Frida Kahlo: Racism And Gender

In our text book, and in class, two of the issues we have been covering are racism and gender. Both of those have very unique art and are still very much alive and still happening across Latin America; both those movements have had iconic art made in their support.Art is one of the key pieces to any revolution, and the longer the revolution has been around the more art and culture that builds around it. The feminist movement has been around for centuries and the art cultivated from is vast and rich. Many artists have been spawned in the movement but I chose two to focus on;.Frida Kahlo, who lived from 1907 to 1954, Ana Mendieta, who lived from 1948 to 1958, and also to take a look at one of the larger feminist movements happening currently.

Mendieta was known for her rather daring pieces of photography, and sculpture works. During her early years of life she was sent off, by her parents, to live in the united states. As Mendieta was hiden away in the safety of the United States Fidel Castro’s regime reigned terror in her homeland of Cuba. In Iowa she studied art, and the issues in Cuba inspired a lot of her works. Her most famous pieces work are part of the “Earth and Body works”(source B) These are pieces of work that are photography mixed sculptures, that show female figures embedded in the earth. One of the most controversial images in this collection is one of a female figure pressed into the snow. In the silhouette of the women’s body is blood. The blood contrast’s beautiful against the snow, and shows the violence women face, both with their own bodies and in the world. She has many pieces in this series of works, including trees, rivers, and

(Source C) Decades after artist Mendieta’s death one of the first protest against men committing violence against women took place after the kidnapping, rape, and impalement of a 16-year-old girl. 100,00 people took to the streets Argentina to protest. According to the article every 36 hours one women is murdered (source C). the cry of the artist, such as Kahlo and Mendieta, for something to change is finally being acted upon with protests and much more impactful ways then they had in their times. “This is a march against femicide. Cases of femicide are growing in number, they are becoming more violent, more perverse — we even had the news today that there have been 19 femicides in the last 18 days.” Said supreme court judge Elena Highton de Nolasco.(source