Rewrites our understanding of the last 50 years of Chicana/o cultural
production.
Chicana/o Remix casts new light not only on artists--such as Sandra de
la Loza, Judy Baca, and David Botello, among others--but on the
exhibitions that feature their work, and the collectors, curators,
critics, and advocates who engage it.
Combining feminist theory, critical ethnic studies, art historical
analysis, and extensive archival and field research, Karen Mary Davalos
argues that narrow notions of identity, politics, and aesthetics limit
our ability to understand the full capacities of Chicana/o art. She
employs fresh vernacular concepts such as the "errata exhibit," or the
staging of exhibits that critically question mainstream art museums, and
the "remix," or the act of bringing new narratives and forgotten
histories from the background and into the foreground. These concepts,
which emerge out of art practice itself, drive her analysis and
reinforce the rejection of familiar narratives that evaluate Chicana/o
art in simplistic, traditional terms, such as political versus
commercial, or realist versus conceptual.
Throughout Chicana/o Remix, Davalos explores undocumented or previously
ignored information about artists, their cultural production, and the
exhibitions and collections that feature their work. Each chapter
exposes and challenges conventions in art history and Chicana/o studies,
documenting how Chicana artists were the first to critically challenge
exhibitions of Chicana/o art, tracing the origins of the first Chicano
arts organizations, and highlighting the influence of Europe and Asia on
Chicana/o artists who traveled abroad. As a leading scholar in the study
of Chicana/o artists, art spaces, and exhibition practices, Davalos
presents her most ambitious project to date in this re-examination of
fifty years of Chicana/o art production.
