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In Latin American, marked by authoritarian regimes, inequality, and repression, women manifested themselves through art, especially by exploring the political dimension of their bodies and organizing themselves into political and artistic collectives. In the case of Latina and Chicana artists in the United States, they were responding to a patriarchal politics as oppressive as that faced by their peers in Latin America. They also had to confront a feminist movement that was often indifferent to the problems faced by women of color.
In Latin America and around the world, we are fortunate that every day more and more women are approaching art to raise their voices and tell the world their own stories.
In recent years, women's demonstrations in Latin America in search of more rights have filled the streets with a revolutionary spirit. With the arrival of the "green tide", so-called because of the struggle for the legalization of abortion, collaborations between art and feminism multiplied. But this relationship has a long history steeped in violence, from resistance to indigenous genocide and slavery, to the violence of colonization and the denial of one's own culture.
In Latin America, the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s was marked by authoritarian regimes, inequality, and repression. But it was also a very important period for feminist militancy. Women manifested themselves through art, especially by exploring the political dimension of their bodies and organizing themselves into political and artistic collectives.
In the case of Latina and Chicana artists in the United States, they were responding to a patriarchal politics as oppressive as that faced by their peers in Latin America. They also had to confront a feminist movement that was often indifferent to the problems faced by women of color.
The works of these artists are both aesthetically and politically rebellious. In Mexico, the artist Monica Mayer is a precursor of feminist art in the country. Since the 1970s she has been involved in drawing, photography, and performance. Her work "Tendedero" (1978), which has been replicated to this day, invites women to leave their complaints or opinions on papers hung anonymously, helping them to express themselves. This also made visible the hard history of these women victims of machismo.
Just as pioneering, Tarsila do Amaral led the way for art and feminism in Brazil through her paintings that united local and avant-garde tradition. Tarsila achieved the unthinkable in the 1920s: an internationally successful Brazilian woman in a world led by men. She not only opened doors for Brazilian women, but also for the rest of South America. Also a communist sympathizer, she has been a great inspiration for today's female artists.
Today, the relationship between feminist activism and art can be seen in the concept of resistance during the dictatorship in Uruguay in the works of Nelbia Romero; the harsh reality of "dissident" people in Chile in the photographs of Paz Errazuriz; the stereotypes of beauty in the work of Colombian artist Clemencia Lucena, among others. The avant-garde and feminism in Argentina deserve a separate chapter: from the happenings of Marta Minujín to the experimental cinema of Narcissa Hirsch or María Luisa Bemberg that criticizes the stereotyped discourse of the time.
Whether as muses or artists, women in art have always been invisibilized and have had difficult access to the circuits of diffusion and exhibition. But today we are fortunate that every day more and more women are approaching art to raise their voices and tell the world their own stories.
