Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this document, independent scholar Max Benavidez sets out to establish a working definition of post-Chicano art. He suggests that early on there were two commonly held views of Chicano identity articulated in visual production: one that glorified [...]

This document is a brief introduction to the major conceptual underpinnings of the 1990 exhibition and symposium, Post-Chicano Generation in Art: Breaking Boundaries. Liz Lerma Bowerman suggests that while the definition of post-Chicano art has yet [...]

In this interview of art historian Tomás Ybarra-Frausto by professor Michael Dear, the latter asks a series of questions related to Ybarra-Frausto’s impressions and experiences of the Chicano cultural project since its development in the 1960s as [...]

This document is a transcript of part of a talk given by José Montoya, an artist and member of the collective known as the Royal Chicano Air Force, at the International Congress organized by the Association for the Diffusion of the Study of Latino [...]

This document is a transcript of a conference presentation given by art historian Shifra M. Goldman. In her talk, she defends the validity of contemporary Latin American and Chicano art as fields of study for art historians, criticizing detractors [...]

This document by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto details the founding of La Galería de la Raza in San Francisco Mission District in July 1970. Conceived as a space for the development and promotion of Chicana/o visual artists, the Galería also functioned as [...]

This document is an essay by Shifra M. Goldman in which she proposes that contemporary art criticism is in a state of crisis, a situation she attributes to the “problematics of modernism.” Goldman argues that art criticism’s internal turmoil is [...]

This document is an editorial within a newsletter published by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte [The School of the North Border]. It describes the work of the painter Malaquías Montoya and declares that he is responsible for the first mural painted [...]

In this document, Professor Amelia Malagamba discusses the practice of altar making, a traditional form of cultural production from Mexico that has been further developed by Chicano artists living in the United States. Her focus is on articulating a [...]

In this document, Margarita Nieto interviews Frank Romero about his career as an artist as well as the current state of Chicano art. The artist opens up about his role in the artist collective, Los Four, and shares his thoughts on the basic tenets of [...]

This document is a grant proposal made by the Concilio de Arte Popular: State Coalition of La Raza Artists to secure funding for the development of a twelve-member organizing board to make collective decisions regarding various aspects of Chicano/ [...]

This a letter requesting support for the promotion of the first international conference of Chicano art, organized by Santa Barraza and Consuelo Avila in 1979. The stated objective of the conference is to provide an overview of the history and [...]

This document, composed in 1978 by writer José Armas, is a report on the state of the organization, Revolución Artística y Acción Social (RAYAS), and is also an appeal for action on outstanding issues. RAYAS, a group founded by Armas and other [...]

This brief document by writer José Armas summarizes the ideas of a group of Chicano writers and artists from the states of Washington, California, Texas, and New Mexico who met in Lubbock, Texas, with the intention of forming an artistic and [...]

This essay is a review of the 1979 exhibition of pastel drawings by Rupert Garcia at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as a “manifesto” by poet and artist José Montoya on the state of the relationship between Chicano artists and [...]

This is a brief review of the state of Chicano mural production in New Mexico at the time of this publication in 1978. It includes a short personal and artistic biography of the author, the New Mexican muralist Francisco Lefebre, and articulates his [...]

Written by art historian Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, this document represents a chronology of important social and cultural developments in Chicano art. Beginning in 1959 with an exhibition organized around the MAPA (Mexican American Political Association [...]

In this statement, Gilbert Sanchez Lujan, a founding member of the Los Angeles Chicano art collective Los Four, recounts his personal history as a Chicano artist and an advocate for Chicano art. He cites his curatorial practice in an exhibition of [...]

In this brief statement, Gilbert Sanchez Lujan, artist and founding member of the Los Angeles Chicano art collective, Los Four, defines the term “pocho” as it relates to Chicano art and cultural identity. Pocho, previously employed by Mexicans as [...]

In this document, art historian and professor Margarita Nieto discusses the 1989 exhibition, Los Angeles Latino Artists, in which fifteen Los Angeles-based Latino artists reflect on the experience of the city in their production. She suggests that [...]

In this essay, art historian Jennifer A. González examines the works of six Chicano/a photographers: Miguel Gandert, Delilah Montoya, Harry Gamboa, Jr., Kathy Vargas, Christina Fernandez, and Robert C. Buitrón. She compares the formal and [...]

This document is a statement by Chicano artist Malaquías Montoya on the relationship between art and politics. The author suggests that these are always inextricably linked to one another and that nowhere is this more evident than in the structure [...]

This is a statement by Chicano artist Malaquías Montoya. he emphasizes the need to develop a socially engaged artistic practice that can serve as a tool for education and social change. It underscores the degree to which art has been fundamental in [...]

In this article, Raquel Tibol reviews the exhibition Artistas Mexico Americanos de San Francisco, California held at Loteria Nacional in Mexico City’s in 1987 and featuring the works of 29 Mexican-American artists, including Ray Patlan, Carmen [...]

This is a transcript of the presentation made by the Panel on Hispanic Americans and the Arts to the National Council on the Arts in November 1977. The statement—published in English and Spanish—takes issue with the ways in which Hispanic [...]

This report by José Armas is of a meeting between multiple Chicano artists and writers, held for the purpose of establishing a union in support of the promotion of Chicano cultural production. The document provides detailed background information on [...]

In this essay, Karen Mary Davalos addresses the complex dynamic between Chicano art collectors and the objects in their collections as a relationship of “othering” by the “Other.” She suggests that the experience of the Chicano is one of [...]

This is a copy of the interim report of the Task Force on Hispanic American Arts presented to the National Council on the Arts in February 1979. It defines the function of the Task Force as a body concerned with determining the needs of the Hispanic [...]

In this essay, Luis Rodríguez argues for a continued redefinition of Chicano art based on a dialogue previously initiated in articles by Malaquías Montoya and Lezlie Salkowitz-Montoya and Shifra Goldman. Rodríguez remarks on the historical moment [...]

This is the second essay in a two-part series on the relationship of Chicano art to mainstream contemporary currents in the United States at the time of its publication (1982). Robert C. Buitrón argues against the notion that Chicano art is static [...]

This document is a brief article on the state of Chicano art at the time of its publication (1982). Robert C. Buitrón argues that Chicano art is inherently difficult to define, acknowledging the multiple and multifaceted historical and artistic [...]

In this article, Carlos Cortéz Koyokuikatl announces an exhibition of Movimiento Artístico Chicano’s (MARCH) collection of silkscreen posters by the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) at the MO MING Dance and Arts Center Galleries in Chicago. He [...]

In this text, Gerardo Mosquera introduces the exhibition Ante América [Facing the Americas] with an essay describing the common social, political and economic framework that has fostered the art of what he calls “el Sur” or “Nuestra América [...]

In this text, Guillermo Gómez-Peña declares the new dominant U.S. culture “border culture,” and assesses how Latino culture has infiltrated U.S. culture writ large. U.S. culture has, he argues, become fundamentally multicultural, and the “ [...]

Lucy Lippard recounts a history of art in the United States during the 1970s and ‘80s centered on cultural mixing. She begins by attesting to the failure of the idea of the “melting pot” in the United States. Instead, she argues that Western [...]

This document is a 1977 calendar produced by the Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH), which includes biographies and reproductions of works by twelve Chicago-area Chicano artists, one for each month. Significant dates in Chicano history are also [...]

In this preface and acknowledgements, John Beardsley and Jane Livingston explain what motivated them to prepare Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, the process by which the exhibition was formulated, and [...]

In this text, Robert Weitz introduces an exhibition of Chicano work on view in the gallery of Chicago State University by explaining the motivations behind the show and the parameters of the works included in the exhibition. He begins by emphasizing [...]

In this text, art historian and activist Victor Alejandro Sorell ponders on arguments for designating Chicano people a nation: the history of the twelfth-century Aztec homeland Aztlán, —located in the U.S. Southwest,— included; the seizure of [...]

This text recounts an exhibition that Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) which was organized around Agustín V. Casasola’s memorable photographs of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. In this article, Mary Kay Vaughan recounts the films, lectures, and [...]

This article introduces readers to Casa Aztlán, a Latino social services center and cultural organization founded in Chicago in 1970, and widely known in the Midwest for its cultural programs. It describes Casa Aztlán’s location in Chicago’s [...]

In this brief consideration of Alejandro Romero’s œuvre, author Victor A. Sorell discusses the impact of Chicago, Romero’s adopted home, on his works. Romero invokes the industrial ambience and architectural totems of this city in his pieces, [...]

In this interview David Torrez discusses his devotion to the arts of his Mexican-American heritage, his involvement in founding organizations such as the Mexican Historical Society of Saginaw, Michigan, and his many artistic projects. Among these [...]

In this text, Victor A. Sorell considers the works of the three Chicago-based, Mexican muralists Aurelio Díaz Alfaro, Marcos Raya, and Vicente Mendoza through the prism of what he characterizes as three language types—“private,” “public,” [...]

In this article, John Weber considers pioneering Chicano artist Ray Patlán’s work with teenagers creating a mural in a Latino neighborhood of Chicago during the summer of 1971. The youths were part of the Community Mural Project that, beginning in [...]

The Cuban-American artist Paul Sierra begins this lecture, delivered at the Terra Museum of Art in Chicago, by declaring that even though he has been asked to speak about the “sources of Hispanic Art,” he has decided to speak instead about [...]

In this essay, Shifra Goldman defines Chicano art as the expression of the historical conditions of what she calls the “double-mestizaje” [double-intermingling] of Chicano experience. Beginning with a consideration of the unresolved question of [...]

In this document, Luis Valdez argues that as inheritors of a colonized consciousness, it is difficult for Chicano writers to articulate a cohesive cultural identity. He suggests that this difficulty can perhaps be negotiated through an embrace of the [...]

This exhibition catalog, Chicago Latino, was part of an intercultural dialogue initiated by two “socially-minded arts groups,” the 369 Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Near Northwest Arts Council of Chicago, Illinois. The exhibition [...]

In this letter to Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar, Argentine artist Mauricio Lasansky states that he resents the fact that the Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [Latin American and Caribbean Print Biennial, San Juan] is [...]