As women push for equality and bring conversations about feminism to new levels around the world, female artists today are participating in the narrative as equals. In Latin America, art produced by women is expanding the boundaries of this conversation, and the exhibition Give Me What You Ask For at Americas Society showcases exactly that. “If you are a woman and you’re from Central America and you are working from there, it becomes in a way political,” says artist Priscilla Monge, the winner of Costa Rica’s 2018 Francisco Amighetti National Award for Visual Arts, who is exhibiting along with fellow Tica artist Victoria Cabezas.

“They think about tradition in critical terms, meaning patriarchy, aspects of conservatism, which include religion, morality, family, the state, society,” says Americas Society Chief Curator Gabriela Rangel of Monge and Cabezas. “They think about this panoply of aspects that make the world difficult for women.” In this video about the exhibition, Monge explains about her process producing pieces made of sanitary napkins. Cabezas describes what motivated her banana series, and curator Miguel A. López talks about why the work from the two Costa Rican artists from two different generations needed to be together in one room. 

• Learn more about Victoria Cabezas and Priscilla Monge: Give Me What You Ask For, on view at the Americas Society Visual Arts gallery through May 4, 2019.

Video by Luisa Leme.
Exhibition photography by Beatriz Meseguer.
Soundtrack by Megman Music (Manny Oquendo)/Arr. Edmundo Ramírez. Performed at Americas Society in New York.