauhqui, and even herself. The chairs, arranged in a circle, allude to how these women’s strength ties them all together. As Fuentes mentions, this table points to The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, which was Chicago’s attempt to celebrate the accomplishments of women (and her efforts were controversial). Unlike Chicago, Mesa-Bains does not attempt to celebrate all women under a label of “feminism;” instead, the artist represents women who are of particular influence to herself, such as Sor Juana, whose talents were silenced by the Catholic patriarchy of her time.
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Queen of the Waters, Mother of the Land of the Dead: Homenaje a Tonantzin/Guadalupe, 1992. Photo: Daria Lugina.
Mesa-Bains’s Queen of the Waters, Mother of the Land of the Dead: Homenaje a Tonantzin/Guadalupe is the final artwork that you see in the exhibit’s layout. The altar comprises three tiers, of which the artist places different items that allude to the Virgin Mary, including candles with the Virgin’s imagery, photographs of the Virgin. On the top tier, Mesa-Bains juxtaposes these images with sea shells, miniature skeletons (one of which is a mermaid), a human calavera (a decorative skull, which references the Day of the Dead), pearls, a ceramic head, and multiple ancient West Mexican ceramic dogs. These dogs emphasize a belief in an afterlife that resonates with both Catholic and ancient Mexican traditions. The ceramic head sculpture of Tonantzin is a Nahua deity who is the mother of all Aztec gods. She is a protector of women, and her symbolism in the form of Aztec hearts is merged with the Spanish colonial Virgin de Guadalupe. Tonantzin and the Virgin are, then, one and the same.
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Queen of the Waters, Mother of the Land of the Dead: Homenaje a Tonatzin/Guadalupe (detail), 1992; mixed media installation including fabric drape, six jeweled clocks, mirror pedestals with grottos, nicho box, found objects, dried flowers, dried pomegranate, potpourri; 120 x 216 x 72 in.; courtesy of the artist and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco.
On the lower tiers of the altar, the artist includes more imagery of the Virgin, such as various depictions of the Virgin’s apparition occurring inside of a shell. This aesthetic choice references none other than Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, where the painter depicts Venus birthed from a shell. Mesa-Bains highlights how Tonantzin and the Virgin are life-giving through this aquatic altar installation. Water is a life-giving force, and without these women, the Catholic and indigenous Mexican worlds would be devoid of life. The Virgin herself is not merely a religious figure, but an embodiment of the cultural syncretism of post-colonial Mexican culture, where these worlds merge and create a new, third culture.
By juxtaposing Catholic symbols with indigenous imagery, Mesa-Bains inserts herself within the broader efforts of Chicana artists to reclaim their heritage and question the cultural expectations imposed upon them. However, Mesa-Bains is also unique in her personal narratives, using them as the catalysts to discuss women’s place in the Mexican psyche.
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory is on view at the San Antonio Museum of Art until January 12, 2025.
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