Artist Belkis Ramírez used printmaking techniques to create a large-scale installation reflecting gender-based violence. This piece, “De MaR en peor/From Sea to Worse,” is part of a joint installation at the ICA, “Aquí Me Quedo/Here I Stay,” that also features works by Sila Chanto. (Photo courtesy Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU)
Some works of art hang from the ceiling of the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU, interrupting a viewer's line of sight. Others are mounted on the walls, looming over passersby. All of the pieces openly narrate a story full of gender-based violence and patriarchal oppression.
“Aquí Me Quedo/Here I Stay” features the work of Costa Rican artist Sila Chanto and Dominican artist Belkis Ramírez. The exhibit, which opened at the ICA May 6, confronts societal issues through printmaking. This is the first international showcase of both artists’ work since their deaths, but the collection is the first of its kind in more ways than one.
ICA Executive Director Dominic Willsdon says he finds creative ways for the museum to connect Richmond to the rest of the world. When he met art curator Miguel A. López in California about five years ago, Willsdon saw a chance to connect Richmond to Latin America.
“[The ICA] is interested in the wider Americas because there’s been too little dialogue between art in North America and art in Latin America,” Willsdon says. “That’s changed in recent years, and Miguel is one of the people changing it.”
López was invited by Willsdon to propose a curatorial project for the ICA. “I thought maybe this is the time to pull these two artists that I deeply admire in one single space and see what happens,” López says. Soon enough, he became the first guest curator to host an exhibition at the ICA.
He was driven not only by his admiration for both Chanto and Ramírez but also by his dedication to remembering the Latina artists and their work. With the help of the Chanto and Ramírez families, curator friends, and other collaborators, López was able to create the first international exhibition of both artists’ work since Chanto died in 2015 and Ramírez in 2019. The exhibit is also the first show the ICA has presented based on printmaking.
Both artists creatively ruptured their own contexts as they manipulated traditional printmaking into other forms such as sculpture and woodcuts. Chanto and Ramírez used their artistry to shine a light on the patriarchal shadow cast over society.
“They were introducing what I would call feminist research, which basically is a way of asking questions, a way of challenging a normalized patriarchal set of values,” López says.
The artists’ bold, powerful, uncensored pieces make the message impossible to avoid. Ramírez’s “De MaR en peor/From Sea to Worse” features carved and painted wooden figures of women hanging from the ceiling. These life-size figures appear to float, but a closer look reveals a fishing hook piercing each woman. The installation presents different women as bait over the sweeping sea of human trafficking and patriarchal violence. Chanto’s “Retrato de grupo erótico homofilial/Portrait of Erotic Homofilial Group” depicts silhouettes of male soccer players embracing one another captured on cotton fabric using woodblock printing. In the large-scale work, the men’s shorts are replaced with the leathered pattern of a soccer ball. Chanto’s piece highlights homosexual repression and challenges normative masculinity.
López says he hopes that visitors will see the commonality between North American and Latin American societies. “I think it’s important to understand the patriarchal structure not as a national issue but as a global situation,” he says. He also wishes for people to embrace vulnerability as reflected in the exhibit. “I think we live in a world that is demanding us to be strong,” López says. “We need to embrace vulnerability because it’s one of the things that we all have in common.”
“Aquí Me Quedo/Here I Stay” continues at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU through Sunday, June 19. Free.
