DELILAH MONTOYA

LA LLORONA IN LILLITH'S GARDEN #1 & #2

Site-specific installations in collaboration with Tina Hernandez

Details of installation

ABOUT THE SERIES:

During the summer of 1996, Montoya assembled an installation in a bathroom in a hotel room at the Hotel Santa Fe in New Mexico, where she began to understand Llorona as a monster who was used culturally to scare women straight.  This room was converted into Llorona’s room, complete with her trappings, like water and a grapevine with exposed roots to resemble wire-like hair.  Cherubs float on the walls.  A shower curtain is screen printed with a line of young female faces expressing shock.  Tossed onto the bathroom floor are green prom high-heels and, for reading entertainment, the tabloids about the heinous newborn killings.  Graffiti-ed on the wall is the installation’s title, For a Good Time Call 1-900-Llorona.  

Later in 2004, Montoya collaborated with Tina Hernandez on a similar site-specific installation, La Llorona in Lillith’s Gardens, which consists of two photographic murals printed on canvas (20’ x 8’ and 10’ x 8’) created for El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe.  The sensual and mesmerizing photographic installation brings together two archetypal figures thought to have betrayed their husbands and murdered their children.  According to folklore, both Lillith and La Llorona continue to haunt the terrestrial realm as evil spirits.  These women were presented as monsters and constructed to send a lesson to young girls on how to behave or how they should feel about these sorts of “monstrous women.”  The installation provocatively explores the traditional double standards that determine appropriate behavior for women and invests these female archetypes with new meaning. This image was exhibited in numerous venues between 2004 and 2011.  

Details of Installation