Somewhere Over El Arco Iris: Chicano Landscapes, 1971—2015, is the Museum of Latin American Art’s (MoLAA’s) first exhibition to present works solely by Southern California-based Chicano artists.
The exhibition contains 25 artworks, on loan from significant collections, including The Cheech Marin Collection and the AltaMed Art Collection. Highlights include two seminal paintings by Carlos Almaraz and Frank Romero. Julian Bermudez, guest curator, has organized an exhibition that touches on a critical period in art history when Chicano artists were trying to define and express themselves while the LA art scene, as a whole, was redefining the boundaries of contemporary artistic expression.
Presenting a fraction of the diverse range of media and styles seen in Chicano Art, this exhibition by no means aims to illustrate a survey of the entire Chicano Art Movement, according to MoLAA.
Through the presentation of landscapes spanning 40 years— from traditional to avant-garde interpretations— the exhibition will introduce audiences to this unique school of American art.
Featured in the exhibition are paintings, drawings, photo-based and mixed media artworks, and rare studies by artists such as Carlos Almaraz, Yolanda González, Gronk, Wayne Alaniz Healy and David Botello, Ramses Noriega, Frank Romero, Jamex and Einar de la Torre, John Valadez, Patssi Valdez, Shizu Saldamando, Roberto Gutiérrez, and Jose Ramirez, all vanguards of their respective generations.
Man One, Jaime “Germs” Zacarias, Vyal Reyes and Johnny KMDZ Rodriguez— street artists whose creative expression may have been informed by those who preceded them, but whose work expands beyond the preoccupations of their trailblazing predecessors— have been invited to create new, original artworks inspired by some of the works on view in the exhibition. These artists represent a new generation of contemporary Chicano/Latino artists in Southern California and the United States.
In his essay “Reflection on the Chicano Art Movimiento, a Primer,” Armando Vazquez wrote that modern American art began as a closed shop, “racist, aloof, pretentious and elitist,” and would stay that way until the early 1950s, when “Chicanos, Jews, Blacks, Native Americans, and women, by singular sheer artistic genius and courage, were able to penetrate this monolith known as ‘American art and culture.'” Vazquez says the “wall of exclusion and segregation came tumbling down” in the 1960s.
This wall of exclusion began to fall first in Southern California— primarily in Los Angeles— where a fundamental shift in the cultural landscape was taking place. The birth of Chicano art coincided with the birth of LA as a center for contemporary art and artistic innovation, specific to Southern California; art being made here was very different from the art being made on the East Coast or in Europe.
California experienced an era of significant social change during the 1960s and 1970s. From the Free Speech Movement in 1964 and the Watts Riots in South Central Los Angeles in 1965 to the Chicano Moratorium in 1970, issues such as racial equality, education reform, environmental awareness and women’s rights were challenging established cultural canons. Inspired by social transformations, Chicano artists created unprecedented visual styles and presented highly conceptual forms of communication.
The exhibit will be on display until Nov. 15. MoLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Ave. For more information, call (562) 437-1689 or visit molaa.org .
