Malinalli on the Rocks

Museo de las Americas

861 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204

March 17-July 23, 2022

Curated by Maruca G. Salazar

Admission: Adults: $8, Students/Seniors/Artists/Teachers/Military: $5, Children 13 and under and members: free

Review by Madeleine Boyson

Denver has hosted three shows about Malinalli this year, and it’s been instructive to view them in conversation. [1] In February, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) presented the first-ever comprehensive exhibition about her in La Malinche: Traitor, Survivor, Icon. The DAM then collaborated with the Latino Cultural Arts Center and CU Denver’s College of Arts and Media to present an exhibit at Next Stage Gallery through May titled Malintzin: Unraveled and Rewoven.

An installation view of the exhibition *Malinalli on the Rocks* at Museo de las Americas. Image by Madeleine Boyson.

But the final show—and perhaps the most visionary—is Malinalli on the Rocks at Museo de las Americas, curated by Maruca Salazar, the museum’s former executive director. In a deliberate move to amplify new aesthetics for Malinalli’s 500-year legacy as the “Mother of Mexico,” Salazar assembles eleven Chicanx and Latinx artists for a regenerative exhibit that requires everyone to “choose sides.” [2] But where the DAM focused on historiography and the figure of La Malinche in the cultural body, Museo successfully finds her in the individual, even physical, self. [3] On the Rocks is therefore an intimate, standalone show that rejects patriarchal and Eurocentric views of Malinalli in favor of new illustrations.

Sylvia Montero, *What She is Made of*, 2022, acrylic, toner transfer, foil, and collage. Image by Marco Briones.

In her exhibition text, Salazar describes Malinalli’s complicated legacy and the “dilution” inherent in the Mestizo experience, noting the necessity for “the duality of [one’s] colonized soul to resolve the dilemmas of your world and the interpretation of your own aesthetic.” [4] Duality speaks through the layers of time, for example in Sylvia Montero’s acrylic and collage What She is Made of. Here Montero links her own desire to feel her “brown skin and…Chicana/x power” with Frida Kahlo and other influential women and portrays her intimate connections with past, present, and future through seer seahorses and cut-out fossils. [5]

Los Supersónicos (Carlos Frésquez and Frank Zamora), *Our Ancient Future*, 2022, acrylic on canvas and vinyl, parachute cord, and thrift store sunstones. Image by Madeleine Boyson.

Our Ancient Future by Los Supersónicos (Carlos Frésquez and Frank Zamora) is another striking example of duality that fuses Mexican, American, and global signifiers to “look at the multilayered underpinnings of Chicano cultural identity.” [6] A large mural anchors several disconcerting, smiley sunstones, a lone sombrero, and five hand-painted posters in a stunning installation. Shadows and blocked material create mystery by further complicating linear selfhood.

Quintin González, *Ixchel*, 2022, digital painting. Image by Madeleine Boyson.

But Malinalli can also be found in the physical body in On the Rocks. Quintin González’s trio of digital paintings generate a gravitational pull usually associated with living beings. Each piece is an allegory of survival, trauma, and women witnessing in wisdom and strength, according to the artist. [7] González employs spirituality and surrealism to yield a tearful La Malinche between the two striated and fleshy kaleidoscopes of Cósmica and the Mayan goddess Ixchel. Consequently, the works are subtly forceful and emotional.

Anthony García Sr., *Tainted*, 2022, acrylic on canvas. Image by Madeleine Boyson.

Similarly, Anthony García Sr. employs his signature serape linework in the flesh tones of Tainted to comment on the sexual violence in La Malinche’s life and the pejorative meaning her name has assumed over time. The work also suggests folds and tonalities of history, subverting an explicit view and topic into a universal link. [8] Malinalli therefore exists in and transcends both time and the physical body.

Women’s—in particular, Malintzin’s—transcendence is also seen in Karen Martinez’s heady digital video Malinalli. “The film rejects and condemns the misogynistic history that portrays Indigeneity and womanhood as the betrayers of patriarchal identity,” writes Martinez. [9] This powerful vignette is a verdant, “sensorial” ceremony of Malintzin giving birth—or rather, giving life—that restores her agency to speak and make for herself.

Delilah Montoya, *La Lengua Como Poder*, photographed 1993/constructed 2022, wood and inkjet on e-Satin paper, one feather, gold leaf, and enamel paint. Image by Madeleine Boyson.

La Lengua Como Poder by Delilah Montoya further captures the personal self in On the Rocks. La Lengua is a 2022 reconstruction of La Malinche, a 1993 collotype formerly on view in the DAM’s show, that zooms into the original photograph’s brothel scene to frame a young girl in communion white. “Her Tongue - Her Power - Her Truth,” reads the wall text, and the image—composed of wooden blocks occasionally tinted red or inserted upside down—supersedes Malinalli’s historical role as Cortes’ “tongue.” [10] The reconstruction, which is first and last on view in the exhibition, reminds viewers that Malinalli was once a young girl, and survived on her own power and truth.

Mario Zoots, *La Malinche*, 2022, mixed media. Image by Madeleine Boyson.

Museo’s saffron walls invite multiple viewings and an ongoing confrontation of the historical, cultural, and, in this case, personal figure of Malinalli. There are too many layers of selfhood to discuss in one short review, and visitors should be sure to spend time with Karma Leigh’s vital mother of the in-between, Daniel Salazar’s humorous reimaginings of the Florentine Codex, Mario Zoots’ ultra-contemporary collage “appropriation,” and Arlette Lucero’s title work that pulls worlds together. The exhibition also invites a commemoration for Alicia Cardenas, a muralist who was killed in a shooting at her tattoo shop.

Just as Salazar’s opening text promises, Malinalli on the Rocks is complex, challenging, and at times uncomfortable. But the exhibition is also compellingly radiant. Museo has given these new illustrations “room to breathe,” [11] and it feels like meeting Malinalli in person.

Madeleine Boyson is a Denver-based writer, artist, lecturer, and curator whose work concentrates on American modernism, natural photography, and (dis)ability studies. She holds a BA in Art History and History from the University of Denver and volunteers as development director for the arts platform Femme Salée.

[1] Malinalli, more commonly known as La Malinche, is variably known by many names, including Malinalli Tenepal (or Tenépatl), Doña Marina, and Malintzin.

[2] From Salazar’s wall text. Museo’s show is nothing if not a response to the DAM’s exhibition. In a March 16, 2022 Westword article, Salazar was described as “disappointed” by the DAM’s plans not to include more contemporary artists. “My thought was, ‘Where is the opportunity for contemporary, post-modern Latinx and Chicano artists?’...Where is the opportunity for the new generation of thinkers and creators?” she stated. www.westword.com/arts/malinalli-denver-museo-response-malinche-dam-13574142.

[3] To read about the DAM’s exhibition La Malinche: Traitor, Survivor, Icon, visit www.dariamag.com/home/traitor-survivor-icon.

[4] From Salazar’s wall text.

[5] From Montero’s wall text.

[6] From Los Supersónicos wall text.

[7] From the artist’s statement given by Salazar at the press preview.

[8] Ibid.

[9] From Martinez’s wall text.

[10] From Montoya’s wall text.

[11] From Sylvia Montero’s artist statement at the press preview.