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Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940, oil on canvas, 40 x 27.9 cm

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Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940, oil on canvas, 40 x 27.9 cm

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In several of her artworks, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo expresses her gender identity through portraiture, defying feminine stereotypes and illustrating her personal intimate female experiences. Frida was considered to be a rebel in the 1900s, a time when women were expected to be housewives, due to her attendance at a co-educational school, for occasionally wearing suits, and unapologetically having multiple affairs with both men and women during her marriage with Diego Rivera. She also incorporated Mexican history and culture into her pieces, such as through her way of dress in Two Fridas and commenting on social values. In her portrait pieces she is known for exaggerating and defining her more “masculine” features, such as keeping her eyebrows and moustache un-plucked. Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair specifically addresses her interest in the concepts of gender and sexual fluidity. The lyrics written above her are from a popular song which translates to, “Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore.” Frida very directly fights back that feminine beauty standard in her painting.

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Maria Izquierdo, La Tierra (The Earth), 1945, oil on canvas, 89.3 x 68.3 cm

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Maria Izquierdo, La Tierra (The Earth), 1945, oil on canvas, 89.3 x 68.3 cm

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In La Tierra, Mexican artist Maria Izquierdo depicts the idea that the earth is female and fertile through her illustration of a nude Indigenous or Mestiza woman coming out of the land. Inspiration for Izquierdo’s paintings largely came from Indigenous art, which allowed her to make feminist, political, and cultural statements due to Indigenous beliefs on the female spirit. Her work comments on the standards in Mexican society of male dominance and female submissiveness by alternatively offering the view that women are a key part of mexicanidad. Izquierdo’s ideas of feminism connected to Indigenous beliefs allowed there to be a new kind of female inclusion in Mexican modern art.

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Greta Stern, Sueño No. 1: Articulos électricos para el hogar (Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home), 1950, gelatin silver print, 26.6 x 22.9 cm

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Greta Stern, Sueño No. 1: Articulos électricos para el hogar (Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home), 1950, gelatin silver print, 26.6 x 22.9 cm

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German-Argentine photographer Grete Stern displays her interest in the idea of psychoanalysis while commenting on female gender roles in her Sueños series. These pieces were created after World War II and represented the dreams of working-class women. Sueño No. 1: Articulos électricos para el hogar shows a women as the base of a table lamp with a male hand flipping the “on” switch, representing female objectification. Through this photo, Stern shows the struggle between women wanting to be more than just a housewife and those dreams being repressed by society due to sexism and misogyny. Stern’s work contributed to the beginning of the feminist movement in Argentina, the modernization of Argentinean photography, psychoanalysis in Argentina, and surrealist ideas in art.

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Ana Mendieta, Untitled (from the Silueta Series), 1976, 9 color chromogenic prints, 20 x 16 in

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Ana Mendieta, Untitled (from the Silueta Series), 1976, 9 color chromogenic prints, 20 x 16 in

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Mendieta was a Cuban-born artist who was sent to America at 12 years old as part of the Peter Pan operation so she could flee Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. Due to her displacement from home, she struggled with identity, belonging, and growing up away from her mother. Through her Silueta series, Mendieta captures female figures or ambiguous human forms, sometimes using her own body, within the landscapes of Iowa (where she lived in the US) and Mexico to illustrate a maternal relationship between herself and the earth. Most of her inspiration for her artwork came from Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion that grew out of the Cuban slave trade. Mendieta’s work was very influential as they contributed greatly to the body art, performance art, land art, and feminist art movements.

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Anna Maria Maiolino, Entrevidas, 1981, gelatin silver prints, 144 x 92 cm each

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Anna Maria Maiolino, Entrevidas, 1981, gelatin silver prints, 144 x 92 cm each

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Brazialian artist Maiolino captured herself barefoot walking on a rough cobblestone street attempting not to break the dozens of eggs around her. This metaphor of walking on eggshells gives her audience insight into what life was like living under the Brazilian dictatorship. The act of moving around the eggs symbolizes delicate bodily movements needed to avoid violence. Maiolino’s use of her bare feet and calves allows this comments on feminine subjectivity, possibly referring to the gender violence carried out by the military on those who were considered to be a political and social activist or subversive. Another layer of the meaning behind Entrevidas is a broken egg representing the difficult past under the dictatorship and a hatched egg being the possibilities for the future under a democratic rule.

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Paz Errázuriz, part of the series La Manzana de Adán (Adam's Apple), 1983, gelatin silver print on paper, 295 x 459 mm

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Paz Errázuriz, part of the series La Manzana de Adán (Adam's Apple), 1983, gelatin silver print on paper, 295 x 459 mm

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Despite Chile being under a cruel dictatorship where the oppressed were an even larger target for violence, Errázuriz documented those who were most vulnerable and marginalized through her photography. Her series La Manzana de Adán follows the daily lives of 3 crossdressers (Mercedes, Evelyn, and Pilar) who worked in brothels located in Talca and Santiago. The contemplative, responsive, and natural-seeming directorial ways in which these photos were shot gives Errázuriz’s audience a raw view into the subjects’ lives and unique experiences. Her series is powerful in the way that she is giving those who may be put in danger for expressing their gender identity due to Chile’s political and social conditions a voice and a spotlight.

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Poli Marichal, Los espeijsmos de Mandrágora Luna (Mandrágora Luna's phantoms), 1986, super 8mm film transferred to DVD, black and white with hand coloring, sound, 13:20 min

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Poli Marichal, Los espeijsmos de Mandrágora Luna (Mandrágora Luna's phantoms), 1986, super 8mm film transferred to DVD, black and white with hand coloring, sound, 13:20 min

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Marichal was the first Puerto Rican women to participate in experimental filmmaking with her film, Los espejismos de Mandrágora Luna. This scripted film documents the sufferings of a pregnant women, taking place at her Old San Juan home, and her journey of searching for her identity as a woman, mother, and wife. Scenes include the pregnant women phasing in and out of reality as 3 characters taunt her. Marichal’s ideas confront feminine subjectivity, such as when she attempts to walk out of her home with a brief case but is pulled back inside and when beauty stereotypes appeared onto her face as she looked into the mirror. These ideas put into question the way women of Puerto Rico during that era were perceived, as well as society’s expectations for the roles of mothers.

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Alma Lopez, from the I Love Lupe Series, 1999, digital print

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Alma Lopez, from the I Love Lupe Series, 1999, digital print

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Lopez’s take on the Virgin of Guadalupe imagines what the Virgin would look like underneath her clothing after. Inspiration for this piece came from reading an essay in the book Goddess of the Americas by Ana Castillo discussing the Virgin in a sexual context. Her goal in reimagining the Virgin in this way was so that she could appear more relatable to those who have grown up with her as a prominent icon throughout their lives. In this piece, every detail connects historically to the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe as well as Mexican history and culture with the roses, the pink renaissance designed background, and the Indigenous pattern on her cloak. By presenting this Virgin in this nude, powerfully posed way with a topless female angel holding her up, it provides a sense of feminine empowerment and embracement of sexuality.

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Firelei Báez, Ciguapa Pantera, 2015, acrylic and ink on paper, 95 x 69 in

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Firelei Báez, Ciguapa Pantera, 2015, acrylic and ink on paper, 95 x 69 in

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A ciguapa is a mythological creature from Dominican folklore who is an ambiguous, seductive, female figure. Dominican-born Báez was inspired to include cigupas into her art pieces after seeing taxonomist Carl Linnaeus depiction of people who are Black and Brown as “beast-like.” Her piece takes this feminine “beast” and displays them in a context of beauty through her use of thriving plants growing out of the ciguapa. By doing so, she is reclaiming power from a racist idea and rejecting feminine beauty standards. Báez’s goal in her work is to remove the American perception of the Caribbean while recontextualizing the country’s history, people, conception of beauty, and influential idea.

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Irene Pérez, From Between My Legs, 2019, serigraphy, embroidery and sequins application on cotton fabric, 68 x 18.5 in

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Irene Pérez, From Between My Legs, 2019, serigraphy, embroidery and sequins application on cotton fabric, 68 x 18.5 in

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Irene Pérez is an artist and a curator who grew up and lives in Spain, but resided in the US for some time to pursue her photography and studio art degrees. Her work explores ideas of identity, home, belonging, mothering, and gender stereotypes. From Between My Legs puts emphasis on the importance and liberation of events that take place between a women’s legs, from sexual pleasure to birthing a child and becoming a mother. Pérez’s experience with being a mother in Spain was eye-opening for her as she explained it “took my social ‘status’ and role as a woman back 50 years.” This caused her to see how important it is to fight against gender discrimination. Through her art, Pérez wants to contribute to the efforts of creating positive changes for women in Spain, with her daughter’s future being her biggest motivator.