Title: Cotzij
Year: 2005
Technique: Print on cotton fabric
Size: 140 x 170 cm
Title: Ixchel
Year: 2024
Technique: Print on cotton fabric
Size: 140 x 170 cm
Guatemala, 1961. Director, producer, writer, and visual artist. Her artwork has been showcased in galleries and museums in several countries in Latin America and Europe, and in the United States. Her photographs from the Neo Geo-Grafía and Mestizas series are featured in permanent collections such as the Museum of Latin American Art.
Her installations and video art have won awards at the Gramado Festival in Montecatini, Brazil; the Dublin Ibero-American Film Festival; the Istmo Central American Biennial and the Inter-American Biennial organized by IDB in Washington, DC, United States; and the Self-Revelations Award to Central American Photographic Artists at Itsmo UNISMuseum Rozas-Botrán, Guatemala. Riedel has exhibited in museums and biennials, winning important recognitions.
This work from Verónica Riedel’s series The Making of a Mestiza elevates indigenous women to a position of prestige, challenging the way they were treated in Latin America during and after the Spanish conquest. A ‘mestiza’ refers to a woman of mixed indigenous and European descent, representing one of the many racial categories that were instituted in Latin America to establish social, economic, and political hierarchies. These categories favored people of European lineage while limiting the rights of indigenous people, Africans, and mestizos. Riedel uses portraits, a genre of painting and photography previously only associated to the elite, to deliberately shift the narrative away from viewing these women as victims. Instead, the artwork depicts them as “queens,” celebrating their struggles and strengths.
