CCS BARD

Opening Reception: Thursday, December 4, 5pm - 7pm

Bringing together materials from the archives and collections of the Institute for Studies of Latin American Art (ISLAA), Esa otra mitad del cielo: Feminist Strategies in Post-1968 Mexican Art showcases the activities of the collective Polvo de Gallina Negra (1983–1993) alongside solo works by members Maris Bustamante and Mónica Mayer. The exhibition focuses on particular strategies of Polvo de Gallina Negra that combined social activism and radical humor.

Late 20th-century Mexico City was marked by a lively convergence of political activism and cultural transformation. In the aftermath of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, in which the Mexican Armed Forces killed students during a peaceful protest, many of the city’s activist-artists pursued collaborative work and political change by forming a number of collectives, initiating what came to be known as the grupos generation. In this same period, the United Nations declared 1975 as the International Women’s Year, inaugurated with the first World Conference on Women in Mexico City. The conference increased the visibility of feminism in the country, opening up discussions on gender, politics, and women’s role in society. Bustamante and Mayer emerged as key figures in this environment, eventually joining forces as the duo Polvo de Gallina Negra in 1983.

In the late 1970s, Mayer traveled to Los Angeles, where she worked alongside feminist artists such as Judy Chicago and Suzanne Lacy, while Bustamante became an essential bridge between feminism and conceptual art in Mexico. Bustamante and Mayer combined their approaches when—initially alongside artist Herminia Dosal—they established Polvo de Gallina Negra, adopting a name meaning “black hen’s powder,” a medicine to ward off the evil eye. Though committed to social transformation like the grupos before them, the duo’s focus on women’s exclusion from the public realm distinguished them from their mostly male counterparts. The counter-pedagogical, feminist strategies they adapted and invented included infiltrating mass media through lively TV appearances, participating in street demonstrations, organizing consciousness-raising workshops, and developing mail art projects.

Esa otra mitad del cielo examines how these particular strategies emerge in the work of Polvo de Gallina Negra, and in Bustamante’s and Mayer’s individual practices. Mayer’s A veces me espantan mis propios sentimientos, mis fantasías (Sometimes my feelings, my fantasies frighten me, 1977) and Lo normal (1978) question the cultural fears surrounding women’s desires, suggesting that such fantasies are an integral part of life. In Instantánea a Frida (Snapshot of Frida, 1991), Bustamante embodies famed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo to critique the ways in which women’s images are commodified. Polvo de Gallina Negra’s approach to long-term projects such as ¡MADRES! (1983–87) was often programmatic, involving multiple steps—much like a recipe. Decades later, new generations of artists and organizers are revisiting and reimagining the duo’s strategies. Their legacy endures, epitomizing the desire to make visible “esa otra mitad del cielo que nos correspondía” (“that other half of heaven that belonged to us”).

Esa otra mitad del cielo: Feminist Strategies in Post-1968 Mexican Art is co-curated by Alma Chaouachi, Mike Curran, Lila Gould, Bruna Grinsztejn, Gladys Lou, and Devon Ma, with generous guidance from professor and curator Mariano López Seoane. The exhibition and accompanying publication result from a graduate seminar at CCS Bard supported by ISLAA as part of the ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative.

The ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative supports graduate seminars on key figures and periods of Latin American art with a focus on living artists who participate in conversations with students or on historical figures represented in the ISLAA collection. Students collaborate to produce a public-facing exhibition that aims to expand art historical narratives and provide a platform for emerging curators.