Mónica Mayer is an artist who does not conform to traditional definitions of art. She has developed an integral approach by which, in addition to performances, drawings or interventions, she considers writing, teaching, archiving, and active participation in the community part of her artistic production. She is considered a forerunner of performance and digital graphic art in Mexico and is internationally recognized as a precursor and promoter of feminist art. She has created iconic pieces such as El Tendedero, which was first created in 1978 and has recently gone viral in artistic spaces and as a tool for activists and educators. In 1983, alongside Maris Bustamante, she created Polvo de Gallina Negra, the first feminist art group in Mexico. In 1989, she and Víctor Lerma launched the project Pinto mi Raya, which constitutes an archival project that brings together pedagogy and performance. As well as being a very active lecturer, she was a columnist for Mexican newspaper El Universal for twenty years, and her writing has been published in several magazines, both in Mexico and internationally. Her most recent book is Intimidades… o no. Arte, vida y feminismo, which includes texts written over the course of more than four decades. Mayer recently received the Medalla Bellas Artes from Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL). She is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte.
Join us for the launch of Andrea Giunta’s book The Political Body: Stories on Art, Feminism, and Emancipation in Latin America, which explores gender and power in the work of Latin American artists from the 1960s to the present.
This event features a conversation with artists featured in the publication, including Mónica Mayer and Rosana Paulino, moderated by author Andrea Giunta. The conversation will be held in Spanish and hosted on Zoom, and a recording will be made available online following the event.
The University of California Press published The Political Body in March 2023 as part of the series Studies on Latin American Art. Books in the series encompass studies of art history and cultural practices emerging from Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Latin American diaspora in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. International and cosmopolitan in scope, the series seeks to address the production, exhibition, and dissemination of art in and between countries and continents. This series is supported by the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA).
Rosana Paulino’s work centers around social, ethnic, and gender issues, with a particular focus on Black women in Brazilian society and the various types of violence they have endured due to racism and the legacy of slavery. Her work is in the collections of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Museu de Arte de São Paulo; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque; and Museu Afro Brasil, São Paulo. Paulino holds a doctorate in visual arts from the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo, a certificate in engraving from the London Print Studio, and a bachelor’s degree in engraving from the Universidade de São Paulo. She has participated in the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Residency Program (2014), the CAPES Foundation Fellowship program (2008–11), and the Ford Foundation Fellowship program (2006–8).
Andrea Giunta is professor of Latin American and modern and contemporary art at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and principal researcher at National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). She was co-founding director of the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS) at the University of Texas, Austin. Her publications include Escribir las imágenes (Siglo XXI, 2017), Objetos mutantes (Palinodia, 2010), Poscrisis (Siglo XXI, 2009), and Avant-Garde, Internationalism, and Politics (Duke University Press, 2001). Giunta has curated exhibitions, including Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985, with Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Brooklyn Museum; and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2017–18); Verboamérica, with Agustín Pérez Rubio, at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2016); and Extranjerías, with Néstor García Canclini, at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2012).
