Photo: Sandra Eleta (Panamanian, b. 1942), Edita (la del plumero), Panamá (Edita (the one with the duster), Panama), 1978-1979. Black and white photograph. 30 × 30 in. (76.2 × 76.2 cm)Courtesy of the artist. Artwork © the artist
“I don’t give a shit what the world thinks. I was born a bitch, I was born a painter, I was born fucked. But I was happy in my way. You did not understand what I am. I am love. I am pleasure, I am essence, I am an idiot, I am an alcoholic, I am tenacious. I am; simply I am,” Frida Kahlo wrote in a letter to her husband, artist Diego Rivera.
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The Mexican artist, who faithfully painted self-portraits throughout the course of her life, has become not only one the most famous artists in the world, but is very often the only Latin American women artist most people know by name. The invisibility of her comrades can be attributed to the power structures within the art world that disregarded the major contributions that women from 20 countries have been making to the art world throughout the twentieth century.
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Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, a new exhibition on view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, is a major step towards setting the record straight with more than 260 works by 116 women artists now on view through December 31, 2017. Curated by Dr. Cecilia Fajardo-Hill and Dr. Andrea Giunta, Radical Women is a watershed moment in the art world, illustrating the power of intersectionality in the new millennium.
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Six years in the making, Radical Women brings together women from across Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the United States, showcasing the works of pioneers making art on their own terms, including Brazilian art star Lygia Pape, who had a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year; visionary Venezuelan Pop artist Marisol, who died at the age of 83 in 2016; and the gender-bending self-portraiture of Cuban American performance artist Ana Mendieta, whose husband was found not guilty of her murder in 1985.
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The exhibition, which is accompanied by a catalogue of the same name, published by Prestel, is a brilliant introduction to both the artists and the issues they face as women in the Latin American diaspora, providing their own take on feminism, patriarchy, gender, sexuality, identity, and art history. We spotlight six artists you should know, who have inherited the mantle from the indomitable Frida Kahlo.
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Photo: “Marcha gay (Gay pride march)”, 1984. Gelatin silver print. 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm) Courtesy of Yolanda Andrade.
Photo: Paz Errázuriz (Chilean, b. 1944), La Palmera, from the series La manzana de Adán (Adam’s Apple), 1987. Digital archival pigment print on Canson platinum paper. 19 5/8 × 23 1/2 in. (49.8 × 59.7 cm)Courtesy of the artist and Galeria AFA, Santiago. Artwork © the artist.