Summary on Delilah Montoya Talk

I attended a lecture given by the current Artist-in-Residence, Delilah Montoya who works in photography and digital media on April 15^th. She opened her lecture on “Women Boxers: The New Warriors,” a recent book publication of hers that focuses on female boxing and its role as a feminist right for any woman to be able to project the images of women as strong, healthy, rebellious of sexism, and ready to defend their place in the world.

However, the aim of the lecture was to talk about an Art show entitled “Chicana Badgirls Show” The show was made up of three generations of women, with a total of eighteen female artists participating in the show that enabled each one of them to share their ideas, and show their personal feelings.

The opening of the exhibit was of an installation combined with a performance piece with sound and dancers. The focal point was the structural “Tree of Wisdom” sculpture that seemed to be of human size and was raised as it hanged approximately 2 feet of the ground. The performance that took place was of women dressed in snake skin fabric, hissing like snakes and performing to what Montoya referred to as a snake dance because of the slow, curvy movements the dancers moved and twisted their bodies. which she was the curator as well as a contributing artist in.

Moreover, there were red apples placed under the tree whilst a male and female danced quite erotically close to the tree, demonstrating the relationship encounters between men and women today. This whole piece was a reenactment of “the Fall” in the Bible when Eve was tempted by the serpent to take and eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge which had been forbidden by God, and as a result, it led to the “fall of man.” Delilah mentioned that at the end of the dance performance, red apples were handed out to the audience, encouraging each one to take a bite. This was quite surprising to me because it’s as if Eve’s disobedience to God is commended, basically something to not be ashamed about but to be more proud that it happened.

The next art work Delilah talked about was more of a modernism sculpture that was also hung. The piece is flat and is made up of continuous paragraphs from articles/newspapers about three hundred women that have disappeared, and those that have been murdered, yet either there has been a lack of investigation made or none at all. The artist’s use of text was also the construction of her image. This is because the entire text has been shaped into a police badge suggesting that they are the ones responsible/behind the whole situation since the victim’s numbers are so high. This is a very empowering work of art and something that demonstrates a protest to the carelessness of the police.

In connection to the previous piece, the following artist also dealt with same theme focusing on discarded women whose lives weren’t/aren’t worth investigating. This piece is a digital print with text attached to the top explaining the single shot of a woman’s legs shown that appear to be bruised and battered. The text explained that 13 women were found buried in various sites, and no follow ups made to discover the mystery of the found bodies.

Montoya’s talk and the ideas of the artists she presented to us about bringing together a multiplicity of tradition forms, and contemporary customs and values really interested me great deal.