Chicano Exam 2

Iconology: the study of visual imagery and its symbolism and interpretation, especially in social or political terms

Zoot suit: coined by the Mexican Pachucos, the zoot suit was an exagerrated tux worn by Chicanos in the 1940s to celebrate their style and masculinity 

Teatro Campesino: developed as a cultural arm of the farmworkers strike in the fall of 1965; worked in the fields and roads of America and Europe to convey information about the farmworkers’ movement

Pachuco/Pachuca: Emerged in El Paso Texas among a group of Chicano youth who were influenced by African American culture, hot jazz, and urban help cats; also includes woman who participated and contributed to youth cultur at the time; female zoot suiter

Caló: slang of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and pachucos, which can be traced back to the gypsies of Spain who called their language Calo; came from Spanish bullfighers in Mexico

Corporeal tagging: a collective group performance tresspasses and “writes” the maricon and malflora social body against a setting in which queer radicalized subjects disrupt the spacial ocular order of the landscape

Maricón: derogatory slang term from the 19th century meaning the f slur or gay; repurposed for queer pride in 1970s LA

Santo: image of a saint or other holy personage; generally classified into two types: bultos, or figures in the round, and retablos, or panels made of wood or plastic

Retablo: boxlike containers highlighting special icons; used to decorate churches, chapels, and home altars and feature carved patterns and designs 

Production of space: the interplay of perceived, concieved, and lived spaces that are produced and reproduced through social, economic, and political processes

Enacted environment: the idea that East L.A. is not built, but enacted and that the population is in constant movement, creates a flow of activities, no blank walls

Redlining: color coding on maps tied to questions on race; at risk communities were identified by race; people from that community were not allowed to get federal loans and were unable to buy homes because realtors wouldnt sell to them; part of urban renewal 

Asco: spanish for Nausea, the art group consisting of Harry Gamboa, Willie Heron, Gronk, & Patssi Valdez. Their aesthetic was counterveiling to the Chicano Art movement and recognized the streets of L.A. as an automatic audience, a site of “free” expression, a public platform, and an outdoor gallery.

No movies: A set of photographs that imply a scene out of a movie but there is none; ironic, satirical, playful, yet serious, and political; ephemeral images 

Instant Murals: political yet playful; inacted by the body

Scopic Regime: relations of power; dominant way of looking in a given historical moment; in the 19th century, photography became the dominat scopic regime (the way people understood the world)

Teddy Sandoval with Joey Terrill, Maricón Series,1976

• Self-objectifying, alluring, invites voyerisum, signals Mexican cultural frame shift

Yolanda Lopez, Guadalupe Series, 1978

• Early feminist, political activist who validates herself as a woman

• Same pattern of the virgns dress on a shorter one, woman wearing running shoes

• Thinking of the Virgin as a powerful woman and critiques heteronormative of female bodies defying the norm

Asco. Instant Mural. 1974

• Comentary on people who have their backs against a wall = political

• Holding her snack

• Playful because she can walk freely whenever she wants

• Double politics

Asco. Decoy Gang War Victim, 1974

• Set up flares and staged a gang fight incident

• Sent the image to local news stations who reported on the image

• Were able to get this image shown in the public but not their other artworks 

• Radical 

Judy Baca, Great Wall of Los Angeles. Division of the Barrios and Chavez Ravine. 1976-80

• Took a decade to create

• Along a dry river bank from hollywood > los angeles

• Features a freeway dividing the neighboorhood in half and the sons joining gangs

• Each section focus on a different decade

• Dodger stadium as a space ship landing in chavez ravine 

• No necesssry chronological order

• Half a mile long

John Valadez, Mother and Child (1987), Broadway vendor (1987), Luisa (1986)

• Muralist & pastel artist 

• Studies of everyday people; realism, not idealistic 

• Photorealism painting

• All done in pastel

• Celebrating the women of daily life

• Virgin, woman vender is strong

Frank Romero, Arrest of the Paleteros,  1996

• Pioneer for chicano art, apart of los four 

• Bright and colorful, celebrating chromatic

• People trying to make a living

• Cop chasing a balloon vender

• Painted across echo park

• Living conditions of brown people around echo park

Amalia Mesa-Bains, Venus Envy Chapter III: Cihuatlampa, the Place of the Giant Women, 1997.

• Installations as chapters

• Vestriture 

Alma Lopez, Our Lady, 1999

• All elements of the og pic are present

• Brown body = strong body

• Uproar over queer version of Guadalupe 

• Desire is at once sexual & political

• Breaks open a public, cultural space for the ariculation of queer chicano desire

• Organizers of the exhibit it first displayed at were men, mostly church goers, created a big stir of emotions