Chapter 13: Curricul-arte: Artist Acts of Autohistoria-teoría Within Borderlands Espacios

The art canons (art history texts, art teaching resources, and art curricula) reflect “white standards of success” in higher education (García, 2019, p. 3; Davila, 2020; Gaztambide-Fernandez et al., 2017). Subsequently, Latina/x and Chicana/x art and pedagogies are limited in the canons. This lack of representation is a result of the erasure, stereotyping, and exclusion of Latina/x artists and scholars from the art history canons (Davila, 2020). For instance, Chicana/o art is commonly regarded as “exotic” or “ethnic” (Davalos, 2017a, p. 13). Chicana Art Historian Karen Mary Davalos argues, “Chicano art has played the role of the unicorn. It is rarely cited within art historical scholarship or museums ... and is largely mythologized” (Dávalos, 2017b, p. 141). Neither fully accepted nor represented in the art history canons, Chicano and Latino art “move[s] p’adelante, p’atrás—forward and backward, in nepantla—between art history and ethnic studies, and between American and Latin American Art” (Villaseñor, 2015, p. 115). Xicanx art exists as “either a place of invisibility or negative overvisibility—in a sense a ’no place’... a strange subalternity that Xicanx art occupies ... is a direct reflection of the class, ethnic, and racial prejudices affixed to Xicanx” that does not recognize Xicana/os as legitimate U.S. citizens (Fajardo-Hill, 2024, p. 19). The erasure and negative “overvisibility” of Latinx and Chicanx art, combined with crippling deficit languages, are barriers to creating and supporting curricula and pedagogies that represent and support Latinx students in higher education.