'Always in her youthfulness and in her hunger': Yolanda López at MCASD

Speaker 1: (00:00)

Just six weeks after the death of the San Diego born Chicana artists and activists, you'll land a Lopez, the museum of contemporary arts, San Diego. We'll reopen this weekend with an exhibition of Lopez work, surprisingly the first solo museum exhibition of her long and celebrated career. Jill Dawsey curator at the museum of contemporary arts, San Diego spoke with KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dickson Evans. And we hear from artists and curators as a Sandra Moctezuma and Latitia Gomez Franco.

Speaker 2: (00:35)

I want to start with the profound impact of Yolanda Lopez beginning with Latisha Gomez, Franco, who is executive director of the Bubba art conservation center, who has also curated Lopez works in the past.

Speaker 3: (00:50)

One of my favorite visions of Yolanda Lopez has always been the photograph of herself inside of the Viacom developmental mental, just the look on her face and to imagine her always in her usefulness and in her, her hunger and her eagerness and that, and that passion that she always had, but to try to put myself, you know, I always think, what would I have done if I had been alive in the seventies and during the height of the Chicano movement, what role would I would have played? Uh, and I, I love imagining myself as a, as a young and vibrant Yolanda Lopez. Um, but I'm, I'm really excited to see, um, her, we can do a loop, um, series, uh, because those were the first of her pieces that I saw. And, and those were the first of the pieces where I saw myself and I saw ourselves

Speaker 2: (01:42)

Jill Dossey from the museum of contemporary art, San Diego. On that note, can you give us a look into the art of Yolanda Lopez

Speaker 4: (01:51)

As I loved what Leticia was sharing in conjuring, uh, Lopez's exuberant 1978 performance that was called Tableau Vivaan, which she appeared again as Guadalupe and Guadalupe here is both an athlete and a cultural producer. And, um, it's a series of photographs that, that document Lopez his performance in which, you know, it's sort of conceptual art beats improv comedy meets political revolution because she's wearing her UCS D track shorts. And she has a handful of paint brushes, which are the tools of her trade. And she's clasping them like a bouquet, or she's holding them up in the air like a trophy. And you really have this sense of the contagious exuberance that defines many of her works. And in her most, uh, her most iconic work, which is the oil pastel portrait of the artist is the Virgin of Guadalupe, you know, in which she famously depicts herself as, as Guadalupe and in running shoes, bounding off a black Crescent moon.

Speaker 4: (02:54)

And, and Guadalupe's a star pattern. Mantle is billowing behind and she's smiling broadly. And, you know, there's this sense of defiant, joy and a kind of almost rebellious joyfulness. And if we think of, you know, the Virgin of Guadalupe as a figure who was, you know, both this kind of lofty and unrealistic vision of femininity, uh, you know, one of the associated with, um, uh, her own suffering and grief, I think we get a sense of, of why Lopez his self portraits have been, you know, so, so popular and so beloved and have inspired, you know, so many other iterations of the image. So,

Speaker 2: (03:40)

Um, the works that you're including in this exhibition are from the 1970s and the 1980s, why these years, and what was the backdrop for Lopez, then

Speaker 4: (03:52)

Our exhibition explores roughly a decade period in, in Lopez's production. It was an incredibly transformative period when she had returned to San Diego in the early 1970s, after a decade in San Francisco, a period in which she became, you know, an artist and activist of tremendous statue within the Chicano civil rights movement. Um, so she comes back to San Diego to complete her education first at San Diego state, where she gets her BA and then in 1975, she enters the department of visual arts at UC San Diego. And it's this period in which she, you know, really through her embrace of Chicana feminism produces this feminist Corpus of work that investigates and reimagines representations of women within Chicanex culture and society at large. And so, you know, during this period, she produces many of her most iconic and beloved works. We have more than 50 paintings, collages, photographs, and large scale drawings in the show. And many that will be well-known and others that have never before been exhibited. Uh, the exhibition extends into the late 1980s when she concluded her well-known Guadalupe series. And by that time had returned to San Francisco. And so it's this kind of, you know, very, it's, it's very much a compendium of, of her work from, from this period.

Speaker 2: (05:24)

A lot has been said about the respect Lopez received during her lifetime in San Diego, as well as the role of women in Chicana history, in their region. Here's Alessandra Moctezuma, who is the gallery director and museum studies professor at San Diego Mesa college, who also teaches Chicano art and teaches Lopez's work.

Speaker 5: (05:46)

One of the most important things that I took from Yolanda's work was seeing how she challenged, uh, the whole concept of patriarchy. And that was not just in terms of the American patriarchy, but also in terms of being Latina and a Chicana artists. She encountered a lot of resistance sometimes from, you know, from the men that you can artists. This is well documented. There's a documentary about Chicano park, where there's a whole section where she talks about how hard it was to, you know, to get to paint the murals and how she supported a group of young women who wanted to paint in Chicano park.

Speaker 2: (06:27)

Jill, what do we know about Lopez's activism and how she brought that into her art?

Speaker 4: (06:35)

So Lopez has roots in political activism were foundational to her artistic practice and it retained throughout her career. She had moved to San Francisco in, in the early 1960s and in 1966, enrolled in San Francisco state college now San Francisco state university at a moment of just historic activism on campus and student groups were mobilizing in response to the Vietnam war, as well as to, you know, systemic racism at the university. And she was part of, um, the five month strike at S F S U that, uh, shut down the university and resulted in the establishment of ethnic studies and black studies departments. And, you know, in the late 1960s, she was part of the larger, you know, Chicano civil rights movement. And so when she returns to San Diego in the early seventies, she really is an extraordinarily accomplished artists and activists. And I would just highlight the way in which it parallels, you know, that her work as an activist and artist parallels the movements of our own day and, um, and really, you know, paved the way for those movements.

Speaker 2: (07:48)

And I, I asked Leticia Gomez Franco, whether you'll end to Lopez is life without major museum recognition until now is, is a symptom of Lopez priority of being in the community of being an activist, or whether it's a symptom of, of a bigger systemic and institutional oppression. And here's what she said.

Speaker 3: (08:11)

Being wary of institutions, is there not Chicano DNA, wanting to make things accessible to the community and wanting to decentralize things so that they, uh, appeal to us on an everyday level, I think is a big part of who we are as a community, but it doesn't mean that, that it isn't necessary to have a seat at that table. Um, and within the institutions and, and within the larger American cultural Canon. So it is disappointing to think that, that we are now, you know, everybody's now hearing about Yolanda Lopez has work grateful to MCAC for giving her that space. Yeah,

Speaker 2: (08:52)

This is the first time the museum of art is reopening its stores since the pandemic. This is a long closure, and of course so much has changed in the last year and a half. How is the museum handling a changed public and an changed art world?

Speaker 4: (09:12)

So it has been a period for us to do a lot of soul searching as an institution. We are talking a lot about, you know, how we can be a more visitor centric institution, a more welcoming museum, um, where audiences can come and, and, you know, see themselves reflected. And I hope that that is, you know, is, is what can happen. Um, with the exhibition Yolanda Lopez portrait of the artist

Speaker 1: (09:39)

That was Jill Dawsey curator at the museum of contemporary arts, San Diego speaking with KPBS as Julia Dixon Evans you'll land, a Lopez portrait of the artist opens Saturday at MC a S D.