Virgin
Date: 2006
Region: North America
Subject: Religious
Medium: Painting
Artist: Anna-Marie Lopez
Confronting Bodies: Centro Cultural Aztlan
Date of Action: 2006
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Description of Artwork: Lopez's Virgin is a large painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe. In Lopez's painting, the Virgen is naked except for a blue mantle and a strategically placed serpent; she wears a human heart on a strand around her neck and stands behind a barbed-wire fence.
The Incident: Lopez's Virgin was selected for inclusion in the Centro Cultural Aztlan's Galeria Expresion. However, four days before the exhibit went up, Centro decided to reject the painting. It appears that the reason the work was rejected was the non-traditional way it represented the Virgen, which the Centro saw as a potential source of controversy.
Results of Incident: Lopez's painting did not go up in Centro's exhibition.
Source: Elaine Wolff's article "Virgen Matricides" which can be found at www.anna-marielopez.com/interview/reviews.html; National Coalition Against Censorship