Former name | El Museo Mexicano |
---|---|
Established | 1975 |
Location | 706 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Type | Art museum |
Founder | Peter Rodríguez |
Website | www |
The Mexican Museum (or El Museo Mexicano) is a museum created to exhibit the aesthetic expression of the Latino, Chicano, Mexican, and Mexican-American people, located in San Francisco, California, United States. As of 2022, their exhibition space was permanently closed at Fort Mason Center; and they are still in the process of moving to a new space at 706 Mission Street in Yerba Buena Gardens. [1]
The Mexican Museum of San Francisco was founded by San Francisco artist Peter Rodríguez in 1975. [2] [3] He was inspired to create this museum in order to fill a void in the public's access to Mexican and Chicano art. [4] The museum was originally located in San Francisco's Mission District on Folsom Street in 1975. [5]
The museum's new location was planned starting in 2015 to be built at 706 Mission Street across from Yerba Buena Gardens, as part the 53-story Yerba Buena Tower project, which will consist mostly of luxury condominiums. [6] The entire relocation project was envisaged to cost $500 million ($30 million of which was for the museum), and was scheduled to open in 2020, [6] however this was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of funds. [1] The city of San Francisco has granted the Mexican Museum a 66-year lease for its future use of the site, renewable for 33 years. [7]
The museum holds a permanent collection of over 16,000 objects including Pre-Hispanic, Colonial, Popular, Mexican and Latino Modern, and Mexican, Latino, and Chicano Contemporary art. [7] [2] It has one of the largest collection of Mexican, Chicano and Latino art in the United States. [4] [8]
In 2017, archaeologist Dr. Eduardo Perez De Heredi wrote a report which stated that 96% of the museum's 2,000 pre-Columbian artifacts may not be authentic and could only be classed as "decorative"; thus only 83 pieces of 2,000, or just over four percent could be certified as “museum-quality.” [9]
Perez De Heredia, said the rest of the pieces are still being studied, and may turn out to be real or not. “This is just the process . . . We have two years to finish examining the collection,” said Dr. Perez De Heredi. [10] He points out that U.S. museums often receive high-end forgeries as donations and the authentication process is meant to sort those out. [10]
The Mission District, commonly known as The Mission, is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is derived from Mission San Francisco de Asís, built in 1776 by the Spanish. The Mission is historically one of the most notable centers of the city's Chicano/Mexican-American community.
Yerba Buena Gardens is the name for two blocks of public parks located between Third and Fourth, Mission and Folsom Streets in downtown San Francisco, California. The first block bordered by Mission and Howard Streets was opened on October 11, 1993. The second block, between Howard and Folsom Streets, was opened in 1998, with a dedication to Martin Luther King Jr. by Mayor Willie Brown. A pedestrian bridge over Howard Street connects the two blocks, sitting on top of part of the Moscone Center convention center. The Yerba Buena Gardens were planned and built as the final centerpiece of the Yerba Buena Redevelopment Area which includes the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy operates, manages, programs, and elevates the property on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio ranchera, medical practitioner, and merchant, often remembered as the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", for her noted involvement in the early development of the city of San Francisco. Later in her life, she also played an important role in developing modern Palo Alto.
Yolanda Margarita López was an American painter, printmaker, educator, and film producer. She was known for her Chicana feminist works focusing on the experiences of Mexican-American women, often challenging the ethnic stereotypes associated with them. Lopez was recognized for her series of paintings which re-imagined the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Her work is held in several public collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Rex Ray was an American graphic designer and collage artist, based in San Francisco.
Galería de la Raza (GDLR) is a non-profit art gallery and artist collective founded in 1970, that serves the largely Chicano and Latino population of San Francisco's Mission District. GDLR mounts exhibitions, hosts poetry readings, workshops, and celebrations, sells works of art, and sponsors youth and artist-in-residence programs. Exhibitions at the Galería tend to feature the work of minority and developing country artists and concern issues of ethnic history, identity, and social justice.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse communities. YBCA programs year-round in two landmark buildings—the Galleries and Forum by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and the adjacent Theater by American architect James Stewart Polshek and Todd Schliemann. Betti-Sue Hertz served as Curator from 2008 through 2015.
Judithe Hernández is an American artist and educator, she is known as a muralist, pastel artist, and painter. She a pioneer of the Chicano art movement and a former member of the art collective Los Four. She is based in Los Angeles, California and previously lived in Chicago.
René Yañez was a Mexican-American painter, assemblage artist, performance artist, curator and community activist located in San Francisco, California. He was a well-known contributor to the arts of San Francisco and is a co-founder of Galería de la Raza, a non-profit community focused gallery that features Latino and Chicano artists and their allies. In the early 1970s, he was one of the first curators in the United States to introduce Mexico's Día de Muertos as a contemporary focus and an important cultural celebration.
Four Seasons Private Residences at 706 Mission Street, San Francisco is a 43-story, 510 ft (160 m) residential skyscraper under construction in the South of Market district of San Francisco, California. Located across the street from Yerba Buena Gardens and Moscone Center, the tower site is bounded by Mission Street on the south and 3rd Street on the east, and will incorporate the historic Aronson Building in its design. The tower will contain up to 190 condominiums on the upper floors and a permanent home for the Mexican Museum on the bottom four floors.
Sonia Amalia Romero is an American artist, she is known for her printmaking, mixed media linocut prints, murals, and public art based in Los Angeles. She is known for depicting Los Angeles, Latin American imagery, and Chicano themes in her work.
ChismeArte was an avant-garde Chicano magazine published by the LA Latino Writers Association (LALWA) and produced by the Concilio de Arte Popular, a California statewide arts advocacy group of Chicano arts organizations headed by Manazar Gamboa. The magazine began publication in 1976. It was produced by Guillermo Bejarano in the early 1980s. Manazar Gamboa served as Director of LALWA and Editor of ChismeArte from 1981-1983. Organizational members of the People's Art Council included The Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista, The Royal Chicano Air Force in Sacramento, Mechicano Art Center in Los Angeles, and The Galeria de la Raza and The Mexican Museum in San Francisco, and The Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego.
Sirron Norris is an American illustrator, muralist, and arts educator. He is known for his work on the FOX animated television show Bob's Burgers and for numerous cartoon-style public murals, including ones at Balmy Alley, Clarion Alley, and Mission Dolores Park, and galleries around San Francisco. His murals often include political messages, local themes, and his signature blue bear. He has worked with several local non-profits, including SPUR and El Tecolote.
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) is an arts nonprofit that was founded in 1977, and is located at 2868 Mission Street in the Mission District in San Francisco, California. They provide art studio space, art classes, an art gallery, and a theater. Their graphics department is called Mission Grafica, and features at studio for printmaking and is known for the hand printed posters.
Linda Zamora Lucero is an American artist, based in San Francisco. Lucero was a co-founder and former executive director of La Raza Graphics Center, also known as La Raza Silkscreen Center and La Raza Graphics, noted for producing silkscreen prints and posters by Chicano and Latino artists.
Peter Rodríguez was an American artist, curator, and museum director. He was the founder, director and curator of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, and a co-founder of the Galería de la Raza.
Ralph Maradiaga (1934–1985) was an American artist, curator, photographer, printmaker, teacher, and filmmaker. He was Chicano, one of the co-founders of Galería de la Raza and part of the San Francisco Bay Area Chicano Art Movement.
Rolando Castellón, also known as Rolando Dionisio Castellón-Alegria is a Nicaraguan American painter, author, art historian, and curator. He was a well-known contributor to the arts of San Francisco, California and he has lived in Costa Rica since 2013.
Nina LaCour is an American author, primarily known for writing young adult literature with queer, romantic story lines. Her novel We Are Okay won the Printz Award in 2017.
Golden Gate Cemetery, also called the City Cemetery, and Potter's Field, was a burial ground with 29,000 remains, active between 1870 and approximately 1909 and was located in San Francisco, California. The site of this former cemetery is now Lincoln Park and the Legion of Honor museum.
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