Venus Envy Chapter IV: The Road to Paris and Its Aftermath, Curandera's Botanica

2008/2023

Amalia Mesa-Bains

Associated Names
Amalia Mesa-Bains

Artist, American, born 1943

This is a photograph of an art installation in a gallery space featuring various objects arranged against a bright green wall. The objects are arranged in a corner where two walls meet. On the left is a metal cabinet filled with objects such as jars and containers, accompanied by a statue placed on top of it. Colorful candles are placed on the ground next to the cabinet. On the right, a long tabletop is laden with an assortment of laboratory glassware and scientific equipment. Between the table and the cabinet are three small potted plants resting on the ground. The ground beneath all the objects appears to be covered with a fine layer of something like sand and what might be fibers or string, placed in precise lines. Above, the bright green walls hold two framed pieces: one small, framed art piece and a larger backlit black-and-white photograph of a woman.
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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

The top three-quarters of this horizontal landscape painting is filled with roiling, deeply shadowed clouds that tower over a line of buffalo crossing a grassy meadow below. Small in scale, the buffalo form a line that extends away from us at a diagonal into the distance to our right. Sunlight creates a bright reflection on the stream where the frontmost buffalo crosses, but the other animals are nearly backlit in the raking light. Trees, with branches whipping in the wind, rise along the left side of the painting, and the mountainous landscape to our right is lost in darkness under heavy clouds. The clouds above lighten from navy blue in the lower right corner of the sky to slate blue and white at the center of the painting. Small patches of blue sky are visible between a few breaks in the clouds, and sunlight falls on a cliff-like mountain face in the distance beyond the trees to our left. Another bank of parchment-colored clouds in the upper left corner, closer to us, contrasts with the glimmering light highlighting some of the clouds nearby.

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A woman with white grey hair and black glasses stands with her hands clasped at her waist. She is shown from the waist up. Behind her is a bright green wall, with a black and white photograph of a woman to the left. On her right is a metal table of various scientific tools and other small objects.

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Through her evocative installations, the pioneering Chicana artist seeks to connect the past with the present.


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist; (Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco); purchased 2024 by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2023

  • Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory. The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, 2023, fig. 8, pl. 34-35, 37-38.


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