Alma Lopez's Our Lady of Controvers
Los Angeles based digital artist Alma Lopez will be at Gustavus Adolphus College Wednesday, Nov. 9 to talk about her newly released book Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez’s Irreverent Apparition, and screen her new documentary “I LOVE Lupe.” The event will begin at 7 p.m. in Wallenberg Auditorium, located in the Alfred Nobel Hall of Science.
Lopez gained notoriety in 2001, when the Catholic Church attempted to censor her photo-based digital collage, Our Lady, which was showcased in the exhibition “Cyber Arte: Technology Meets Tradition,” curated by Tey Marianna Nunn at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The nine-month controversy took on local, national, and international importance, and brought questions of community representation, institutional autonomy in a public museum, and an artist’s first-amendment rights into bold relief.
Lopez will lecture on Our Lady of Controversy, which she co-edited with Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba. The book brings together prominent feminist scholars to comment on Lopez’s art and activism and the way they intervened in New Mexico’s politics of place and religion, as well as in the broader discussions about censorship, public funding, and the arts.
Following the lecture, Lopez will show “I LOVE Lupe” – a controversial documentary that looks at the Chicana artistic tradition of reimagining Our Lady of Guadalupe, featuring a historic conversation between Chicana artists Yolanda Lopez, Ester Hernandez, and Alma Lopez.
Born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and raised in East Los Angeles, Lopez earned her M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine in 1995. She has taught as a Visiting Artist in departments of Chicana/o Studies and LGBTQ Studies at UC-Riverside, UC-Irvine, UC-Santa Barbara, UCLA, and Loyola Marymount University. Her work has been exhibited in museums and community organizations all over California and nationwide, as well as internationally in Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, Naples, Italy, and Cork County, Ireland.
Since the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles in 1992, Lopez has engaged in public art collaborations with African-American artist Noni Olabisi, which bridge the chiastic cultural and political histories of African Americans and Chicanas/os in South Los Angeles. Their collaborative murals have been commissioned by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Through her work, her activism, and her popular website, Lopez upholds her position as one of the most visible and cutting-edge Chicana feminist activist artists in the country.
For more information about Lopez’s appearance at Gustavus, contact Professor of Spanish and Program Director for Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies Angelique Dwyer at adwyer@gustavus.edu.