VENUS ENVY
Chapter I: The First Holy Communion Moments Before the End
Chapter II: The Harem and Other Enclosures
Chapter III: Cihuatlampa, the Place of the Giant Women
Chapter IV: The Road to Paris and its Aftermath–The Curandera’s Botanica
Artwork by Amalia Mesa-Bains
Introduction by Jennifer A. González
Bookwork by Felicia Rice
Edition of 1500
7 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches (accordion extends to 9.5 feet)
$38
About the book
The book, Venus Envy: Chapters I-IV, documents the four-part Venus Envy Series of autobiographical installations completed over several decades by Amalia Mesa-Bains to chronicle four chapters in her life as a Chicana woman. It uses historic photographs in an accordion-fold structure to illustrate the series undertaken between 1993 and 2008. These images are accompanied by significant texts by art historian and critic Jennifer A. González.
The Venus Envy Series is a narrative through personal and collective feminist perspectives of the artist Amalia Mesa-Bains’s life stages, from early childhood to marriage to aging. The story unfolds through a number of altar-installations using an aesthetic of vernacular abundance and accumulation done in settings of religious splendor, secret spaces of the feminine, and archaic landscapes of paradise. It is situated in a historical continuum from the present to the colonial period of European expansion into the Orient to the time of the Aztec Empire, and it ends in a reflection on health challenges leading to healing and recovery. These contemporary practices of wonder and beauty are at the same time a woman’s political remembrance of conflict and joy, sorrow and loss and resilience.
Art critic and historian Jennifer A. González writes in her introduction,”Mesa-Bains’s tableaus are neither a simple enactment of religious tradition nor a purely secular art installation, but rather a hybrid genre intended for a new Chicano/art-identified audience able to decipher the multiple iconographic references in both a Mexican and US historical context. The slippage between “folk” art and “fine” art, between tradition and innovation, is characteristic of Mesa-Bains’s altar installations.”
This is the eighth book in the CHICANX/LATINX SERIES of artists’ books from Felicia Rice and Moving Parts Press. These works of contemporary Chicanx/Latinx artists and writers in translation explores the intersection of cultures, disciplines, and book structures. Each book is the result of a close collaboration with the book artist, Felicia Rice.
Read the June 9, 2023 ARTnews review of Amalia’s “long-overdue” retrospective exhibition at BAMPFA here.
About Amalia Mesa-Bains
Amalia Mesa-Bains is an artist and cultural critic. Her artworks, primarily interpretations of traditional Chicano altars, resonate both in contemporary formal terms and in their ties to her Chicano community and history. She has innovated on sacred spaces and created contemporary installations exhibited nationally and internationally. She has written about Chicano and Latino art and is a leader in the field of community arts. Among her many awards is the distinguished MacArthur Fellowship. She is Professor Emerita in the Visual and Public Art Department at California State University at Monterey Bay. Learn more at her website: amaliamesabains.com
About Jennifer A. Gónzalez
Jennifer A. González is a professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at UC Santa Cruz, and a faculty member in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York. She has published in numerous journals including Diacritics, Camera Obscura, Bomb, Open Space, Art Journal, the Journal of the Archives of American Art and in numerous exhibition catalogs. Her books include Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art (2008) which features the essay, “Divine Allegories,” on Amalia Mesa-Bains’ installation work. She served as chief editor of Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology (2019) which was included in the best art books of the decade by ArtNews in 2020.
About Felicia Rice
Felicia Rice is an artist, letterpress printer, publisher, and educator. With one foot firmly planted in the 19th century and the other in the 21st, she utilizes letterpress and digital technologies to produce limited edition artists books, prints, and broadsides in collaboration with visual and performing artists, writers, and philosophers. In 1977 she set Moving Parts Press in motion. Work from the Press is included in exhibitions and collections, both nationally and internationally, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants. The Chicanx/Latinx Series, featuring contemporary Chicanx/Latinx artists and writers, has fed the editorial and artistic direction of the press for over thirty years. movingpartspress.com
Exhibitions
Retrospective: Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archeology of Memory
February 4—July 23, 2023
BAMPFA
2155 Center St
Berkeley, CA
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Venus Envy, Chapter I and Madrinas y Hermanas (Godmothers and Sisters)
June 18–November 6, 2022
SFMOMA
151 Third St
San Francisco, CA
This two-part exhibition features Amalia Mesa-Bains’s installation Venus Envy, Chapter I: The First Holy Communion Moments Before the End (1993/2022), presented for the first time since it was originally realized in 1993. The second part, Madrinas y Hermanas (Godmothers and Sisters), features works from SFMOMA’s permanent collection curated by Mesa-Bains and accompanied by texts written by the artist.
From the CHICANX/LATINX SERIES Artists’ Books
This series explores the intersection of cultures, disciplines, and book structures. These works of contemporary Chicanx/Latinx artists and writers in translation are issued in both limited and trade editions. Each book is the result of a close collaboration between writer, artist and the book artist, Felicia Rice.