What you need to know about the great exhibition La Malinche de SAMA

All of this is explored in “Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche”. The exhibition, originally from the Denver Art Museum, opens this weekend at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

So what do you need to know about the show? Here is:

It’s a big problem

Malinche’s life and impact have been explored in other exhibits, including the 1995 “Rethinking Malinche” exhibit at the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, said Lucia Abramovich Sánchez, associate curator of Latino art. American at SAMA.

READ MORE: San Antonio Museum of Art reopens Latin American Folk Art Gallery

“What makes this show groundbreaking, I think, is the extent to which the subject matter is explored,” Abramovich Sánchez said. “We have works from the pre-conquest era, including three Aztec stones and ceramic works, through to commissioned works by Mexican American and Mexican artists completed in 2021. So it’s a view really complete.”

The new exhibition presents more than 60 works by more than 40 artists. The work explores history through the lens of five archetypes: performer, indigenous woman, mixed-race mother, traitor, and chicana.

The only stop in Texas

Where: San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W. Jones.

When: Open Friday. On display until January 8.

Details: $10 to $20; $5 for the exhibit and free admission to the rest of the museum for residents of Bexar County from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and 10 a.m. to noon Sunday, samuseum.org.

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“Organizers were really looking to show the exhibit in places where they thought it would resonate with the community,” Abramovich Sánchez said. “They really wanted a place in Texas and thought San Antonio was a perfect place because of the big Mexican influence in our community.”

The fact that San Antonio is a bastion of Chicano culture was also a factor, she said.

San Antonio’s artistic community is represented throughout the show. Works by Cèsar Martinez and Felipe Reyes are included, and Carmen Tafolla’s poem “La Malinche” is prominently featured.

Tafolla wrote the poem in 1976. When one of the exhibit curators contacted her about including it in the exhibit, she was told it was the first writing they could find that told the history from Malinche’s point of view.

“I was shocked that no one had thought of writing with their voice before,” Tafolla said. “In another way, it didn’t surprise me. A lot of our history has been hisconservative and not hisstory. Also, the story is very good at blaming the victims.”

As the poet sees things, Malinche was smart enough to see that things had already changed for good by the time she was put into service as an interpreter and cultural guide. It gave him some power.

“Read it from the perspective of a woman of color, then you’ll understand if I can translate, I can change the way things sound, I can change some outcomes,” she said. “I think she did.”

The strong points

Among the exhibit’s must-sees, a work by Sandy Rodriguez is the first visitors will encounter, Abramovich Sánchez said. It’s a map that connects the experiences of Malinche and other enslaved women sold or given to the Spaniards by the Mayans to those of 19 indigenous women who went missing or were murdered in Mexico and the southern United States in 2019. .

“That connection to the contemporary issues of exploited, killed women that we still see in the region is a very important starting point,” she said.

The exhibit also includes several works painted by Jesús Helguera for Mexican calendars that often hang in supermarkets and convenience stores, she said.

“There’s one from La Malinche and Cortés, and it’s very romantic,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a pop culture reference point for a lot of people.”

In the final gallery, which focuses on contemporary works, is a painting by the late Gloria Osuna Pérez that is of particular interest to the curator. Titled “La Malinche”, it is based on Osuna Pérez’s memory of the day her grandmother allowed her long braid to be cut to make it easier to maintain.

The work is poignant in part because Malinche died before the age of 30. The play raises questions about what her life might have been like had she lived longer. It is also moving because the loss of autonomy to which she refers was part of her life.

There is also an opera

San Antonio-based composer Nathan Felix, who has presented several of his immersive short works at SAMA, joins Friday’s opening festivities with a piece titled “La Malinche: Traitor | Saviour.”

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He came into the project knowing the main points of the story, then did some research to fill in some of the gaps. He also took some liberties.

“Because it’s opera, I want to balance historical content with romanticized dramatization,” Felix said. “There’s only a limited amount of factual information you can find because there’s a huge void in the story. That’s the fun part of storytelling.

The piece premiered in July as part of the exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum. Friday’s performance is sold out.

More to explore

In addition to Felix’s opera, programming related to the exhibition includes a Santa Barraza Artist Talk at 6 p.m. on October 25, which costs $5 for those who attend in person and is chargeable for streaming.

Additionally, museum staff are collaborating with the University of Texas at the San Antonio Print Making Club to construct a Día de los Muertos altar titled “A Legacy of Women” in conjunction with the exhibit. It will be exhibited from October 25 to November 25. 6.

And the museum has commissioned a new work from the Guadalupe Dance Company attached to the exhibition. The dancers will perform “Soy Malintzin” at 8 p.m. on November 18 at the Guadalupe Theater. Tickets cost $20 to $30 at tinyurl.com/2vx3uhem.

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dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinFR