Editor,
Mr. Reynalds, I am a taxpayer as well, and I want my tax money to support public art. I want art to be available in museums, I agree, for public debate and discussion.
That said, I wonder ... Have you seen the Cyber Arte exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe? Alma Lopez’s “La Virgen” is one of many pieces by Latina/Chicana/Hispana artists who have taken traditional religious and folk iconography and fused it with 20th and 21st century themes and media. The result is a wonderful, provocative and, for some, disturbing blend of past and present.
Regarding your personal barbs directed at Lopez and curator Tey Marianna Nunn about the exhibit, I wonder how you have come to your conclusions. Have you met Lopez? How have you determined that she is “psychologically disturbed?”
Lopez was born in Mexico and raised Catholic. She has presented the image of “La Virgen” that appears in Cyber Arte based on an essay by well-known and critically acclaimed Latina writer Sandra Cisneros. I fail to see how reading an essay and re-tooling one’s cultural and religious interpretations makes one “psychologically disturbed.”
Regarding Nunn’s degree and credentials — since you seem to believe that a doctorate in American Studies makes her somehow unqualified to do her job — she holds a Ph.D. in art history and Latin American studies. Her revised dissertation deals with Hispana and Hispano artists of the New Deal era and will be published this fall by UNM Press.
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You might consider doing a little research of your own, Mr. Reynalds, before passing judgment on others.
Evelyn A. Schlatter, Ph.D.
(No, mine’s not in American Studies, either)
Acquisitions editor
UNM Press
