Biography

“Alma López is one of the most visible Chicana artists active today,” says Art History Prfessor Charlene Villaseñor Black. “She is prominent because of her cutting edge artworks as well as her feminist activism.”

Lopez gained notoriety in 2001, when the Catholic Church attempted to censor her digital print, Our Lady, which was showcased in the exhibition Cyber Arte: Where Technology Meets Tradition, curated by Tey Marianna Nunn at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The 9-month controversy took on local, national, and international importance, and brought questions of community representation, institutional autonomy in a public museum, and an artist’s first-amendment rights into bold relief. Since the so-called “riots” of 1992, Lopez has dedicated herself to art and activism that bridges the city’s various ethnic communities. She has helped to establish several collaborative arts groups, which worked on such issues as immigration, race relations, labor, sexism, and sexuality.