Desde el empoderamiento. Imágenes extremas contra el capitalismo patriarcal globalizador: combatividad y resistencia frente al feminicidio mexicano y la desterritorialización chicana

Abstract

A través de la obra de la mexicana Lorena Wolffer y de las chicanas Alma Lorena López Ureña y Ester Hernández, cuyas imágenes extremas son muestra de su resistencia y combatividad, será denunciado el capitalismo patriarcal, el mismo que controla los cuerpos de las mujeres dentro de las redes trasnacionales de capital establecidas entre México y Estados Unidos. La búsqueda de mano de obra femenina en la frontera tras la instalación de las maquiladoras1 , ha ocasionado una pobreza femenina cuyo grado alto de exclusión ha permitido que el feminicidio quede impune. Al otro lado de la frontera, las chicanas lucharán para dejar de ser las oprimidas por la cultura imperialista de tinte patriarcal y capitalista que ejerce los Estados Unidos, para, desde su empoderamiento como mujeres de color, pasar a subvertir la dominación blanca y colonial del mundo adscrita a patrones masculinos, racistas y conservadores.

ABSTRACT: The aim of the article is to demonstrate one of the most characteristic and at the same time most overlooked qualities of Francesca Woodman’s photographs – decapitation, or more specifically auto-decapitation of picture’s subject. The act of beheading by the picture frame cannot be interpreted as a technical aspect or as the artist’s lack of control over the shooting process. Neither should it be comprehended as a project of anti-biography. A more convincing interpretation can be founded on the association of Woodman’s work with such surrealist dissidents as Michel Leiris, André Masson, and Georges Bataille. The act of auto-decapitation for Leiris is obligatory in order to address oneself since one is never able to see him- or herself fully. For Bataille decapitation represents the human revolt against one’s form, viewed as an act of liberation. Woodman initiates the inter-textual play with the figure of the Acephalé (headless) known from the surrealists’ writings and art (Masson). She perpetuates the revolutionary message while modifying it by implementing the female body. But the result is opposite to the straightforward critique of women’s decapitation as an act of men’s oppression. Woodman’s Acephala break up with conventional representation and uses of the body – in this way her art becomes familiar with affirmative reflections on the hysterical body by authors including Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva.