#  Reimagining Casta Paintings with Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez 

 



   ![Table of ‘Castas’](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/measuring-difference/files/casta_low.png?itok=C2HwiHR1) 

 

*Table of 'Castas'. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. Reproduced via CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.*In the 18th century, Spanish elites in colonial Mexico used paintings to classify people based on their racial background and appearance. This socially constructed system was called the ‘casta’ system. In this painting, the 16 rectangles in a grid represent an almost mathematical formula for the mixing of different racial “types,” moving from left to right: a+b=c, c+d=e, and so on. The final row includes such derogatory terms as “tente en el aire” (“hold yourself in the air”) and “no te entiendo” (“I don’t understand you”), showing how the project of rigid racial mathematics breaks down even on its own terms as people defied categorization.

   ![Detail of Loba Garifuna by Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez,](/sites/g/files/omnuum7766/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/loba_garifuna_detail_1.jpg?itok=4D3Ul5mY) 

 

Loba Garifuna is a reimagining of the 18th century Casta paintings for a contemporary world where some bodies are still perceived as threats. Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez traces the bodies of Latina women in the TSA search pose, using ink “to create a ‘stained’ aesthetic—a reference to colonial justifications of genocide” based on skin color. The animal mask speaks to the racist belief that miscegenation led to a degeneration of the human species. The peineta, a Spanish comb, alludes to the imperial origins of racial categories in Latin America.

Born in Colombia to an American father and Colombian mother, Friedemann-Sanchez straddled cultures and languages from her youth. Like thousands before her, Friedemann-Sánchez fled the violence caused by the rise of the Medellín cartel and settled in New York, before moving to the Midwest. Her art challenges us to imagine the exchange and clash of different worlds, and how people entering and leaving these words are viewed and surveyed.