Minnesota-Based Latina and Latinx Artists are Claiming and Reclaiming Space in the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery.
By Skylar Mattson
A peak into the many forms of media comprising the exhibit
To kick off the 2024-25 season, the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery is helping 42 Minnesota-based artists to claim and reclaim space representing their cultural heritage.
The current exhibit, LATINA AND LATINX MN: Re/claiming Space in Times of Change, features the works of 42 self-identifying Latina women and non-binary Latinx artists. Its multiple forms of media including paintings, sculptures, photography, and more platform each artists’ unique history and identity.
The exhibit allows visitors to enter a story of how Minnesota’s past, present, and future are affecting the lives of these Latina and Latinx artists. Themes of restrained culture, hiding one’s sexuality and honoring loved ones emerge.
Left to right: “Yectic Rollkur” and “Hineni”
Co Curators Zamara Cuyún and William Gustavo Franklin Torres’ intention is that observers will recognize that “embedded in each piece is the pride of being a Latina woman and a Latinx non-binary person, an experience often reduced to a social phenomenon by outsiders but affirmed here as an unequivocal historical, unifying and rich American condition. The ancestral roots in Latin America are then the pathway from a shared heritage, struggles and achievements, to the social and political present.”
Pieces including Yectic Rollkur and Hineni show ways in which the artists had to suppress their culture to assimilate in American society. In Yectic Rollkur, a young girl is atop an Azteca in a painful position known as Rolkur to create an artificial silhouette. This technique is included in the oil painting to show an extreme attempt to contain cultural pride in a White American society. Hineni or Here I Am is an accumulation of masks that the artist, Lys Akerman-Frank, has worn to survive as a first-generation immigrant from Brazil. The piece is a collection of encounters and experiences during the artist's time in the states.
Left to right: “Amor Prohibido,” “Echoes of Heritage” and “This Barbie is The Statue of Libertad”
Pieces such as Amor Prohibido, This Barbie is The Statue of Liberta and Echoes of Heritage bring sexuality into the conversation. The purpose of Amor Prohibido or Forbidden Love is for couples to be able to look back on the photograph when they enter environments where their sexualities cannot be freely expressed. Alondra Garza’s digital collage, This Barbie is The Statue of Libertad, which features a sequin vulva, is symbolism for the desired freedom of uterus and vulvas from oppression, for women to be able to make their own decisions for their bodies, and the freedom of speech. Lastly, the captivating painting, Echoes of Heritage, featuring a traditional figure wearing a golden pre-Columbian headdress celebrates the influence of heritage and embraces the artistic expression’s power in periods of change.
To celebrate the Latina and Latinx artists featured in the exhibit and experience their art as a force for change, you will have to see the exhibit for yourself before it leaves on December 8th. The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery is open 9am-7pm Monday-Thursday and 12pm-5pm Friday-Sunday.
