Venus envy : chapters I-IV

Venus Envy is the eighth book in the CHICANX/LATINX SERIES from bookmaker Felicia Rice and Moving Parts Press. This accordion book chronicles Amalia Mesa-Bain’s series of autobiographical altar-installations undertaken between 1993 and 2008, combining historic photographs with texts by art historian and critic Jennifer A. González. The book situates the life stages of the Chicana artist—early childhood through old age—within a historical continuum from the time of the Aztec Empire, to the colonial period of European expansion, to the present. Mesa-Bains plays with a multicultural iconography to negotiate the liminal spaces between folk and fine art, tradition and innovation, and Latin heritage and contemporary Chicano culture.