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David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar, and (Other) Worlds Past a “Pre-Invented Existence”

by Gillian Yee

When Peter Hujar died from AIDS-related complications on November 26th, 1987, David Wojnarowicz’s first inclination was to photograph his mentor and former lover’s body in excruciating detail. In the chapter “Living Close to the Knives,” from his memoir Close to the Knives, he recounts his experience with Hujar’s death: the rapid decline in his physical and mental health, his angry outbursts as he sought last-ditch attempts for treatment, and Wojnarowicz’s attempts to talk to him as he coasted in and out of consciousness on his hospital bed. This chapter further describes Hujar’s last living moments in painstaking detail. Following the twitching of his eyelids, the final slow, steady intake of breath, and an all-encompassing stillness of his body, Wojnarowicz’s ensuing impulses managed to surprise even himself:

… I barely cried. When everyone left the room I closed the door and pulled the super-8 camera out of my bag and did a sweep of his bed: his open eye, his open mouth, that beautiful hand with the hint of gauze at the wrist that held the i.v. needle, the color of his hand like marble, the full sense of the flesh of it. Then the still camera: portraits of his amazing feet, his head, that open eye again—I kept trying to get the light I saw in that eye—and then the door flew open and a nun rushed in babbling about how he’d accepted the church and I look at this guy on the bed with his outstretched arm and I think: but he’s beyond that.¹

In a whirlwind of quickly intensifying emotions, Wojnarowicz’s impulse was to visually capture this intimate encounter with death that would heavily influence the rest of his artistic practice. Although the 23 resulting photographs taken in these moments allude to his lifelong occupation with human consciousness and mortality, they also permitted him to reside in an in-between space where both life and death coexist, and where Wojnarowicz was unrestricted by society’s expectations to grieve properly.

Living during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, Wojnarowicz resented the idea of “properly” dealing with these experiences of tremendous loss. This meant grieving quietly and out of sight, thus following a Euro-American tendency to deny, ignore, and avoid death and its resultant indicators. Many of the works he would create in the following years would directly respond to the deaths that resulted from the overt, widespread neglect and maltreatment of populations most affected by HIV/AIDS. Wojnarowicz’s photographs of Hujar show how this exploration into the “essence of death” acts also as an exploration into existence beyond the grasp of the “pre-invented,” which he describes as: “A place where by virtue of having been born centuries late one is denied access to earth or space, choice or movement. The bought-up world; the owned world. The world of coded sounds: the world of language, the world of lies.”² The pre-invented existence is therefore one that, in its ascription of white cisgender heterosexuality as the norm, commonly restricts life and marginalizes individuals based on race, class, gender, and sexuality in its promises of false histories and futures.

In using death and the corpse as the subject for his work, Wojnarowicz utilizes that which is typically considered abject as visual provocation for unraveling the boundaries between interior and exterior, self and other. In questioning the processes of subjectification—the defining of the ever-transitory, networked, indeterminate, and ephemeral self—this work offers an alternative ontological viewpoint regarding human existence, refusing to be bound by commonplace definitions of what being human is and how one should exist.³ That is, death and life are not two ends of a binary where cross-contamination (the “infection” of life with death) signifies abjected Otherness but are intertwined in a never-ending dance of feelings, sensations, intensities, and memories.

Both in their galleries and online collections, the Whitney Museum of American Art commonly displays three of these photographs as a triptych (fig. 1). Each black and white print shows its respective body part in complete isolation from the rest of Hujar’s figure; there is nothing else within the frame to focus our gaze on aside from the rumpled fabrics of his hospital gown and the bed linens below him. By isolating and centering the body parts almost perfectly within each frame, Wojnarowicz’s intimate shots of the (dead) body force the viewer to focus on details that might have gone unnoticed if he had captured the complete form. With the shot of Hujar’s head, for example, one’s gaze may catch at the places where shadows dance underneath his unkempt beard or the dip of his clavicle. In this same photograph, his vacant, unfocused stare interrupts a viewer’s gaze and discomforts them; it looms out from underneath half-lidded eyes, cast far beyond the picture plane. In their invitation for contemplation and close looking, the parts of the body presented in each photograph almost take on a life of their own, eliciting different sensations in their viewers and pointing to the reality that although we idealize our identities as whole concepts, they are often naturally incomplete and without borders. Wojnarowicz’s practice of separating the body into pieces through the camera lens, then, enforces the multiplicity of the human form, bypassing common perceptions of identity and knowledge as each piece holds distinct meaning and value for the photographer.

As Tomasz Sikora asserts in his analysis of Wojnarowicz’s work, death and mortality play a vital part in the artist’s oeuvre by producing an array of sensory and affective responses not commonly associated with the lifeless body, called “queer life-worlds.”⁴ Refusing to gloss over what we consider bad experiences that produce negative feelings, Sikora argues that Wojnarowicz used photography and the subject of the lifeless body in tandem to propose these experiences as an avenue toward extending our existence past our corporeal forms. As such, his work subverts the expectation of death as a bad experience; in its place is an embrace of “the cosmic dance of photons and images and bodies and sensations,” where a focus on lived experiences with new ways of feeling, living, and being affected give way to possible life-worlds that are alternative to pre-codified attachments in a necropolitical state.⁵

Hujar’s body is an exploration into these worlds through Wojnarowicz’s take on the essence of death: “the fears and joys of it the flight it contains … just all the thoughts and sensations this death this event produces in bystanders more spirituality than any words we can manufacture.”⁶ Undeterred by a reductive life/death dichotomy, Wojnarowicz utilizes these photographs to emphasize the ability to connect within a larger matrix of human existence. The close-up shots of his body—perhaps replicating a gaze that carefully and lovingly regards another’s body one final time—contribute towards a sense of absolute veneration, grieving the loss of one of the most influential men in Wojnarowicz’s life and capturing, in simple shots, all the wonderful memories and joy this body brought him over the years. It is a radical gesture of love and intimacy, an expression of life and death simultaneously, and a transformation of death from an all-encompassing endless void to a liminal state of being that allows temporary freedom from what he calls a pre-invented existence.

Wojnarowicz’s response to Hujar’s death is immediate artistic action, turning towards the reception and production of aesthetic sensations instead of rendering the dead body a passive, powerless object. As he lands his photographic gaze on different parts of Hujar, he releases the parts from the organic unity of the body, as if they’ve “become their own little persons” with their own subjectivities, histories, and sensations.⁷ In each shot, Wojnarowicz lays bare his relationship to this body so informed by love, intimacy, respect, and raw connection that it goes far past what should be conceivably possible in a pre-invented world of self-regulation and carefully codified rules. The photographs of Hujar’s body thus unravel the boundary between “I” and “Other” rather than reinforcing it, sharing contemplative, quiet, life-changing moments suspended in time, as if they represent the artist’s eyes traveling over Hujar’s corpse for the first time. They seek to capture the amalgamation of beauty, joy, and acceptance within a subject commonly associated with ugliness, trauma, and rejection.

As self-regulatory subjects within a pre-invented existence, we reject death as the supposed antithesis of life and avoid signifiers of death (i.e., aging and disease) because they threaten to violate a life/death binary. In contrast, the mournful quality of Wojnarowicz’s photographs is, as Marietta Radomska states in their discussion of queer death studies, an example of “practices that transgress the effects of white humanist melancholia and establish a relational ethics apt for unlocking congealed power matrices, and opening towards alternative futurities.”⁸ These images of the corpse become a conduit for alternative ways of being, inhabiting a liminal space where one isn’t cast into the outer bounds of society due to attributes of race, gender, sexuality, and able-bodiedness.⁹ Such an alternative is apparent in these quiet moments after Hujar’s last breath, when Wojnarowicz is alone with his body and captures all the things he finds beautiful and captivating. There is, in these alternatives, a certain freedom from a pre-invented existence that can only be seen and witnessed in death.

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Gillian Yee (they/them) is a second-year PhD student at Temple University specializing in global contemporary art history from 1980 to the present. Their goal as a scholar is to explore the realm of queerness, transness, and “non-normative” identities within art practices, thereby circumventing a traditional canonical understanding of the discipline.

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1. David Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration (Open Road Integrated Media, 2014), 111-12. Super-8 cameras are typically for recording video, but in this instance Wojnarowicz only used one for photography.

2. Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives, 96.

3. Maggie Hennefeld and Nicholas Sammond. Abjection Incorporated (Duke University Press, 2020), 19.

4. Tomasz Sikora, “Queer Life-Worlds and the Art of David Wojnarowicz,” Journal of Gender Studies 29, no. 1 (December 15, 2019): 76-87, https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2019.1692194. 

5. Sikora, “Queer Life-Worlds,” 82.

6. Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives, 111-12.

7. Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives, 82.

8. Marietta Radomska, Tara Mehrabi, and Nina Lykke, “Queer Death Studies: Death, Dying and Mourning from a Queerfeminist Perspective,” Australian Feminist Studies 35, no. 104 (April 2, 2020): 92, https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2020.1811952. 

9. Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives, 118.

Echoes of Shamanism: Reimagining Tradition and Chance in South Korea

by Hamin Kim

As part of its New Year’s event, Hyundai Artlab commissioned artist Maia Ruth Lee to create a set of symbols predicting fortunes for 2024. This virtual project, titled Glyphoscope 2024, invited participants to select three cards from a set of twenty, each resembling ancient hieroglyphs (fig. 1). The experience, similar to drawing tarot cards, presented a brief interpretive text and a series of keywords that were drawn both from the selected glyphs as well as the initials of the participant’s name, offering a personalized set of affirmations to carry into the New Year. The interactive nature of this project, which combines algorithmic patterns with chance elements, reflects the enduring desire to find clarity amid the uncertainties of the future. Practices like fortune-telling, which are carried out with varying degrees of sincerity, remain deeply ingrained in contemporary society. We continually “test” our luck in various ways, from opening fortune cookies to seeking advice from clairvoyants.

Notions of chance and future prediction have often been dismissed as magical, unscientific, and illogical. Traditional faith systems that embrace such values have been in perpetual tension with the scientific worldview that emerged during the Age of Enlightenment. Especially in many countries that experienced colonization, this tension led to the suppression or transformation of indigenous traditions in favor of modernized (and often Westernized) visions of the future. South Korea followed a similar trajectory. Despite the influence of Confucianism during the Joseon Dynasty (13–19th centuries), and the introduction of Christianity in the late 19th century, shamanism, the primordial religion of Korea derived from Siberia and Northeast Asia, remained deeply embedded in the base of the country’s cultural terrain.¹ Even during the period of rapid modernization during the 1960s to 1980s, when the authoritative South Korean government promoted uniformity and the Western standard of development while simultaneously stifling individual creativity, people continued to turn to shamans in times of crisis or uncertainty, relying on the power of luck to avoid misfortune.²

Shamanism saw a resurgence in the early 21st century in the arts as South Korea gradually globalized after the end of the Cold War in 1989 and established a democratic government shortly after. Authoritative values in the past gave way to diversity and cultural heterogeneity, and the contemporary art world moved towards a “global pattern of flow and resistances” rather than the dichotomous view of center versus periphery.³ Artists started to take notice of the potential of shamanism as an apt alternative to a strictly rational, scientific worldview. Their reexaminations found a more fluid, empathetic approach to considering human nature. This new understanding of shamanism was a central theme in the 2014 Seoul MediaCity Biennale, titled Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers. The Biennale’s director, Park Chan-kyong, focused on marginalized yet potent entities in society. He explained his decision to juxtapose three seemingly disparate figures:

Spies seen in the movies look attractive, but “spies” (gancheob) in the news are terrifying.⁴ One should worship god in ancestral ceremonies but stay far away from the ghosts you encounter during the night. Grandmothers should be respected, but in reality, they are expelled outside the huge wave of praise for the young. You notice them sometimes, but they are generally difficult to spot; or one does not wish to see them, or should not see them. They are skilled in silence and possess top-level information. Hence they cry out, confess, disclose or testify. They easily become paradoxical beings according to the situation.⁵

The convergence of the three symbolic figures—ghost, spy, and grandmother—underscores Asia’s ongoing effort to transcend forcefully inserted Westernized influences and reclaim its original heritage by positing a “modernity against modernity.”⁶ Park’s theme was not incidental; it was the culmination of his own documentary, Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits (2013), which unraveled the complex and ambivalent emotions surrounding shamanism in Korea through the life of Kim Keum-hwa, the country’s most renowned manshin (shaman). The predominantly female demographic of Korean shamans ties to the figure of the “Grandmother,” who venerates shamanistic deities or “Ghosts,” and who has witnessed the tumultuous 20th-century history in Korea, where many formative and socio-political events were often centered around “Spies.”

Shamanism experienced another resurgence during the 2020 Covid pandemic. In 2021, the Ilmin Museum of Art opened their exhibition entitled Fortune Telling, which provided an outlet for exploring and processing collective anxieties in a time marked by uncertainty. The exhibition drew on shamanistic practices as well as traditional East Asian philosophies, including the concept of yin and yang, and the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), which comprised the fundamental categories in Chinese cosmology to understand the universe. The harmony and balance of these forces were thought to govern the natural world and human life. This exhibition exemplified how what was once seen as occult has been recontextualized in contemporary art as a way to bring comfort to the audience. As part of the show, a shaman with an art educational background produced a museum audio guide and artists invited participants to engage in saju readings (fortune-telling based on one’s birth date) as part of a performance.

The exhibition space was divided into two sections, “fate” and “counseling,” suggesting that for the curators, these concepts are interrelated: fate serves as the foundation of existence, while counseling offers therapeutic guidance in navigating fate and finding inner peace. Indeed, the exhibition is also living proof that what was once viewed as an occult practice of communicating with otherworldly entities became more accessible with the popularization of diluted forms such as saju, tarot readings, and face readings—practices that were considered safer and relatively more scientific—grounded in statistical reasoning rather than ghostly communications. Fortune Telling offered visitors a way to reflect on the emotional and psychological challenges of the pandemic, bridging ancient philosophies with contemporary concerns (fig. 3). This renewed interest in shamanism and traditional cosmology highlights how people seek comfort and meaning from deeply rooted cultural practices, especially during times of crisis.

Although shamans remain somewhat intimidating figures due to their perceived possession by spirits, artist Haegue Yang offers a more sympathetic interpretation. She notes that “today’s shamanism has been tainted by a culture of unscientific superstition or prayers for personal prosperity. In the past, shamanistic rituals (guts) were performed for communal well-being—to bring rain, end droughts, or ensure the safe return of those who had left their homes.”⁷ Her ongoing project, Mesmerizing Mesh (2021–), folds and cuts pieces of traditional Korean paper, evoking symmetrical ritual paper props used by shamans (figs. 5-6). The mass of works explores shamans as intermediaries between the divine and humanity, although the artist laments that shamans themselves often remain marginalized.⁸

However, Yang also poignantly points out that the preservation of tradition may have political connotations, particularly in parts of Europe, where it is sometimes used to justify exclusion and anti-immigration sentiments.⁹ Nonetheless, many non-Western countries, especially in the Global South, share similar sentiments toward shamanism as those illustrated above in the case of South Korea, including an ambivalence toward rooting their historical narratives that were once superimposed by imperialism and capitalism. The quest to reconnect with their roots remains ongoing.

Understanding shamanism and its reception in the contemporary world is far from straightforward. It is a complex and multi-layered process, entangled with the legacies of imperialism, questions of legitimacy and self-doubt, and the unpredictable nature of future prediction. Despite this complexity, the exhibitions and participating artists highlight the potency of shamanism as a transgressive and healing force embedded in the lives of many. By looking into works on both institutional and individual levels, Korean contemporary art in the context of shamanism deals with defying logical explanations and offering a path for those seeking meaning in an increasingly uncertain world.

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Hamin Kim (she/her) is a PhD student at Boston University whose research centers on modernization and globalization in Korean art from the 20th century onwards, with particular emphasis on Korea’s cultural exchange with Japan and the United States and the history of performance in Korea.

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1. The survival of Korean Shamanism amidst the influx of Christianity is detailed in Oak, Sung-Deuk, “Healing and Exorcism: Christian Encounters with Shamanism in Early Modern Korea.” Asian Ethnology 69, no. 1 (2010): 95-128.

2. Although sporadically, artists continued to investigate shamanism in their practices during the 20th century. The most salient efforts were made in the Minjung (People’s) arts movement during the 1980s but also through individual efforts including the photographer Lee Gapchul’s Confliction and Reaction series (1990-2002) as well as Lee Seungtaek’s Wind series (1967- ) etc.

3. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 46-47.

4. In the original Korean statement, Park differentiates between Western “spies” and “spies (gancheobs).” The former evoke Hollywood’s James Bond archetype—sleek and glamorous—while the latter refer specifically to North Korean operatives who infiltrate South Korean society to steal sensitive information. These North Korean spies are often portrayed as petty and unrefined, embodying a dirtier, more sinister image.

5. Park Chan-kyong, “Why ‘Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers’?”, Accessed September 23, 2024, http://archive.mediacityseoul.kr/2014/en/introduction/2014theme/ghost-spy-grandmother/.

6. This is not to suggest that all Western influences introduced in Asia were imposed by force. However, the remnants of colonialism, as opposed to voluntary cultural exchanges, have left more profound impacts on later generations. My aim is to highlight the involuntary aspects of Western influence rather than to dismiss Western influence in Asia as wholly negative. Additionally, the phrase “modernity against modernity” is derived from the original Korean title of the Seoul MediaCity Biennale.

7. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are the author’s. Jaeyeon Cho, “Double Souls, Dialectic of the Truth: SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst Haegue Yang solo exhibition, Double Soul,” Art in Culture [translated from Korean], April 2022, 166-67.

8. “Beyond Paganism and Shamanism: Haegue Yang in Conversation with Kirsty Bell on Mesmerizing Mesh”, July 2, 2022, Haegue Yang, accessed on September 2, 2024, http://www.heikejung.de/list_of%20texts/KirstyBellHaegueYangMM.pdf. 

9. “Haegue Yang: Handles, Haegue Yang Interview,” W Magazine [translated from Korean] (November 4, 2019), https://www.wkorea.com/2019/11/04/%EB%A7%9D%EA%B0%81%EC%9D%98-%EC%86%90%EC%9E%A1%EC%9D%B4/ (accessed on September 20, 2024).

Il Perdono di Gesualdo: Art, Sin, and Salvation

by William Chaudoin

Carlo Gesualdo, Conte da Venosa (c. 1566-1614)—composer, murderer, and patron of the arts—commissioned the Florentine painter Giovanni Balducci to create the altarpiece, Il Perdono di Gesualdo (fig. 1), in an attempt to alter his own fate. Gesualdo’s plan of intricate, multidimensional patronage is central to his desire to exercise control over what became of his soul. Employing music, painting, and architecture, Gesualdo sought to enhance his relationship with his uncle, Saint Carlo Borromeo.

Featured prominently in the altarpiece, Borromeo’s views on sacred art and music shaped Gesualdo’s patronage initiatives, especially in the latter half of Gesualdo’s life when he fell ill. Through strategic artistic choices, Gesualdo manifests a profound plea for redemption deeply connected to Borromeo, evidenced by his collection of Borromean relics, church-building efforts in the town of Gesualdo, and the inclusion of his uncle in the altarpiece's narrative. Therefore, we can view Gesualdo's efforts as an attempt to assert dominion over his fate wherein he grapples with a profound question: can one buy their way into salvation through acts of artistic devotion?

In seeking redemption, Gesualdo confronted the specter of his past sins: an overwhelming fear of what awaited him in the afterlife motivated and complicated his artistic and spiritual pursuits. Scholars Cecil Gray, Catherine Deutsch, and Glenn Watkins have debated Gesualdo’s motivations surrounding the altarpiece, while examining the contribution of his patronage and musical compositions to his social status.¹ Carlo Gesualdo was a Neapolitan aristocrat with ancestral ties to the town of Gesualdo, where his family had been in power since the tenth century.² He is infamous for the murder of his first wife, Maria d’Avalos, and her lover, Fabrizio Carafa, in 1590—an event that would plague his conscience. Reports of the murders emphasize Gesualdo’s frenzied actions, while other apocryphal accounts detail extreme gore and brutality.³ Four years later, Gesualdo married Eleonora d’Este, which exposed him to the innovative music of the Ferrara court, a  city that had long been a hub of progressive musical activity.⁴ Here, Gesualdo published his first two books of madrigals in 1594, which showcased complex chromatic harmonies reflective of his inner turmoil.⁵ This transition, however, did not absolve his guilt; the weight of his past sins fueled his later acts of patronage, including the construction of two churches in Gesualdo—Santissimo Rosario (fig. 2) and Santa Maria delle Grazie (fig. 3)—the commissioning of Il Perdono di Gesualdo, and an accompanying collection of sacred music.

Early religious and familial connections informed Gesualdo’s patronage initiatives during the latter part of his life as he grappled with his impending mortality and fears of eternal torment. Born in 1566, Gesualdo was influenced by the Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, which shaped the practices of sacred imagery and veneration.⁶ Carlo Borromeo, his uncle and a central figure in this movement, guided Gesualdo’s ecclesiastical aspirations. Gesualdo’s subsequent artistic patronage manifested as an attempt to exert control over his destiny, driven by both his guilt over the murder of his wife and his growing religious zeal. As his health deteriorated and his mortality became increasingly imminent, he turned to religion not only to confront his past actions but also to amend his legacy. His patronage served as a means to realign his fate with the protective power of his uncle, Carlo Borromeo, whether earthly, heavenly, or imagined; the altarpiece Il Perdono di Gesualdo at Santa Maria delle Grazie would symbolize his effort to extend that influence over the fate of his soul.

This effort to secure his salvation is embodied in the altarpiece Il Perdono di Gesualdo, which was commissioned by the prince himself and painted by Giovanni Balducci. Installed in the Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Gesualdo, this work serves as a focal point for both his personal devotion and his legacy. Il Perdono di Gesualdo is structured into three distinct realms: a celestial realm featuring divine figures such as Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Archangel Michael, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Dominic, Mary Magdalene, and Saint Catherine of Siena; an earthly realm that includes representations of Saint Carlo Borromeo, Carlo Gesualdo, and Eleonora d’Este; and a fiery realm depicting winged figures rising above the waiting souls.⁷ While representations of hell were not uncommon in Post-Tridentine art, the choice to place the figures in purgatory reflects the era’s growing emphasis on intercession and the belief in the transformative power of divine mercy.

In the altarpiece, Borromeo stands beside Gesualdo, his hand firmly resting on Gesualdo’s shoulder. Gesualdo, on bent knee and with clasped hands, gazes upwards toward the heavenly realm with a penitent expression, while Borromeo gestures toward him, interceding on his behalf (fig. 4). The shared focus of both figures, their eyes directed toward Christ, suggests a united plea for Gesualdo’s acceptance into Heaven, which frames the work as a manifestation of Gesualdo’s desire for redemption amidst the weight of his past sins, namely murder and adultery. The juxtaposition of Gesualdo’s penitent stance and Borromeo’s protective gesture visually contrasts the human act of seeking redemption with the divine intercession that promises salvation. This pairing invites reflection on whether salvation can be achieved through artistic devotion—symbolized by Gesualdo’s commission of the altarpiece—or if true redemption requires the authenticity of one’s remorse. It is worth noting that Gesualdo intended for his musical composition, Tenebrae Responsoria (1611), to be performed in front of the altarpiece, further enhancing the depth of his plea.⁸

Carlo Borromeo’s life and work are crucial for understanding Gesualdo’s motivation for featuring his uncle as an intercessor in the altarpiece (fig. 4). Born in 1538 into the influential Borromeo family of Lombardy, which included Pope Pius IV, Borromeo became the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan in 1564, a position of great ecclesiastical power.⁹ Despite his family’s opulence, Borromeo chose a life of piety, undertaking barefoot pilgrimages across Italy to emphasize his devotion to God, opening his residence in Rome to pilgrims, and washing the feet of the destitute.¹⁰ Carlo Borromeo was beatified in 1602 by Pope Clement VIII and later canonized as a saint in 1610 by Pope Paul V. Il Perdono, at the time of its completion in 1609, features a rare instance of a non-divine figure acting as an intercessor with the divine. Gesualdo would have been aware of Borromeo’s canonization before his own death in 1611. Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae (Borromean Regulations) provided guidelines for aligning the physical spaces of churches with the spiritual objectives of Catholicism.¹¹ In his treatise, Borromeo emphasizes the importance of using art as a means of educating and inspiring devotion among the faithful. Gesualdo’s commission of Il Perdono adheres to Borromeo’s principles, reflecting a conscious effort by Borromeo to employ art within sacred spaces for both aesthetic and spiritual instruction.

In the later stages of his life, faced with illness, Gesualdo turned to Borromeo’s teachings, demonstrating his piety through acts of artistic patronage. This veneration is evident not only in Gesualdo’s desire to collect his uncle’s relics after his death but also in the prominent role Borromeo plays in Il Perdono. In correspondence with his cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Gesualdo requested a portrait of Carlo Borromeo and any relics that might alleviate his ailments. He received a portrait in 1611 and a sandal in 1612, along with additional relics. In a letter dated August 1, 1612, Gesualdo expressed his gratitude, stating:

I could not have expected or received a more precious or desired favor today from the kindness of Your Illustrious Lordship than what you graciously granted me with the sandal that the glorious San Carlo wore pontifically. I greeted and kissed it with great joy and consolation, but it will be preserved and held with due respect and devotion.¹²

This exchange underscores Gesualdo’s profound reverence for Borromeo and his commitment to seeking solace through relics associated with his uncle’s sanctity. Catherine Deutsch attributes Gesualdo’s fervor in obtaining these relics to his intention to erect a chapel for Borromeo at Santa Maria delle Grazie in the town of Gesualdo. In this devotional context, Gesualdo’s commission of the altarpiece emerges as a crucial element in his overarching plan for salvation, as he sought to honor his uncle while also seeking expiation for his own soul.

Gesualdo’s commission of Il Perdono reflected the influence of Carlo Borromeo’s Instructiones, which emphasized strict guidelines for creating sacred images that align with ecclesiastical practices and historical accuracy. Borromeo insisted that sacred art must avoid false or obscene representations, stressing the need to inspire piety:

... nothing false, uncertain or apocryphal should be represented, nothing superstitious, unusual, so too will be strictly avoided all that is profane, shameful or obscene, dishonest or lewd; and likewise all that is extravagant, that does not inspire men to piety, or that could offend the soul and the eyes of the faithful.¹³

Gesualdo’s Il Perdono served as both a personal expression of piety and a means of cultivating devotion among the faithful while adhering to Borromean principles. The altarpiece underscores the religious and instructive value of sacred images, reinforcing that such artworks should inspire reverence rather than merely serve aesthetic purposes. As Maurizio Vitta notes, Borromeo prioritized the religious significance of images over their formal qualities, insisting they avoid errors that could be exploited by Reformers.¹⁴

Most scholars have interpreted the altarpiece Il Perdono as an emotive and didactic tool reflecting Gesualdo’s desire for expiation.¹⁵ However, this view is not universally accepted. Annibale Cogliano, from the Carlo Gesualdo Study and Documentation Center, argues that Gesualdo’s motivations for commissioning the altarpiece and establishing two churches were less about atonement and more about family legacy and status. He asserts that the connection between the altarpiece, the churches, and Gesualdo’s past crimes is tenuous, suggesting that his acts of patronage stemmed from a desire for grandeur rather than a genuine quest for forgiveness.¹⁶ Cogliano posits that the interpretation of Il Perdono as a “canvas of forgiveness” emerged from a 19th-century rediscovery of Gesualdo, fueled by literary and religious figures captivated by his history of murder and innovative music. These individuals infused a contemporary romanticism into Gesualdo’s narrative, creating a redemptive lens through which to view the altarpiece. The religious atmosphere in southern Italy in Gesualdo’s time was deeply ingrained in everyday life, suggesting a “contractual aspect” to a sinner’s relationship with divinity, which diminishes the significance of Gesualdo’s altarpiece as a tool for expiation.¹⁷

In contrast, musicologist Glenn Watkins highlights the significance of the saints depicted in the altarpiece, all of whom faced and overcame demons, suggesting that Gesualdo’s intent was to surround himself with intercessors. Watkins presents a psychological profile of Gesualdo, linking his quest for redemption to the lyrics of his motets. He argues that, as Gesualdo reflected on his life, he recognized the insufficiency of time to enhance his legacy or erase past sins.¹⁸ Consequently, Gesualdo sought divine pardon through the commissioning of the altarpiece and by releasing his most mature musical works—Sacrae Cantiones I and II (1603) and Tenebrae Responsoria (1611)—previously kept private. Watkins views this decision as integral to Gesualdo’s pursuit of absolution in his final years.

Both Cogliano and Watkins focus narrowly on the altarpiece and only one other aspect of Gesualdo’s patronage. Cogliano examines patronage trends in early modern southern Italy, while Watkins emphasizes Gesualdo’s sacred music. This limited scope overlooks the interplay between Il Perdono, Gesualdo’s music, and architecture, particularly in relation to his complex relationship with Borromeo. Exploring these interconnected elements reveals richer dimensions in Gesualdo’s pursuit of redemption and illuminates the intricate links between his artistic endeavors and acts of patronage. Gesualdo’s altarpiece embodies the convergence of themes from Borromeo’s Instructiones, his own musical compositions, and fears of damnation, thereby encapsulating the complexity of his spiritual journey. Just as Borromeo’s Instructiones advocated for active participation in liturgical worship, Gesualdo’s altarpiece stands as a tangible manifestation of his quest for reconciliation and redemption. Additionally, Gesualdo composed and published a collection of sacred music intended for performance before the altarpiece.

Commissioned by Gesualdo himself, the altarpiece invites viewers into a contemplative space where themes of sin, repentance, and salvation converge, echoing the spiritual depth found in Gesualdo’s music and the teachings of Borromeo. Contrary to Cogliano’s assertion that Gesualdo commissioned the altarpiece and churches merely to enhance his family name, his various commissions and musical works collectively reinforced his plea for redemption.¹⁹ By integrating a program of sacred music in front of Il Perdono in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Gesualdo orchestrated a harmonious alignment of his artistic endeavors, enhancing the resonance and emotional impact of his plea. The interconnectedness of Gesualdo’s artistic endeavors illuminates the fervency of his quest for redemption. Each distinct work—musical compositions, architectural projects, and visual art commissions—contribute to the multifaceted nature of his supplication. Gesualdo’s endeavors represent a type of expiative plea, highlighting the ambiguous question of whether one can attain salvation through artistic devotion, while leaving us to ponder the sincerity of his quest for forgiveness—an answer that may remain forever elusive.

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William Chaudoin holds a BA in Italian from Vassar College and an MA in Art History from the George Washington University, where his research focused on the early modern period in southern Italy. His scholarship explores the ways in which art and architecture served as mediums of devotion and social influence.

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1. Cecil Gray and Peter Warlock, Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, Musician and Murderer (Greenwood Press, 1971); Glenn Watkins, The Gesualdo Hex: Music, Myth, and Memory (W.W. Norton, 2010); Catherine Deutsch, Carlo Gesualdo (Bleu Nuit Éditeur, 2010).

2. Watkins, Gesualdo Hex, 14.

3. The Gran Corte della Vicaria found Gesualdo innocent of a crime, with the report of the crime cataloged in the Archivio di Stato di Napoli. In The Gesualdo Hex: Music, Myth, and Memory (2010), Glenn Watkins examines how the cultural narrative surrounding the murder and Gesualdo’s reputation has cast doubt on the veracity of certain details, particularly the alleged trap set to catch his wife with her lover and the brutal nature of the murder itself.

4. Deutsch, Carlo Gesualdo, 64.  

5. Watkins, Gesualdo Hex, 20.

6. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) significantly reshaped Catholic practices and the production of devotional imagery by emphasizing the role of sacred images in educating the faithful and reinforcing doctrinal orthodoxy. As G. T. Harper notes in Carlo Borromeo’s Itineraries: The Sacred Image in Post-Tridentine Italy (2018), the Council’s directives led to a more controlled and didactic approach to art, ensuring that religious images were clear, accessible, and aligned with the reforms of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

7. Glenn Watkins interprets this depiction as representing purgatory, though the flames and the opening in the scene bear a striking resemblance to the imagery of Hell, particularly the traditional iconography of the mouth of Hell. Regardless of the specific realm depicted, this vision represents a fate that Gesualdo sought to avoid, reflecting his deep fear of divine retribution.

8. Watkins, Gesualdo Hex, 62.

9. Pope Pius IV (1499–1565), born Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici, was the uncle of Carlo Borromeo and played a pivotal role in the Catholic Reformation. His papacy was marked by the continuation of the Council of Trent, which was instrumental in shaping Catholic doctrine and liturgy in response to Protestant challenges. Pius IV’s influence and support were crucial in advancing the career of his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, within the church.

10. Anne H. Muraoka, The Path of Humility: Caravaggio and Carlo Borromeo (Peter Lang, 2015), 54.

11. Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae Et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae was first published in 1577 and stands as the only Tridentine treatise that deals with architecture. For more on its significance, see Robert Sénécal, “Carlo Borromeo’s Instructiones Fabricae Et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae and Its Origins in the Rome of His Time,” Papers of the British School at Rome 68 (2000): 241-67.

12. Deutsch, Carlo Gesualdo, 129. Translated from French by the author. Original French: “Je ne pouvais attendre ni recevoir aujourd’hui de la bonté Votre Seigneurie Illustrissime une grâce plus précieuse, ni plus désirée que celle que vous avez daigné me faire avec la Sandale que le glorieux saint Charles utilisait pontificalement. Je l’ai accueillie et embrassée avec une grande allégresse et consolation, mais elle sera conservée et tenue avec la vénération et la dévotion qu’il convient.”

13. Charles Borromeo, Stefano Della Torre, and Massimo Marinelli, Instructionum fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae: libri II Caroli Borromei (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), 71. Translated from Italian by the author. Original Italian: “Inoltre, nel dipingere o scolpire sacre immagini, come non si dovrà rappresentare nulla di falso, di incerto o apocrifo, di superstizioso, di insolito, così si eviterà rigorosamente tutto ciò che sia profano, turpe o osceno, disonesto o procace; e analogamente si eviterà tutto ciò che sia stravagante, che non stimoli gli uomini alla pietà, o che possa offendere l’animo e gli occhi dei fedeli.”

14. Maurizio Vitta, "La Questione delle Immagini nelle Instructiones di San Carlo Borromeo," in Instructionum fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae: libri II Caroli Borromei, eds. Charles Borromeo, Stefano Della Torre, and Massimo Marinelli (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), 390. Translated from Italian by the author. Original Italian: “Ciò che dunque sta a cuore al Borromeo—come lo era stato ai Padri conciliari—non era il carattere formale delle immagini, ma il loro valore religioso. Data per scontata la natura eminentemente informativa e didattica di esse, era necessario accertarsi che nulla nella loro configurazione potesse aprire un varco all’errore o prestare il fianco agli attacchi dei Riformati. Solo in questo senso vanno intese le minuziose indicazioni circa le figure da accettare o da rifiutare, gli attributi dei santi o il decoro degli atteggiamenti, delle vesti e degli ornamenti.”

15. Many scholars, including Alfredo Bosi, Cecil Gray, Catherine Deutsch, and Antonio Rattalino, have interpreted Il Perdono di Gesualdo as an emotive and didactic tool reflecting Gesualdo’s desire for expiation and redemption through artistic patronage. This view aligns with the broader understanding of the altarpiece as a visual manifestation of Gesualdo’s complex psychological state and religious zeal. However, not all interpretations agree with this view, with some scholars offering alternative readings of the work’s significance and its role in Gesualdo’s patronage within the context of Post-Tridentine religious reform.

16. Annibale Cogliano, “La pala del perdono: topos della seconda metà del XIX secolo,” Centro Studi e Documentazioni Carlo Gesualdo. http://carlogesualdo.altervista.org/pagine/pala_perdono.htm.

17. Cogliano, “La pala del perdono: topos della seconda metà del XIX secolo.”

18. Watkins, Gesualdo Hex, 89-90.

19. Cogliano, “La pala del perdono: topos della seconda metà del XIX secolo.”

Chicana/o/x Spiritual Memories: Layering in the Digital Print Work of Amalia Mesa-Bains

by Gilda Posada

Amalia Mesa-Bains was one of the first Chicana artists to work with digital print. I interpret Mesa-Bains’s printmaking process as a contemporary Chicana/o/x amoxtli, or manuscript. Reading Mesa-Bain’s printworks as an amoxtli that holds sacred memory and knowledge speaks to how Chicana/o/x artists like Mesa-Bains are rebuilding and rewriting the sacred books of knowledge that were burned by the Spanish conquistadores when they arrived in Mexico in 1519. Mesa-Bains’s printworks serve as a pathway for Chicana/o/x Indigeneity to exist in the past, present, and future, but more importantly, they demonstrate how Indigenous-matriarchal ancestral knowledge could be used to heal contemporary Chicana/o/x experiences in a neo-colonial society.

Before European contact with the Americas, the Mexica and surrounding Indigenous peoples in the Central Mexican Valley used pictorial manuscripts, called amoxtli, to document their understandings of the world and themselves. These amoxtli recorded information regarding Mexica ontology, cosmology, and epistemology, relating information on their creation story, history, science, homeland, government, census, tribute, and sacred ceremonies and rituals.¹ When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, they quickly learned that amoxtli and the sacred information within were housed in Mexica temples and government buildings. Thus, as part of their conquest, the Spanish burned or destroyed many of these manuscripts. Those that survived the early conquest were later burned by priests or Catholic church officials who saw the information in the codices as evil and in conflict with their conversion aims for the Indigenous peoples. Today, only fifteen known pre-conquest manuscripts survive. However, some early colonial Spanish friars and priests attempted to preserve the aspects of Mexica life captured in burned amoxtli by transcribing oral histories and tasking Mexica scribes with illustrating these manuscripts.² Over five hundred of these early colonial manuscripts survive, the most famous of which is Bernardino de Sahagún’s work with the Florentine Codex (1577). This essay concerns a lesser-known early colonial codex, the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano (1552), also known by its colonial names, Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis Badianus or the Badianus Manuscript: An Aztec Herbal.³

Amalia Mesa-Bains’ work, Badianus Botanicals: Bracero, is from her series Badianus Botanicals, which takes its name from the 1552 Codex. Badianus Botanicals: Bracero is a reclamation and remembrance of the Indigenous medicinal ancestral knowledge found in the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano. By layering imagery of remedies from the codex with contemporary imagery of braceros and the Southwestern United States landscape in her print work, Mesa-Bains offers a map that invites Chicana/o/x peoples to find the fragmented pieces of their body, mind, and spirit that they have lost or forgotten due to colonial violence. Amalia Mesa-Bains states:

To understand the artwork that is inspired by sacred sources it is important to establish the concept of memory. The relationship of memory to history is the connection between the past and the present, the old and the new. For the Chicana/o community there is no absence of memory, rather a memory of absence constructed from the losses endured in the destructive experience of colonialism and its aftermath. This redemptive memory heals the wounds of the past. Memory can be seen as a political strategy in work that reclaims history for the community. In a sense the art making inspired by the remembrances of the dead, the acts of healing and the reflections of the sacred can be seen as a politicizing spirituality.¹⁰

Badianus Botanicals: Bracero is a visual politicization of Chicana/o/x Indigenous-spirituality (fig. 1). The central figures in the print are three braceros, who are pictured in black and white. Braceros were Mexican exchange workers who came to the United States as part of the Bracero Program, which was in place from 1942 to 1964. The program contracted 4.5 million Mexicans to take temporary agricultural work in the United States. The Bracero Program had an important effect on the business of farming in the United States, yet braceros faced a significant amount of abuse and exploitation while participating in the program.¹¹ This mistreatment of the Bracero Program laid the foundation for the Chicana/o/x agricultural worker exploitation that took place in the 1960s across the Coachella Valley and Central Valley of California, which would ultimately lead to the creation of the United Farm Workers Union in 1966.¹² By centering braceros in her work, Mesa-Bains is recalling the laws, histories, and colonial violence that have been imposed onto the brown Indigenous body. The mostly forgotten Bracero Program was rooted in the commodification and dehumanization of the Indigenous body, whose worth was only measured in terms of its labor.

The invisibility of women in this print is intentional, as many of the braceros’s families were left in Mexico. Today, similar socio-economic hardships and immigration policies continue to be the reasons behind family separation and for the militarization of the United States-Mexico border. Neo-colonial policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, drug violence, armed conflict, and corrupt governments in Latin America backed by the United States continue to force the migration of Indigenous peoples from Mexico and Central America toward the United States. Violence, dehumanization, and oppression of the Indigenous body might be more visible when it comes to working conditions, but family separation and continued forced migration practices that cause people to be removed from their ancestral homelands are also forms of continued colonial violence. Indigenous women are often the ones left to carry the consequences, especially when the majority of their husbands migrate to the United States as a means of survival in order to send money back home to their wives and children. In Mesa-Bains’s print, the image of the braceros is in black and white, signaling a collapsing of time between the past and present day, where family separation persists due to neo-colonialism continuing to force migration of Indigenous peoples. The braceros become a marker of time, a proof of existence in this print. The past and present come together to make them the main characters of the story that Mesa-Bains is telling, and there is no erasure of their existence or their humanity in this contemporary amoxtli.

Amalia Mesa-Bains offers a remedy to the pain that her community continues to endure by remembering her Indigenous-ancestral healing practices in the form of images from the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano. Specifically, she references images from Plate 22 , which depicts three different medicines, each of which are laid over a different bracero (fig. 2). They are macayelli, xoxouhquipahtli seeds, and tlaquilin leaves, which, when combined, provide medicine for ear pain. This information is written in Latin under the drawing of the herbs on Plate 22, with detailed instructions for their preparation and use.¹³

In her print, Amalia Mesa-Bains keeps the Latin portion of the original manuscript but relocates the text to the top of the print. Additionally, she changes the color of the ink in which it is written. Instead of the original brown ink, Mesa-Bains uses a transparent white ink that fades into the background of the print. This white color directly connects to the bracero figures. When seen together, the two become one, implying that Mesa-Bains is creating a link between two different moments in time. There are several ways to interpret their unity. The first is that Mesa-Bains is offering medicine to the braceros who are in pain, the second is that she is offering them healing for their exploitation and dehumanization at the hands of colonial powers. A third interpretation is that she is offering medicine to American citizens who have fallen deaf to the cries of these neo-colonial victims, medicine for them to open their ears and bear witness—if not act—to the cries of those who are in pain due to their exploited labor in both the past and present.

The use of Latin points to the ongoing violent histories of European colonialism in Mesoamerica. Mesa-Bains visualizes the blood and destruction that the Catholic church has on their hands by deploying the language used to justify violence and forced assimilation for Chicana/o/x peoples. Elsewhere, she uses Nahuatl in her print to honor the Indigenous medicine and her ancestral connection to Indigenous knowledge. The tension of being caught between worlds can be seen in the text overlayed on the remedy instructions. In red font Mesa-Bains writes, “In the condition of displacement we experience our own landscape of longing. They are the sites of memory and spirituality that sustain us in times of extremity and loss.” She is acknowledging the losses caused by displacement and the transformation of Indigenous peoples into proletarianized subjects on the settler-colonial stage. At the same time, she points to the resilience and endurance of Indigenous peoples despite colonial destruction. Mesa-Bains is calling ancestral memory and spirits who have walked on this land to be the primary tool for Chicana/o/x peoples to survive. However, it is that same spirit that needs the medicine to heal and continue to endure.

The remedy that Mesa-Bains chose for this print is one which is vital to cure as soon as the illness begins because it can cause susto or loss of tonalli.¹⁴ According to Mexica belief, tonalli, or life-force, lives in the head.¹⁵ An individual can slowly lose their tonalli and eventually perish through susto, or spiritual fright, that enters the body through their mouth, ears, or eyes.¹⁶ The remedy that Mesa-Bains brings forward is categorized as a cure for remedying the tonalli due to a sickness in the ears, one that must be applied quickly. Mesa-Bains is directing the viewer’s attention to the sense of hearing and listening especially as it relates to susto and the “memory of absence.”¹⁷ By visually layering painful Chicana/o/x histories, imagery of colonialism, and the physical exploitation of Chicana/o/x peoples, Mesa-Bains is reminding the viewer that the memory of colonialism is not lost, but rather that to change the condition of the present and future, one must heal the trauma or susto that has been inflicted onto the Indigenous body throughout centuries of violence. She is providing relief to the ears and restoration of spirit or tonalli for those that live with pain due to the physical, mental, and spiritual exploitation they face. However, it is important to note that the remedy selected by Mesa-Bains is one that requires daily treatment and calls for all aspects of a plant's life cycle to be used: seeds, leaves, bushes, and roots. It also requires that the plants be taken through various transformations before they can be used as a cure, such as cutting, boiling, grinding, and rubbing. With this, Mesa-Bains is signaling that healing and restoring the tonalli will not be easy and that it will be a long and hard process. She is pointing to the importance of listening to past experiences so that future Chicanas/os/xs will not forget and instead learn from the experiences, memories, and spirits of their ancestors.

In Badianus Botanicals: Bracero, the landscape also reveals one last important layer to the Chicana/o/x experience: that of mother earth, who gave birth to Chicana/o/x-Indigenous ancestors. The landscape in this print is from a United States-Mexico border crossing desert region, identifiable by the topography and flora depicted in the background. The cacti are reminiscent of the creation story of the Mexica, who spent hundreds of years on a journey across the United States Southwest and Northern Mexico desert regions being guided by Huitzilopochtli to the place where they would establish their homelands.¹⁸ By including the Southwest desert, Mesa-Bains is not only reminding Chicanas/os/xs of their Indigenous ancestry tied to a place and time, but also the contemporary pains caused by the displacement of Indigenous peoples from their homelands across the global South. Badianus Botanicals: Bracero is an amoxtli and pictorial reminder that the relationship between humans and land is the medicine that will keep the Chicana/o/x spirit and peoples moving forward despite the hardships that they continue to face.

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Gilda Posada is a Xicana art historian, artist, and curator from Southeast Los Angeles. She received her AB from UC Davis and her MFA and MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. Currently, Gilda is a PhD candidate in History of Art at Cornell University.

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1. Elizabeth H. Boone, "Central Mexican Pictorials,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. Davíd Carrasco (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 155-158.

2. María Elena Briseno, “Códices: Los antiguos libros del nuevo mundo,” in Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 24, no. 81 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 2002): 175-178. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0185-12762002000200008&lng=es&nrm=iso.

3. The Codex de la Cruz-Badiano is known by several names such as: Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis Badianus, Badianus Manuscript, and Codex Barberini.

4. “The Badianus Manuscript,” World Research Foundation. http://www.wrf.org/ancient-medicine/badianus-manuscript-americas-earliest-medical-book.php.

5. EC Del Pozo, “Prefacio,” in Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, by Martín De la Cruz, trans. Juan Badiano (Mexico City: Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, 1964).

6. Andrés Aranda et a,. “La materia medica en el Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis,” Revista de la Facultad de Medicina 46, no. 1 (2003): 13. https://www.medigraphic.com/pdfs/facmed/un-2003/un031d.pdf.

7. The sequence of the remedies starts with the head and ends at the feet, signaling some correspondence to the thirteen upper worlds, and seven underworlds that the Mexica believed ruled all forces and beings.

8. Carlos Viesca T. and Andrés Aranda, “Las Alteraciones del Sueño en el Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 26 (December 27, 1996): 156.

9. Carlos Jair García-Guerrero and Feliciano Blanco-Dávila, “La cirugía plástica y el Códice De La Cruz-Badiano,” Revista Medicina Universitaria 6, no. 22 (2004): 52.

10. Amalia Mesa-Bains, "Spiritual Visions in Contemporary Art," in Imagenes E Historia/Images and Histories: Chicana Altar-Inspired Art, eds. Constance Cortez and Amalia Mesa-Bains (Medford, MA: Tufts University, 2000), 2.

11. "Opportunity or Exploitation: The Bracero Program,” The National Museum of American History. http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_51_5.html.

12. From 1953-1954 concerns were raised across states that held a large bracero presence, such as Texas and California. The concerns were due to assimilation resistance coming from bracero and Mexican immigrants, along with the large number of border crossings occurring during an economic decline in the United States. Additionally, the end of the Bracero Program on December 31, 1964 set the baseline for many other immigration policies in the United States, such as Operation Wetback, Operation Gatekeeper, and the formation of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service.

13. Translation from William Gates 1939 publication: Festering in the ears will be helped the most by instilling the root of the maza-yelli, seeds of xoxouhqui-patli plant, some leaves of the tlaquilin with a grain of salt in hot water. Also the leaves of two bushes, rubbed up, are to be smeared below the ears; these bushes are called tolova and tlapatl; also the precious stones tetlahuitl, tlacahuatzin, eztetl, xoxouhqui chalchihuitl, with the leaves of the tlatanquaye tree macerated in hot water, ground together and put in the stopped up ears, will open them.

14. Aranda et al., “La materia medica en el Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis,” 17.

15. Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, “Time and the Ancestors,” in The Early Americas: History and Culture, eds. Corinne L. Hofman and Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen Vol. 5 (Boston, MA: Brill, 2017), 18-19.

16. Teresa Cupryn, “La expresión cósmica de la danza azteca,” Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales 37, no. 147 (1992): 45.

17. Mesa-Bains, "Spiritual Visions in Contemporary Art,” 2.

18. Patricia Chicueyi-Coatl Juarez, “How to Read Amoxtin,” Online Workshop UC Gill Tract Community Farm. Albany, California, May 23, 2020.