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Former name | Riverside Public Library |
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Established | June 18, 2022 |
Location | 3581 Mission Inn Ave Riverside, California United States |
Coordinates | 33°58′58″N117°22′18″W / 33.9829°N 117.3716°W |
Type | Art museum |
Architect | Ficks & Ficks, 1964 [1] |
Website | The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture |
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, known as The Cheech, is a museum in Riverside, California. It is part of the larger Riverside Art Museum. The center is focused on the exhibition and study of Chicano art from across the United States. This is a collaborative effort between Cheech Marin, the City of Riverside and Riverside Art Museum. Cheech Marin is a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and collector. He has donated or promised his collection of more than 700 pieces of Chicano art. Riverside provides the old Riverside public library to house the collection and the Riverside Art Museum manages the center. The Cheech strives to be a world-class institution for the research and study of "all things [related to] Chicano art". [2] It is the first North American museum facility dedicated exclusively to Mexican-American and Chicano art. [3] [4]
After a successful exhibit of some of Marin's collection at the Riverside Art Museum in early 2017, the city and museum approached Marin about establishing a permanent home for his collection in Riverside. [2] The idea of keeping the collection intact appealed to Marin. The city's emphasis on history, art and culture, as well as the large Latino population in the area, and the proximity to five universities, were also appealing. With two of the universities, the University of California, Riverside, and California State University, San Bernardino, already offering Chicana/o studies programs, Marin was convinced Riverside was the right location. [2]
A fundraising campaign, named "Reach for the Cheech", was started in 2017. After receiving a $600,000 pledge from the Riverside-based Altura Credit Union, the campaign was able to meet its initial fundraising goal of three million dollars on May 29, 2018. [5] [6] Shortly after Altura's commitment, the State of California included in its budget an additional $9.7 million to assist with the development of the center, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the money needed for the renovations. [3] [7] In December 2019, the Bank of America made a $750,000 commitment, bringing the total raised to almost $14 million. [3] [8]
The center, which Marin dubbed "The Cheech", [2] is housed in what was the main branch of the city of Riverside's library system, a 61,420 square feet (5,706 m2) facility located close to the historic The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. [3] [5] Designed by Moise, Harbach & Hewlitt, the original New Formalist building is modern and also influenced by classical architecture. Opened in 1964, It has two main floors and a basement. [3] While the new (now completed) downtown library was under construction a few blocks away, the books were moved out of the old library building. It underwent extensive renovation by the firm Page & Turnbull (in consultation with the cultural specialists wHY Architecture) to repurpose the library for its new role as an art museum and academic center. [3] [9] The exterior features eight 17 ton concrete screens with diamond-patterns. Each diamond terminates in a dove. "These doves express a hope for peace during one of the hottest periods of the Cold War." [3]
To create a reception area for individuals and groups, an atrium was carved out near the entrance. In order to create a dramatic backdrop that frames this atrium, glass artists Einar and Jamex de la Torre were commissioned to make a large-scale (26 x 13-foot) permanent installation. Their work, which shifts shapes as one moves in front of it, is called Gaiatlicue. Its primary image combines the Greco-Roman goddesses Gaia and the Aztec goddess Coatlicue. These shifting images are constructed out of flora, fauna, and sections from low rider cars. Gaiatlicue references climate change and the challenges it poses to life on earth. [3] [10]
Rotating selections of work held by the center are exhibited in the permanent collection galleries. A community gallery for local artists is near the entrance. [3] The second floor is for major traveling exhibitions. The first exhibit was dedicated to the de la Torre brothers, primarily known as glass sculptors. [10] The center generates scholarship though exhibitions, catalogues, lectures, films, and other activities. The staff leads group tours that include school children. Internships with students from local colleges provide training to future museum professionals. Marin and local officials hope The Cheech will spark a cultural renaissance in Riverside. [3]
The initial collection, donated or promised by Cheech Marin, consists of over 700 paintings, drawings, prints, mixed media, sculptures and photography assembled over the past 30 years. [3] [8] The collection covers a range of Chicano art types. Some reflect the rasquachismo aesthetic, which has been growing in popularity. [11] Marin came to fame in the 1970s as part of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong. He is noted for having one of the largest and most important private collections of Chicano art in the world. [3] [12] The Center is expanding its holdings beyond Marin's collection. Two Judithe Hernández works were bought with endowment funds and included in the inaugural exhibition "Cheech Collects": Juárez Quinceañera, 2017 (pastel and mixed media on canvas), and Santa Desconocida, 2016 (pastel on paper). [3]
The inaugural exhibition of the permanent collection, called "Cheech Collects," featured 120 works, almost all of them from Marin's collection, primarily featured artists from California (especially Los Angeles) and Texas. It took place from June 18, 2022 through Sunday, May 14, 2023. [3] [13]
A reviewer selected the following works as Texas highlights. Vincent Valdez's oil painting Kill the Pachuco Bastards from 2001, is a powerful treatment of the Zoot Suit Riots that took place in Los Angeles in 1943, when servicemen (primarily sailors) attacked Pachucos with batons and stripped their Zoot Suits from their bodies. A trio of paintings by Cesar Martinez included the 2000 version of his Hombre que le Gustan las Mujeres, a mixed-up man with tattoos of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a nearly naked pin-up girl, and an idealized "good" girl. Rubio's La Lechuza (2001) depicts the mythical owl woman that appeared to him, to warn him away from an area in which he was later almost killed by a drive-by shooter. Adan Hernandez was represented by a trio of oil paintings that reflect his dark and violent "Chicano Noir" style: La Bomba, 1992; Drive-by Asesino, 1992; and La Sad Girl, 2003. Candelario Aguilar, Jr. was represented by El Verde, 2020, a mixed media panel that is so reworked with layered imagery that it is almost abstract. An almost-buried assault rifle in the center provides a note of menace. Benito Huerta's Exile off Main Street, 1999, is a reworking of Picasso's Les Demoiselles de Avignon. Gaspar Enriquez's Charolito, 2009, features a young woman who was discouraged from pursuing an artistic career because her mother destroyed her art, which she considered to be satanic. The artist provided her with a protective tattoo. [3]
Works singled out by a critic as exhibition highlights by California artists include the two Judithe Hernández pieces noted above. Two works by Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro, La Tormenta Returns, 1998, and Pérdida (ACCENT ON THE e), 2000, were prominently featured near the entrance. The former was painted live during a performance of a string quartet and the soprano nicknamed Tormenta. According to the artist, it has dramatic, operatic, and filmic properties. Pérdida's (Lost) title is derived from a vintage melodramatic Mexican film. The work's sculptural forms are stand-ins for people. George Yepes' La Pistola y el Corazón (2000) is a large reworking of his most famous painting (the original was destroyed in a fire.) Carlos Almaraz's Sunset Crash, 1982, is a prime example of his most famous motif. The violent crashes take place against a beautifully colored backdrop. A 1984 pastel by John Valadez called Getting Them Out of the Car “endows quotidian urban violence with the aura and pathos of both religious and political martyrdom.” Frank Romero’s large scale Arrest of the Palateros is a humorous treatment of police overkill as they arrest vendors. Eloy Torrez's It’s a Brown World After All [portrait of Cheech Marin] features Marin wearing a six pointed crown that the artist refers to as “a time machine that travels backwards in time, connecting the subject to his or her ancestral past.” Two small scale paintings by Ana Teresa Fernández, To Press I and To Press II, 2007, feature the artist engaging in a virtual tango with an ironing board, the light coming in from the window, and her photographer as part of a project that addresses virgin/whore and clean/dirty dichotomies. [3]
The inaugural temporary exhibition at The Cheech, Collidoscope featured the work of the glass artists Einar and Jamex de la Torre, who were born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and currently live on both sides of the border in Southern California and Baja California. The exhibition was held at The Cheech from June 18, 2022–January 22, 2023, before it traveled to other venues. [14] Through a “collision of imagery, themes, and references,” says guest curator Selene Preciado, the two artists “unpack the tensions and contradictions of our postcolonial transcultural identity.” [10]
Among the exhibited works were Colonial Atmosphere, 2002, a mixed media installation that addresses colonialism. It featured a lunar landing craft based on a monumental Olmec head and a saluting astronaut based on the Aztec goddess Coatlicue. The painted backdrop features Mexican vendors on the moon. The interior of the craft is manned by a European Christ child riding a stuffed rocking horse (the latter symbolizes the Apocalypse). The de la Torre brothers utilize many famous Mexican images, including the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Aztec Stone of the Sun (a.k.a. the Mexican Calendar Stone). Among the many works that employ the latter as a source is La Belle Epoch (the beautiful age), made in 2002. This kinetic mixed-media, blown-glass installation features a monumental version of the Stone of the Sun (120 x 144 x 36 inches) as a ferris wheel that spews faux blood into a glass canoe that is situated beneath it. Collidoscope also included ¡2020!, a glass sculpture that represents the COVID virus as a newborn child with protein spikes on it head. [10]
Held from June 17, 2023 through January 7, 2024, this exhibition was billed as "The first major art exhibition to examine influential works that foreground the Brown body as a site to explore, expand, and complicate traditional conceptions linked to Mexican, Mexican American, and Xicanx experiences." [15] Co-curated by Cecilia Fajardo Hill, with Marissa Del Toro and Gilbert Vicario, the exhibition was organized by the American Federation of Arts. The time span covered by the exhibition stretched from the late 1960s through the present, featuring around 70 artists and artist collectives. It treated a wide range of materials, including film, pottery, Low Riders, and poetry, as well as painting, sculpture, and film. [15]
On view June 17 – October 1, 2023 at the Altura Credit Union Community Gallery at The Cheech, this exhibition explored how seven Chicana/o and Mexican American artists utilized their personal histories in Southern California as sources of inspiration for their art. Origenes/Origins was curated by Cosmé Cordova, [16]
From October 14, 2023 – February 18, 2024, The Cheech presents Indigenous Futurism, with sculptures, paintings, works on paper, and videos "viewed through an indigenous lens by 18 all-femme artists who hail from all four directions in California: to the East, the Inland Empire; to the South, San Diego; to the West, Los Angeles; and to the North, the Bay Area." [17] Denise Silva, a Riverside-based artist, curated the exhibition. The participating artists are: Abby Aceves | Ariana Arroyo | Adriana Carranza | Melanie Cervantes | Amparo Chi | Rosy Cortez | Emilia Cruz | Stephanie Godoy | Mariana Gómez | Mariah Green | Jeshua | Belen Ledezma | Andrea Ramirez | Lilia Ramirez | Denise Silva | Maritza Torres | Sarah Vazquez | Mer Young. Silva explains the concept behind the exhibition, which "explores how the artists incorporate their ancient tools in their respective practices for our collective liberation.” [17] The term “indigenous futurism,” which is analogous to Afrofuturism, was coined by professor and author Grace Dillon, who is of Anishinaabe ancestry. Dillon explains that it explores “how personally one is affected by colonization, discarding the emotional and psychological baggage carried from its impact, and recovering ancestral traditions.” [17] The exhibition is situated within the Altura Credit Union Community Gallery at The Cheech.
The next major exhibition at The Cheech is dedicated to Judithe Hernández, which will take place February 3 – August 4, 2024. It will be this artist's first major retrospective, covering 40 years of her career as an artist. It will center "the realities and mythologies of Mexican migrant women, exploring the legacies of colonization and the US Mexico border and their impact on women and children." The exhibition includes more than "100 works from her Adam & Eve, Juarez, Mexico, and Colonization series." [18]
"She is one of the first Chicana artists to have a solo exhibition outside the Western United States in 1983 in New York’s City Cayman Gallery. She subsequently went on to have a significant international career. Hernández’s work was included in the first groundbreaking exhibition of Chicano art in Europe, Les Démons des Anges, where she was one of only three women featured."
"After more than 40 years, her artistic presence returned to downtown Los Angeles in 2019 when her seven-story mural La Nueva Reina de Los Ángeles was installed at La Plaza Village one block north of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument District." [18]
Over 70 artists are represented in the collection, including: [19] [20]
Released in 2019, Edward Tyndall directed a short documentary film featuring Cheech Marin titled The Cheech: An American Icon's Crusade for the Chicano Art Movement. The film covers Marin's lifelong advocacy for Chicano art, and his efforts to develop The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (formerly called The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry). El Dusty, a Grammy-Nominated musician, wrote the original music score. The production company was Mobius Films. [21]
Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor, musician, and activist. He gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s with Tommy Chong, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez, on Nash Bridges. He has also voiced characters in several Disney films, including Oliver & Company, The Lion King, the Cars franchise, Coco and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. He also played as Padre Esteban in the 2009 film The Perfect Game.
Carlos D. Almaraz was a Mexican-American artist and a pioneer of the Chicano art movement. He was one of the founder of the Centro de Arte Público (1977–1979), a Chicano/Chicana arts organization in Highland Park, Los Angeles.
Gronk, born Glugio Nicandro, is a Chicano painter, printmaker, and performance artist. His work is collected by museums around the country including the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Los Four was a Chicano artist collective active based in Los Angeles, California. The group was instrumental in bringing the Chicano art movement to the attention of the mainstream art world.
Gilbert "Magu" Luján was a Chicano American sculptor, muralist, painter, and educator. He was a founding member of the Chicano collective, Los Four that consisted of artists Carlos Almaraz, Beto de la Rocha, Frank Romero and himself. In 1974, Judithe Hernández became the "fifth member," and only female member of Los Four.
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.
Diane Gamboa has been producing, exhibiting and curating visual art in Southern California since the 1980s. She has also been involved art education, ranging from after-school programs to college and university teaching. Gamboa has been "one of the most active cultural producers in the Chicana art movement in Los Angeles." She actively developed the Chicano School of Painting.
César Augusto Martínez is an artist, prominent in the field of Chicano art. While studying at what was then called Texas A&I College, he became involved in the Chicano movement for civil rights. He subsequently befriended several of its leaders.
Sonya Fe (1952) is a Chicana painter born and raised in Los Angeles.
Judithe Hernández is an American artist and educator, she is known as a muralist, pastel artist, and painter. She is 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.
The Chicano Art Movement represents groundbreaking movements by Mexican-American artists to establish a unique artistic identity in the United States. Much of the art and the artists creating Chicano Art were heavily influenced by Chicano Movement which began in the 1960s.
Patssi Valdez is an American Chicana artist. She is a founding member of the art collective Asco. Valdez's work represents some of the finest Chicana avant-garde expressionism which includes but not limited to painting, sculpture and fashion design. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Gaspar Enriquez is an American artist known for creating photorealist portraits, primarily of people of Chicano heritage. He uses the airbrush technique in his paintings. Enriquez is also a sculptor and a jewelry maker who works in metal.
Vincent Valdez is an American artist born in San Antonio, Texas, who focuses on painting, drawing, and printmaking. His artwork often emphasizes themes of social justice, memory, and ignored or under-examined historical narratives. Valdez completed his B.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2000. He lives and works in Houston, Texas, and is represented by the David Shelton Gallery (Houston) and Matthew Brown Gallery. Valdez's work has been exhibited at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Ford Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Blanton Museum of Art, Parsons School of Design, and the Fundacion Osde Buenos Aires.
Chicana art emerged as part of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s. It used art to express political and social resistance through different art mediums. Chicana artists explore and interrogate traditional Mexican-American values and embody feminist themes through different mediums such as murals, painting, and photography. The momentum created from the Chicano Movement spurred a Chicano Renaissance among Chicanas and Chicanos. Artists voiced their concerns about oppression and empowerment in all areas of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Chicana feminist artists and Anglo-feminist took a different approach in the way they collaborated and made their work during the 1970s. Chicana feminist artists utilized artistic collaborations and collectives that included men, while Anglo-feminist artists generally utilized women-only participants. Art has been used as a cultural reclamation process for Chicana and Chicano artists allowing them to be proud of their roots by combining art styles to illustrate their multi-cultured lives.
Sandy Rodriguez was born in 1975 in National City, California. She is a Los Angeles based artist who grew up on the US-Mexico border, in Tijuana, San Diego, and Los Angeles. She has exhibited her works with numerous museums and galleries, including the Denver Art Museum, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, MOCA Busan Busan Bienniale, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Art+Practice, and Self Help Graphics. Her work focuses on the ongoing cycles of violence on communities of color by blending historical and recent events in the Los Angeles area and along south-west US-Mexico border. A transitional moment for Rodriguez happened in 2014 on a visit to Oaxaca, a southern Mexican Region, where she first procured a red pigment called cochineal, coming from the pre-Columbian era. Prior to this, Rodriguez had painted exclusively in modern paint. The encounter with cochineal happened at the same time she was painting fire paintings and the protests began in Ayotzinapa Mexico in response to forty-three missing college students, which included setting fire to palacio nacional and an Enrique Peña Nieto effigy pinata. The alignment of content, form, and the materials magnified how material can signal cultural identity, history, and politics. A goal of her work is to disrupt dominant narratives and interrogate systems that are ongoing expressions of colonial violence witnessed regularly, including Customs Border Enforcement, Police, and Climate Change.
Margaret Garcia is a Chicana muralist, educator, and arts-advocate based in Los Angeles.
Lucila Villaseñor Grijalva is a Chicana muralist who was born in Los Angeles, California. Her art style is inspired by graffiti art.
Stephanie Godoy is a Mexican American first generation oil paint artist.
Einar and Jamex de la Torre, also known as the de la Torre Brothers are a sibling team of glass artists. The brothers were born in Guadalajara, Mexico; Jamex in 1960, and Einar in 1963. They live and work between the Guadalupe Valley of Baja California, Mexico and San Diego, California.
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