Pretty in pink: David Antonio Cruz’s portrait of the florida girls

Abstract

Roused by the deaths of five African American transgender women in Florida in 2018, artist David Antonio Cruz intervenes in inaccurate media reports about these murders. Painting portrait of the florida girls in 2019, his diptych of significant scale and palette, confronts this senseless violence and challenges sensationalized coverage. This article centralizes his work arguing for the ways in which Cruz innovates transgender of color visibility through a queer of color critiquing of the portrait form and concerted use of a ‘blacktino’ optic. Ruminating on the combined tragedies of gun violence at Pulse nightclub and serial murder of trans femmes, Cruz’s work interrogates the posthumous transgender image with a reversal of digital source material and bodily logics in pose and countenance. By turning to the transnational crossroads shaping these communities’ shared horrors, central Florida, Cruz activates his audience with a sense of urgency in the persuasive power of pink.

Keywords

blacktino optics gun violence hacking Orlando posthumous outing Puerto Rican art Pulse Nightclub queer necropolitics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aranda-Alvarado

(2017) Among the islands: Dominican art at home and abroad. In: Flores

Stephens

(eds) Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 205–216.

Baldwin

Begnaud

(2018) Hurricane Maria caused an estimated 2,975 deaths in Puerto Rico, new study finds. CBS News, Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-maria-death-toll-puerto-rico-2975-killed-by-storm-study-finds/ (accessed 23 January 2020).

Binlot

(2019) David Antonio Cruz, the artist giving LGTBQ victims of violence a place in art history. Above the Fold. Available at: https://www.documentjournal.com/2019/10/david-antonio-cruz-the-artist-giving-lgtbq-victims-of-violence-a-place-in-art-history/ (accessed 23 January 2020).

Capó

Jr (2016) Pulse and the long history of violence against queer Latinos. Time. Available at: http://time.com/4372479/queer-latino-violence-history/ (accessed 23 January 2020).

Capó

Jr (2017) Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Fitzsimons

(2018) String of transgender murders could be the work of a serial killer, activists fear. NBC News. Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/string-transgender-murders-could-be-work-serial-killer-activists-fear-n886801 (accessed 23 January 2020).

Getsy

(2017) Queer relations. ASAP/Journal 2(2): 254–257.

Getsy

with Simmons

(2015) Appearing differently: Abstraction’s transgender and queer capacities. In: Erharter

, et al. (eds) Pink Labour on Golden Streets: Queer Art Practices. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 38–55.

Gossett

(2016) Pulse, beat, rhythm, cry: Orlando and the queer and trans necropolitics of loss and mourning. Verso. Available at: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2747-pulse-beat-rhythm-cry-orlando-and-the-queer-and-trans-necropolitics-of-loss-and-mourning (accessed 23 January 2020).

10.

Halberstam

(2005) In a Queer Time & Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press.

11.

Human Rights Campaign Foundation (2018) A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in America in 2018. Washington, DC: Human Rights Campaign Foundation, Available at: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/AntiTransViolence-2018Report-Final.pdf?_ga=2.21527163.1797747549.1579808712-1673849627.1579808712 (accessed 23 January 2020).

12.

Johnson

Rivera-Servera

(2016) Introduction: Ethnoracial intimacies in blacktino queer performance. In: Johnson

Rivera-Servera

(eds) Blacktino Queer Performance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1–18.

13.

Moraga

(2015) Entering the lives of others: Theory in the flesh. In: Anzaldúa

Moraga

(eds) This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 4th edn. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 19.

14.

Muñoz

(2009) Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York, NY: New York University Press.

15.

Ocasio

(2019) Puerto Ricans who fled to Orlando after Hurricane María struggled more than those in South Florida, study finds. Orlando Sentinel. Available at: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/weather/hurricane/puerto-rico-hurricane-recovery/os-ne-study-puerto-ricans-florida-mental-health-20190201-story.html (accessed 23 January 2020).

16.

Patil

(2020) How a march for Black trans lives became a huge event. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/nyregion/brooklyn-black-trans-parade.html (accessed 18 June 2020).

17.

Padilla

(2016) Father refused to claim Pulse nightclub victim. Orlando Latino. Available at: http://orlandolatino.org/2016/06/father-refused-claim-pulse-nightclub-shooting-victim/ (accessed 23 January 2020).

18.

Ramos

(2007) Elia Alba. In: Ramos

(ed.) Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 82–85.

19.

Ring

(2018) Florida sees fifth homicide of trans woman this year. Advocate. Available at: https://www.advocate.com/crime/2018/9/13/florida-sees-fifth-homicide-trans-woman-year (accessed 23 January 2020).

20.

Salamon

(2018) The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia. New York: New York University Press.

21.

Tang

(2017) Contemporary art and critical transgender infrastructures. In: Gossett

, et al. (eds) Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 363–392.

22.

Tauber

, et al. (2016) Terror in Orlando: Unspeakable horror, unending heartbreak. People, 40–47.

23.

Wolf

Cordeiro

(2018) A transgender woman died in Orlando today, and how it was reported was awful. Orlando Weekly. Available at: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/07/19/a-transgender-woman-died-in-orlando-today-and-how-it-was-reported-was-awful (accessed 23 January 2020).