Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development (LOUD) will publish its first book through its new LOUD Latino Publishing arm, creating a catalog to accompany its Latina art exhibits.
The new publishing arm is part of LOUD founder Oscar Mireles’ ongoing effort to expand opportunities for artists while creating a lasting record of the organization’s temporary exhibitions.
Its inaugural publication will accompany “Las Curanderas: From Ashes, We Rise,” a Latina art exhibit running throughout Hispanic Heritage Month.
“We’ve had a lot of exhibits, but they’re up for maybe a couple weeks, maybe a month,” Mireles said. “How do you carry a temporary exhibit? How do you make it permanent? You can freeze the people and lock them in a room. Or you can create a catalog.”
Since retiring, Mireles has made it a priority to create more opportunities for artists. At LOUD events, he often points out that there is no shortage of artists and writers, but there are too few people creating opportunities for them to showcase their work.
“I think it’s the next evolution of being a curator, working with artists that are in galleries creating a permanence,” Mireles said. “It’s usually major museums like the MMoCA and Chazen that are the only ones that do catalogs, and they don’t necessarily do it for every exhibit. We’re gonna do them for every exhibit.”
The catalog will be the first venture in the effort. This one will feature every artist from Las Curanderas, all 26 of them, with their works that will be on display and a short biography. Biographies of its curators, two local artists, Issis Macias and Jessica Gutiérrez, will also be featured along with a statement from the two on the exhibit.
The catalog will also include a letter on the exhibit’s significance, written by Marina Álvarez, a curator, scholar, educator and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago.
The exhibit has been the third of its kind — a focus on Latina women — in the Midwest in the past 25 years. The prior two were in 2017 and 2018 as a traveling exhibit called “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-85” that gathered the work of more than one hundred Latina artists from across the Americas.
“It is not an over-exaggeration to state that there are not enough exhibitions on Latina Arts,” said Álvarez in her letter. “The narrative surrounding this lack of Latina representation in the art world has arguably remained the same. As Latina women, Latinas continue to be the lowest-paid demographic in the U.S. workforce, a statistical figure that does not account for the other forms of unpaid labor with familial obligations and responsibilities.”
Álvarez argues that mainstream museums and galleries overlook the work of Latina artists, but still give attention to their male counterparts.
“Latina art has been marked by a severe neglect, and in our current moment, the stakes are much higher,” Álvarez said. “Despite these circumstances, Latina art and artists continue to demonstrate boundless resilience that is forged out of necessity, but also through intense forms of care.”
The catalog will be available for purchase at the exhibit’s opening and online. The exhibit opens today at Madison College’s Truax Campus, 1701 Wright St., with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m.
The exhibit will remain up through Oct. 15.
