A New Latino Arts Initiative
Partnership
BY LETISIA MÁRQUEZ
UCLA Today
As part of its ongoing efforts to study, document and promote
Chicano art, UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) have joined forces to launch
a Latino arts initiative.
The organizations will work together on exhibitions, coordinate
community relations efforts, particularly with Latino arts organizations,
and collaborate on acquisitions to LACMA’s permanent collection
and other programs.
LACMA also has appointed Chon Noriega, director of UCLA’s
Chicano Studies Research Center, as adjunct curator of Chicano and
Latino Art in LACMA’s Center for Art of the Americas.
“What is most exciting about this initiative is that it places
Chicano-Latino arts in an encyclopedic context of world art,”
said Noriega. “LACMA’s Center for Art of the Americas
provides a natural starting point to explore Chicano-Latino art
within a hemispheric context that includes U.S. and Latin American
art.”
The agreement also provides an important training ground for UCLA
students studying Chicano/Latino art. Already, LACMA has hired Rita
González, a UCLA Ph.D. student in the Department of Film,
Television and Digital Media, as an assistant curator.
In 2008, LACMA and the UCLA center will co-produce “Remix:
Today’s Chicano Art.” “Remix” will showcase
work by Chicano artists in all of today’s media, including
painting; sculpture; installation; conceptual, video and performance
art; and works that incorporate film, digital art and sound.
Also, actor and collector Cheech Marin, working with LACMA curators,
will lend highlights from his personal collection of Chicano art
to a unique exhibition that will be part of a series of exhibitions
of Chicano art at LACMA.
The agreement is the latest in a series of arts-related projects
at the UCLA center dealing with Chicano/Latino art preservation,
research, publication and community partnerships.
For instance, the center has launched “A Ver: Revisioning
Art History,” a new book series on Latino artists. And it
recently received a J. Paul Getty grant to conduct an in-depth survey
of Latino arts and related materials in Los Angeles.
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