Mexican Feminist Artist Spotlight

Text by Bianca Mońa, Associate Curator for Exhibitions and Education

Portrait of Polvo de Gallina Negra: Mónica Mayer and Maris Bustamante, 1986, Photo by Efraín Parada.

As we prepare for the opening of Artes Visuales:The Latin American Avant-Garde in Print we are considering the explosion of artists, art movement and collectives, and platforms that emerged at the same time as the magazine Artes Visuales (1973-1981), the first bilingual contemporary arts journal in Latin America. Specifically, we are examining the women’s contribution to modern art production in Latin America given Artes Visuales co-founder, Carla Stellweg’s deep commitment to Caribbean and Latin American artists. Stellweg championed trailblazing artists such as Marta Palau, a sculptural textile artist, who included the Naualli, a sorcerer of the Nahuatl Language, as a constant motif. She also used vaginal imagery, from organic materials such as plant fibers and clay, as a symbolic guardian against hegemonic Western aesthetic forms. These artworks fused artistic and ancestral techniques and also raised questions linked to territory, exile and migration. Anna Bella Geiger, a prolific creator spanning from abstract painter to video art, who also explored indigenous land allocation and the sociopolitical happening of Brasil, contributed to the publication.  

One of the most profound contributors to the Mexican art landscape and feminist art movement came from Maris Bustamante. Her art practice combined Mexican popular culture and satirical humor to influence mainstream opinions. Her prominence heightened when Bustamante joined forces with artist Mónica Mayer to form Polvo de Gallina Negra (PdGN).


Polvo de Gallina Negra

Often hailed as the pioneers of feminist Mexican art collectives, Polvo de Gallina Negra (Black Hen Powder) was a boundless collective dedicated to challenging and criticizing domestic violence, patriarchy, and perceptions of the role of women in Mexican society. As socially engaged performers, they would appear in public squares in Mexico City marching against sexual assault while handing out potions for women to put a spell on the sexual predators.

 

Image courtesy of Al Día News

 
 

Image courtesy of missingwitches.com

 

In another public performance the PdGN used their bodies to exaggerate the performance of pregnancy. Wearing distinctive boots and aprons covering their visibly advanced pregnancies, the goal was to offer a transformative visual encounter with the pregnant body to subvert diminishing images and social meanings of pregnancy and motherhood in Mexico. Maris said: “Motherhood is a political act, an act of creation, but also one of repression if seen through the lens of patriarchy. We wanted to disrupt that narrative.” In these works, it wouldn’t be unusual to see Bustamante and Mayer wielding a cast iron pot in a simulation of potion making, or iron boards to protest expectations around domestic labor. 

Black Hen Powder is a traditional mixture in both Mexican tradition and American South Hoodoo, used to protect, cleanse, and reverse negativity. The PdGN feminist collective was founded with the same intention: to protect, to awaken, and to empower all women. Their projects sought to achieve 3 key goals:

(1) To analyze women’s images in art and in the media;

(2) to study and to promote the participation of women in art, and;

(3) to create images based on our experience as women in a patriarchal system, with a feminist perspective and with the goal of transforming the visual world in order to alter reality. 

PdGN interventions and casting of spells not only worked towards their collective’s goals, but further allowed for women to work as brujas (witches) in their individual lives. It inspired women to consider notions of who and what a woman could do, be, and achieve. Performances sparked imagination and the accessibility of this work contributed to a collective rethinking about gender and the roles of both men and women. Polvo de Gallina Negra left an undeniable  impression on the fabric of  Mexican and Latin American culture.

Listen here to learn more about their impact and here to watch a Polvo de Gallina Negra interview.

 

Courtesy of Museu Tàpies. Photography by Enrique Bostelmann, Archivo Marta Palau.
© Oswaldo Ruiz

 
 

Marta Palau. Naualli, s/d © MUAC/UNAM. Comodato Julian Varela Gassol. Fibres de blat, jute i llana tenyides, 160 × 85 × 30 cm.

 

 
 

Photo by: Elías Román

Hunter College Art Galleries Spotlight:
Last Art School Fellows


Rebecca Miralrio
Fourth year Art History Masters student
Hometowns: Escondido, California and Temecula, California. Currently based in New York City.

MEMORABLE ART MEMORY…My favorite art memory is from a preschool field trip to the local art museum in Escondido. There was an art installation on view that I remember crawling through. It was the coolest blanket fort I’d ever seen and it was filled with tons of personal items and knick knacks. I remember feeling like I was in someone’s home. This is my first and favorite art memory and it’s interesting to think about how much that experience stuck with me because at the time I was around 5 years old and I didn’t even know what it was or what it could do.

HUNTER ART HISTORY COURSES…I have two favorite Hunter art history courses: Professor Klich’s La Frontera: Visual Culture and the Mexico-US Borderlands which looks at la frontera as a liminal space of cultural production, and Professor Avcioglu’s What is Art History? a research methods course that examined the nature and history of the discipline across different geographies starting from the 18th century to the present. 

LISTENING TO…Recently, I’ve been listening to a playlist I made called Perfume. It has a bunch of 80s and 90s songs. Think: George Michael, Sade, Prince, Paula Abdul, etc. I made the playlist for a party I hosted where I asked people to bring a perfume for “smell and tell.”

WATCHING…I’m obsessed with The Pitt on HBO and have been trying to get everyone I know to watch it. 

FAVORITE RECENT ART EXPERIENCE…I recently visited EJ Hill’s exhibition at 52 Walker, Low-slung Promises on the Tongues of the Devout

 

Photo by: Leo Sano

Andee Berberich
First year Art History Masters student 
Raised in Buffalo, moved to Washington, D.C., backpacked around the US before finding my way back to Buffalo and then on to Brooklyn this past January!

MEMORABLE ART MEMORY… Gosh it’s not easy to narrow it down but I will never forget  “Out of Sight! Art of the Senses” at the Buffalo AKG Museum. I was just at the point of deciding what I wanted to study in college.  I remember walking through the rooms, all of these sensorial, experimental works like James Turrell’s Gap from the series Tiny Town, 2001 - a pitch black room with a faint glowing edge that feels like the edge of nothing — and Without Beginning and Without End, by Wolfgang Laib, a large wooden sculpture covered in beeswax. In that moment I felt so much possibility, there was so much to be learned and I think it was exactly what I needed. Hope and a little edge of nothingness. 

HUNTER ART HISTORY COURSES… I’m kinda obsessed with art historian and professor Wenshing Chou. She is a truly wonderful human and has a beautiful philosophy on life, teaching and passion about the materials and it creeps out in her classes.  I am currently taking “On Jewelness: Buddhist Materiality in Sino-Himalayan Art, 1300-1800s”. 

LISTENING TO…I love the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett - It has me thinking about awe and the human experience (I am trying to figure out how to turn this into a thesis); and anything by Karen Dalton but the In My Own Time album is amazing.

WATCHING… I recently finished Étoile on Prime. I’m not sure if it is marketing for the NYC Ballet but if so, it worked on me. I am waiting to purchase my $30 for 30 on September 16th.

FAVORITE RECENT ART EXPERIENCE… Last Art School…. Come check us out!

Interview with Lindsey White

Text by Bianca Mońa, Associate Curator for Exhibitions and Education

For the debut issue of The Edna, a monthly newsletter published by Hunter’s Art & Art History Department, artist Lindsey White spoke with Katie Hood Morgan, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Hunter College Art Galleries, about White’s collaborative project Last Art School. This is an extended version of that interview accompanied by reception photos by Hunter BFA student Leo Sano. Last Art School, a project by Lindsey White is on view at the 205 Hudson Gallery through November 22, 2025, and is accompanied by a robust set of public programs.

Lindsey and I first met at the San Francisco Art Institute in roughly 2012 when I started working in the school’s Walter and McBean Galleries and Lindsey was already legendary as one of the most beloved professors teaching on campus. We had the opportunity to work together informally over the years and in Fall 2018 I helped organize the exhibition “Will Brown: Ether” which featured Lindsey’s arts collective Will Brown (with other members Jordan Stein and David Kasprzak). In some ways, due to our shared experiences at SFAI, it feels like our destinies have been intertwined even as I was laid off due to budget cuts and eventually moved across the country. I know that many others who have passed through SFAI in one way or another feel similarly. In 2018 I helped found the SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive, a non-profit based in San Francisco which preserves, activates, and makes accessible 150 years of archival materials related to the school and the people who passed through its doors.

When the opportunity arose to invite an artist and curator to be in residence in Fall 2025, Lindsey had just released her book What? Is? Art?—a profound and timely collection of texts from art professors across the country—and I knew she would be the perfect person to kick off what we hope will be the first in a series of opportunities for artists and curators and engage with the Hunter arts community. Thanks to the generous support of Arthur and Carol Goldberg, Lindsey has been working on site in the 205 Hudson Gallery since early August and will be here working with students and faculty throughout the exhibit which closes November 22. I’m so grateful to Lindsey for joining us in New York this Fall and we are so excited for everything her project has in store for us! Please enjoy our conversation where we get into the revolutionary and historic underpinnings of the exhibition and we hope to see you in the galleries soon! 
— Katie Hood Morgan, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Hunter College Art Galleries

Katie Hood Morgan: You published your first book What? Is? Art? with Colpa Press in 2024. The publication includes images of the empty SFAI campus during the pandemic—studios and classrooms are frozen in time in an eerie precursor to the school’s bankruptcy and closure later that year. These images appear alongside texts from anonymous higher arts education professors from around the country. Can you share how the Last Art School exhibition concept developed out of and expanded on this project?

Lindsey White: The photos I took at SFAI were taken at a moment when it wasn't clear if the school was going to make it or not. The faculty had already received layoff notices two weeks into COVID so these photos were the beginning of me trying to cope with the stress and sadness of the situation. This process enabled me to feel proactive when everything felt out of my control. By inviting members of my academic family to share some of their experiences, I was not only able to shed light on greater issues but also show that these issues are rampant in higher education, and that we’re not alone. Being in community has always been important to me, and Last Art School is an extension of this line of thinking. The project is a continuation of how to bring multiple perspectives together through art, dialogue, food, fellowship, and public events.

KHM: Upon entering the exhibition space, visitors will find a large bulletin board of printed articles about the challenges facing art schools globally, underlining how truly current these issues are. What is your aim in siting this project on the Hunter College MFA Campus right now?

 LW: The bulletin board of current events is a way of physically sharing some of the articles that have been published recently, and the display will continue to be updated throughout the exhibition. With everything going on right now, it's easy to lose sight of the attacks (in their various forms) on higher education. This exhibition is exactly where—and when—it needs to be. The show is not only located within an art department—it is specifically sited in a public university, a place where  I feel that the greatest sense of hope exists. It's critical that we acknowledge the institutional collapse of higher education from within the walls of the institution so that together we might be able to support one another and be proactive in new revolutionary approaches.

KHM: The exhibition includes a gallery with an incredible display of materials—posters, images, printed email and memos, and ephemera—from the SFAI Legacy Foundation and Archive. Can you describe some of your favorite items in this room? Why was it important to you to include SFAI archival materials in the exhibition?

LW: It’s hard to choose favorites, but I think joint letters written by faculty and students always pull at my heart strings. I admire when people can come together, and articulate what feels important to them in the moment. It’s so vulnerable and real! I think we need more of this energy right now. The student protest photograph that depicts the SFAI cafe windows X’ed out with “Budget Cuts No View” is definitely at the top of the list, too. My hope is that when visitors look through the SFAI archival materials they will realize we’ve been through hard times before, and maybe there are some clues in the materials for how to move forward or at least find inspiration. SFAI was also a weird, beautiful, and complex place like all art schools, and we should celebrate artistic homes for the weirdo artists.

KHM: You taught at SFAI for a decade, as Adjunct then Associate Professor and eventually Chair of the Photography Department (which was founded by Ansel Adams in 1946.) Can you speak about your experience as a professor and how it has informed your interest in both pedagogy and the administrative machinations of higher educational institutions?  

LW: Collaborating with students was the best part of teaching. Over the years among students, faculty, and staff I made many important lifelong friendships. I’ve found that a good sense of humor and strong communication skills are critical to navigating group dynamics. I believe in taking care of people, and really listening to what they’re trying to say, to ask questions, and to never assume. I found that academia began to lack the care, openness, and humor that I feel the greater community needs. So, I’m looking for new ways to engage this community from the outside. Last Art School is a huge experiment, but I’m up for the challenge. I’m looking forward to meeting new people along the way.

KHM: There is a cinematic and evocative quality to the title, Last Art School. While it could be perceived as final and almost apocalyptic, hope and playfulness are central to the exhibition. How did you come to this title?

LW: Art school as we know it has changed. The recent collapse of various small art and liberal universities across the US speaks to this. I do think SFAI was the last art school. I've been thinking about what the broader civic impacts are when such a place disappears where the center of counterculture was born. I think this is a pivotal moment to rethink educational models, governance, and administrative structures before we see more of them disappear. But I also think there's even more room to collectively build what we want to see in the world outside of these institutions, and having this conversation within an institution feels provocative yet productive.

KHM: You created a lounge area inside the exhibition—Chat and Chew—and it’s truly the beating heart of this project, with an emphasis on community and conversation building. What is the significance of this space for you? Do you have any programming plans for the gallery that we can look forward to this Fall?

LW: Chat and Chew is a gathering place for the Hunter Art and Art History community and greater art lovers, too. I think coming together in person has never been more important. We need each other now more than ever, and our relationships will carry one another through tough times. Also providing a cozy place that is free in New York City seems like a total coup in itself! Lunch will be served weekly. The first event of the fall is Sophie Becker performing her ventriloquist act on September 11th! Then we have stand-up comedy with Dynasty Handbag, a conversation with two Rhoda Kellogg Children’s Art scholars, a panel about alternative education models and methods, and programming that we’re waiting for you to design. The Hunter College Talent show is coming up soon too! All talents are welcome. Please follow Chat and Chew on Instagram: @chatandchew2025.


IMAGE CREDITS: Last Art School reception images by Leo Sano.

Echoes of Black Mountain College

Text by Bianca Mońa, Associate Curator for Exhibitions and Education

The old Studies Building at Black Mountain College campus overlooked Lake Eden. Theodore and Barbara Dreier Collection, Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina

Last Art School, a project by Lindsey White (on view in the 205 Hudson Gallery through November 22) is a legacy project by which art educators, artists, educators, students, and community consider, co-create, and through self-determination re-imagine pedagogical systems and ways of being. How can we together implement utopian, problem-solving to usher in solutions with far reaching possibilities? Last Art School embodies thinking similar to other visionary teaching philosophies of The Bauhaus, and The Black School. The themes this project explores and advocates for – mutual aid, community care, and artistic autonomy – are not foreign or impossible.  As a matter-of-fact it has been done before, in the United States and beyond. Black Mountain College, a small liberal arts college, from 1933 to 1957, nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, was founded on the principles of experimentation, the application of thinking into doing, transdisciplinary influence, and distribution of authority. 

Black Mountain College had no board of directors and was thus able to build its academic courses based on direction of faculty and students, cooperatively.  Black Mountain opened in September 1933 with 26 students and 13 faculty members, including Josef and Anni Albers, artists from The Bauhaus, another inspiring  art school, located in Germany. With its focus on unbounded knowledge exchange, playing, and relationship building, Black Mountain College attracted supreme talent – educators and students included Ruth Asawa, Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. 

John Rice, founder of Black Mountain College, centered art within education because of his belief that art allows for observation, judgment, and action—skills that are transferable into any form of work by any kind of person. By taking up White’s challenge to explore and exercise these qualities, creative practitioners today can work towards understanding—and perhaps revitalizing—higher education, as it is currently redefining itself in the midst of another wave of culture wars.  

Thoughout the Fall semester, we, a multi-ethnic, socio-economically diverse and intergenerational community that makes up Hunter College and New York City, will have the remarkable challenge of pondering and problem-solving our current challenges, a herculean feat most fitting for a place of higher learning, filled with thought leaders, artists, and our collective imagination.

To learn more read, The Story of Black Mountain College—and a Look at Its Continuing Legacy and pick up one of several Black Mountain College publications from the Last Art School exhibition library in the gallery. 

Founders: John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier

Founded: 1933

Ceased operations: 1957

Students: about 1,200 total

Administrative staff: about 30

Architectural style: Bungalow, craftsman, International Style

Built: 1923

 

Photographed by Argenis Apolinario

Hunter College Art Galleries Spotlight:

Amy Tidwell
Development and Administration Manager at HCAG

In addition to her official role at Hunter,  Amy is an esteemed painter and the most jovial colleague.  She literally enters the Hunter College Galleries like a flaming bright orange ball of sunshine. Amy-Tidwell.com

LISTENING TO…The Brundi Brothers and Sufjan Stevens - Javelin 

WATCHING…A self proclaimed YouTube Girl, Amy is currently into Session One: Chaekgeori in Global Context

READING…A Handbook of Disappointed Fate and Cursed Bunny

ENJOYING… “ I am enjoying a lot of things.” Amy is currently soaring at pool, life drawing and rock climbing.