Developing the Chicano art movement

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Chieano Art Colleetives
A
rtist collectives have been prominent in many national and international artistic movements and were especially important in developing the Chicano art movement. Rather than competing with
one another for exhibitions, name recognition, and sales of artwork, Chicano artists made concerted attempts to work collectively to promote the
goals of the Chicano movement. Collaborating for community benefit
rather than competing for individual gain is a strong value in Mexican
American culture. Chicano art collectives worked in a variety of media and
existed for varying durations; some were short-lived while others continue
to work collectively to this day. The organization and activity of Chicano
art collectives deserve greater study and research. In this chapter I provide
a brief description of only selected Chicano art collectives and the ideas that
inspired them. (Artes Guadalupanos de Aztlan and Movimiento Artfstico
Chicanos (MARCH) are both discussed in chapter 2.)
Wherever artistic activity emerged in Chicano communities, groups of
artists entered into dialogue on the role of art in the Chicano movement.
Between 1968 and 1980, significant Chicano art collectives sprang up in
every major city across the United States, including Chicago, Detroit,
Austin, San Antonio, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento,
and Albuquerque. The group discussions and exhibitions proved to be
fertile ground for developing a new visual culture; artists posed questions,
developed ideas, held critique sessions, worked on large public projects,
and challenged one another in their individual and common goals.
Mexican American Liberation Art
Front (MALAF), 1968-1970
The Mexican American Liberation Art Front (MALAF) was organized
in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1968. Its members included Manuel
Hernandez-Trujillo, Esteban Villa, Rene Yafiez, and Malaquias Montoya. Although not a founding member of MALAF, Jose Montoya was
affiliated with their activities, exhibitions, and publications. MALAF is one
of shortest-lived collectives discussed in this chapter, but it is one of the first
examples of artists working together to promote Chicano art. In addition,
MALAF members would individually have a large impact on the development of Chicano art in different parts of California, as well as have a
national and international presence. The collective functioned for two
years, holding informal meetings where the artists met, sometimes joined
by community members and activists, to discuss Chicano art and activism.
They addressed issues such as the Vietnam War, the UFW and the farmworker struggle, and educational inequity. Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo
states that members of MALAF “knew that art could be a significant power
tool in unifying ‘our people’ against the ghastly impact of a system bent on
maintaining Chicanos as a perpetual class of workers fragile and malleable
in the presence of prejudice turned racism” (Zirker 1997, 17). Members
introduced their independent views about art and art’s use as a tool for
social change; together these ideas, based on their own backgrounds and
experiences, their respective communities, and their own creative sensibilities, created a unified but multifaceted vision for the emerging art
movement. While nationalism fueled much of the Chicano movement’s
activism and certainly influenced the collective, MALAF was also heavily
involved in addressing third world concerns and linking the Chicano
movement with universal issues of justice and humanity.
MALAF organized traveling exhibitions and community workshops to
produce posters and publications. As Esteban Villa explains in Jacinto
Quirarte’s 1973 book Mexican American Artists, MALAF’s main objective
was to “create new symbols and images for la nueva raza. It is an effort to
present in visual form an artistic account of the Chicano movement” (134 ).
In its promotion of a new visual culture, MALAF organized a traveling
exhibition entitled New Symbols for La Nueva Raza. Independent exhibitions and publications enabled Chicano artists to have control over the way
their art and culture were promoted. They also ensured that Chicano art
and culture remained accessible to the Mexican American community.
Chicano scholar and professor Octavio Romano created just such an
independent Chicano literary publication, El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought. The spring 1969 special issue of El Grito
was devoted exclusively to visual art and featured MALAF. Malaquias
Montoya, Esteban Villa, Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo, Rene Yanez, and
Jose Montoya each presented a portfolio of his work accompanied by an
142 Chicano Art Collectives
individual artist statement. Hernandez-Trujillo included various woodblock relief prints representing a relationship between pre-Columbian and
postcolonial cultures in the Americas (figure 37). In his artist statement,
Hernandez-Trujillo reflects eloquently on the efforts of not only MALAF
but also subsequent Chicano artists, cultural workers, and activists:
,,,….
Para saber a donde vamos es importante preocuparnos por saber de
donde venimos. En esta preocupaci6n por conocer nuestro pasado hay /
oportunidad de reconocer la amarga igual que dulce historia de nuestros
abuelos. La humana historia de los abuelos nos despierta al miserable (__
momento en el cu.ii es encuentra nuestra cultura en este pafs. Es aquf en
este despertar que nos encontramos y es aquf en este momento que
busco por medio de la expresi6n artfstica los sfmbolos que mas bien
expresan lo que soy. Asf fue el arte para el antiguo Azteca, despues para el
Mexicano, y ahora aquf para el Chicano. /
In order to know to where we are headed, it is important to concern
ourselves in knowing from where we have come. In this concern to know
our past there is opportunity to recognize the bitter as well as the sweet
history of our grandparents. The human history of grandparents awakes
us to the miserable situation our culture finds itself in this country. It is
here in this awakening that we find ourselves and it is here in this moment
that I look for, by means of artistic expression, the symbols that best
express what I am. That is what art was for the Aztec of our past, later
for the Mexican, and now here, for the Chicano. (Romano, Carrillo, and
Vaca 1969)
Although MALAF disbanded after only two years, it would continue to
have a lasting impact on the development of Chicano art through the
individual members’ continued work. Malaquias Montoya and Manuel
Hernandez-Trujillo both continued working in the Bay Area, creating
community murals and establishing the first community-based Chicano
silkscreen workshops to emerge from the Chicano movement in East Oakland. Working out of community colleges and through the East Oakland
Development Centers, they remained committed to producing posters for
community-based organizations, direct social justice activism, and a variety of benefits and community causes.
Malaquias Montoya began teaching silkscreen poster making in the
newly established Chicano studies program at the University of California,
MALAF 143
37. Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo. Sangrandose. Woodblock, ca. 1965. (Courtesy of the
artist)
Berkeley, and continues to this day teaching university-level classes in
community mural painting and silkscreen-poster making. Montoya also
established the Taller Artes Graficas (TAG), a silkscreen poster workshop
in Oakland where he made hundreds of prints and posters to support
community activism and events. Esteban Villa and Jose Montoya eventually moved to Sacramento, where they established the Rebel Chicano Art
Front, popularly known as the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF). Rene
Yafiez moved into San Francisco and helped establish Galerfa de la Raza
in the Mission District. The RCAF is discussed further in this chapter;
Galerfa de la Raza is discussed in chapter 5.
Asco, 1971-1987
Various Chicano art collectives, mural and silkscreen workshops, and community centers flourished in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and 1970s,
particularly in East Los Angeles, a large, culturally vibrant Mexican American community. Garfield High School was a center of student activism and
creative activity in this community, producing during this time a number of
prominent Chicano artists, such as the members of the musical groups Los
Lobos and The Midnighters. It was at Garfield High School that Patssi
Valdez, Willie Herron, Gronk, and Harry Gamboa Jr. first met (Benavidez
2002). Several of them participated in the East Los Angeles Blowouts in
1968. In 1971 they formed the collective Asco, Spanish for nausea. Other
artists who subsequently joined the group included Daniel J. Martinez and
Diane Gamboa. Asco was composed of self-taught artists who represented
street youth and was known for subversive and conceptual performances
and public artworks.
The members of Asco first began working together when Harry Gamboa Jr. asked Willie Herron, Patssi Valdez, and Gronk to work with him
on the Chicano literary and political journal Regeneraci6n. Gamboa, in an
article published in the catalogue for the CARA exhibition, states that
through their work on Regeneraci6n, “they discovered that they shared
many experiences, enjoyed a common sense of dark humor, and were
intensely committed to personal expression. At times, the nights of work
gave way to group discussions of their collective influences” (Gamboa 1991,
123). These included influences from both popular Chicano and American
culture, especially pop art and experimental performance art such as that of
Fluxus and Andy Warhol. Willie Herron explains that Asco sought to
Asco 14S
represent through art the true realities of “the street, the real Chicanos who
were taking it all the way. We weren’t romanticizing or glorifying what the
streets were like …. We wanted to reach inside and pull people’s guts out”
(Benavidez 2002, 18).
These intentions led to various and experimental forms of artistic production. These included the creation of No Movie, the Instant Mural, the
Walking Mural, and other conceptual works (Benavidez 2007). In 1971,
Asco began creating public art with their performance Stations of the Cross.
On a prominent street corner in East Los Angeles Asco members embodied a Christ/Death figure, Pontius Pilate, and a zombie altar boy. They
walked a mile along W hittier Boulevard, performing an alternative version of the Roman Catholic Stations of the Cross. Their at the U.S. Marine Recruiting Station. The humorous
Chicano interpretation of a Catholic tradition tied in pre-Columbian imagery to make a statement against the increasing number of casualties in
the Vietnam War. This was the first of Asco’s many notable experimental
“happenings” and public works.
In 1974, Asco turned a performance into a public mural when Gronk
used masking tape to fasten Herb Sandoval and Patssi Valdez to an exterior wall in Instant Mural. Instead of painted images, this “mural” employed living figures, questioning what constituted a mural and highlighting concerns with cliche-ridden imagery (Sanchez-Tranquilino 1990, 98).
Gronk and Herron also created notable murals in East Los Angeles. The
Black and White Mural depicts scenes from the Chicano Moratorium riots
and other scenes of the Los Angeles Chicano experience. Although credited to Herron, the 1972 mural The Wall That Cracked Open uses imagery
representative of the social critique and visual experimentation practiced
by Asco. Painted in an alley, The Wall That Cracked Open protested a gang
beating of Herron’s brother and addressed the larger issue of alienation
and violence within the Chicano community. Depicting a young man
suffering, youth fighting, and a grandmother weeping, the mural’s composition also incorporated existing graffiti. The incorporation of urban
street graffiti is one example of the many ways Asco challenged traditional
societal and artistic norms, validating various forms of cultural creation.
During Asco’s sixteen years of collective activity, its membership varied
along with its performances and creative output. Through the members’
work on the streets of East Los Angeles, and their exhibitions and collective efforts at both Chicano community art centers such as Self Help
146 Chicano Art Collectives
Graphics and mainstream art institutions such as the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Asco left a lasting mark on the cultural production of
Chicanos in Los Angeles and throughout the United States.
Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF), 1972-
The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is a collective initially composed
of Jose Montoya, Esteban Villa, Ricardo Favela, Rudy Cuellar, Juanishi
Orozco, and Louie “The Foot” Gonzalez. The RCAF remains active today, with a larger membership of artists and cultural workers that includes
Juan Carrillo, Tere Romo, Armando Cid, Stan Padilla, Juanita Ontiveros,
Max Garda, and Francisco “Xico” Gonzalez, Celia Herrera Rodriguez,
Sam Rios Jr., Juan Cervantes, Lorraine Garda, and Irma Lerma Barbosa.
The RCAF is and has been a fluid organization with a broad membership
of cultural workers. Many of the listed artists would consider themselves
part of the RCAF, while it is certain some would no longer consider
themselves affiliated. As Jose Montoya (2001, 26) states in “The Anatomy
of an RCAF Poster,” the RCAF “wasn’t only about painters, muralists, and
commercial artists. It included in its ranks students, educators, historians,
poets, teatristas, and community organizers, all operating within the constructs of struggle and resistance to utilize the impulse of pure creative
energy in all aspects of organizing.” The RCAF did whatever was necessary to further the goals of civil rights for Mexican Americans through art
making and creative organizing.
Organized in 1972, the RCAF began as the Rebel Chicano Art Front,
but because of constant confusion with the acronym for the Royal Canadian Air Force, the initial members began styling themselves the Royal
Chicano Air Force. As Ricardo Favela states in the documentary The Pilots
of Aztlan, “We kept on getting confused with the Royal Canadian Air
Force so one day we said, ‘Yeah, man, we fly adobe airplanes!’” As the
myth developed, people brought RCAF members different air force regalia such as bandoliers, flight jackets, and air force pins. The references
became more developed and satirical: young RCAF members who wished
to become pilots earned stripes by attending “flight school,” and the founders of the RCAF were self-described generals. The RCAF was an outgrowth of the discussions that took place amongst members of MALAF,
but as Favela explains, the group took the notion of a collective to a
different level:
RCAF 147
38. Ricardo Favela. ;Hue/gal Silkscreen, 1976. (Courtesy of the artist)
Everyone contributed to the myth of the RCAF. … It was very easy to do
because it was all in fun. It is what we call in the barrio cabula, which means
you play with humor and you use it as a means of resistance or defiance.
As a means of doing something to your oppressor so that they don’t know
what you are doing to them. With that cultural awareness on our part, we
had a field day. (Pilots of Azt/an / 994)
The collective used humor in oppositional ways to further its goals of
serving the Chicano community. It also brought multiple artists, cultural
workers, and scholars together under a unified cultural front. Primarily
active in the Sacramento Valley, the RCAF became a support organization for the UFW union. Members of the RCAF were regular fixtures at
strikes, pickets, and protests for farmworkers’ rights, and would often
appear dressed in flying caps and goggles.
The amusing anecdote behind Ricardo Favela’s silkscreen poster
iHuelga! (Strike!) provides an example of how the RCAF melded art,
activism, and direct action to serve the labor movement (figure 38). The
poster demands the boycott of Gallo Wines and Sun-Maid Raisins with a
148 Chicano Art Collectives
notable central image of four RCAF members dressed in air force regalia
riding in an army Jeep. The central photo was taken as the RCAF members took a beer break during a strike and boycott of Safeway in Woodland,
California. While on their beer run, they wound up participating in the
small town’s parade, winning second place in the best entry category. This
story exemplifies the group’s use of creative activism and art making in
living up to its slogan: la locura lo cura (the craziness that heals).
Proponents of Chicano nationalism, RCAF members were committed to
integrating art and community development. In 1973, members founded
El Centro de Artistas Chicanos as a community center and silkscreen
workshop. The center provided a space for artists and activists in the Sacramento region to engage in artistic production and dialogue about important community issues. RCAF members also supported community activism through a prolific production of silkscreen posters and community
murals. In addition, Esteban Villa and Jose Montoya-professors for many
years at California State University, Sacramento-created a universitycommunity art program to support area youth. The Barrio Art Program
continues to conduct workshops in Sacramento’s working-class communities. Centro de Artistas Chicanos no longer exists, but its successor, La
Raza Galerfa Posada, continues to produce Chicano art exhibitions and
cultural programming.
Mujeres Muralistas, 1973-1977
Mujeres Muralistas was a mural-painting collective composed of Chicana
and Latina artists from the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Irene Perez, and Consuelo Mendez were the four
founding members. At various times, Ruth Rodriguez, Xochitl NevelGuerrero, Susan Cervantes, Miriam Olivo, and Ester Hernandez joined
the collective in its mural projects. Mujeres Muralistas created eleven murals, mostly in the San Francisco Mission District, featuring the life, culture, and environment of Latin America (Davalos 2001). The collective
came together at a time when women were grossly underrepresented in the
Chicano art movement.
The group’s mural production first evolved at Balmy Alley in 1973
(discussed in chapter 2), where two of the four members worked on a
mural in an effort that was both independent and collective. Though the
content was unified, the mural was broken up into sections for each artist
Mujeres Muralistas 149
39. Mujeres Muralistas (Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Mendez, Irene
Perez). Latinoamerica. Mural, San Francisco, 1974. (Photo by Eva Cockcroft)
to paint individually, in an attempt to fully represent each member’s distinct experience and perspective. Mujeres Muralistas followed this working method in its subsequent mural projects. As Marfa Ochoa (2003, 40)
states in Creative Collectives: Chicana Painters Working in Community, “The
processes necessary to enact a hybridized style required too much energy
and time from the artists, who were always working against a deadline as
they simultaneously handled the creative as well as the logistical aspects
of mural work.” The resulting early murals-Latinoamerica, Para el Mercado, Rhomboidal Parallelogram, and Fantasy World for Children-exhibited
themes that promoted both the similarities in culture and history across
Latin America, and the diversity within that experience.
Upon completion of its early mural Latinoamerica (figure 39), Mujeres
Muralistas produced a manifesto describing the collective’s activity. The
members stated that their interests as artists were “to put art close to where
it needs to be. Close to children; close to old people; close to everyone who
has to walk or ride the buses …. We want our art in the streets or in places
where a lot of people go each day, the hospitals, health centers, clinics,
restaurants, and other places” (Ochoa 2003, 33). The manifesto related the
collective’s activity to the larger goals of the Chicano movement and the
I 50 Chicano Art Collectives
Chicano art movement. Beyond serving the community, the artistic production of Mujeres Muralistas served as a powerful inspiration for Chicana
activists and artists confronting patriarchal stereotypes. The collective’s
work broke down the idea that “women were physically not able and
politically not ‘meant’ to create murals, to build and climb scaffolding, to
be on public display and withstand the comments of passersby” (Gaspar de
Alba 1998, 121). Mujeres Muralistas also challenged Chicano nationalism,
questioning and defying its portrayals of Chicanas, its use of predominantly male actors, and its depiction of the pre-Columbian warrior holding
a dead woman as an archetype. As Ester Hernandez explains, “We were
concerned with what was around us. We had the general feeling that men
chose to deal with themes of social change through the portrayal of violence, heroes, and the glories of the past. In those days they were all Aztec
princes and Zapatistas. As a group of women we wanted to go in another
direction with our images” (Davalos 2001, 64). Rejecting these stereotypes,
Mujeres Muralistas provided alternative visual representations of poor and
working-class women, of Chicana and Latina activists, and of Chicano and
Latin American history as seen through the eyes of women.
Con Safos and Los Quemados
Originally called Pintores de la Nueva Raza, Con Safos was an early
Chicano art collective based in San Antonio, Texas. Of the original ten
members, Mel Casas, Felipe Reyes, and Cesar Martfnez are the most notable. The group’s original purpose was merely to provide exhibition opportunities for its members. Eventually Con Safos began to articulate a
political position regarding their artistic activity and their interaction with
Chicano and mainstream America. Mel Casas, an elder leader of Con
Safos, issued the “Brown Paper Report,” which promoted the movement
ideals of self-determination and equality for Chicanos and Chicanas but
was critical of “synthesizing farm workers into the mania that is middle
class America” (Davalos 2001, 73). Chicano scholar and writer Tomas
Rivera organized a significant exhibition of Con Safos members that traveled nationally in April 1972. Con Safos was short-lived, breaking up when
members became frustrated with bureaucratic group discussions over details of exhibiting artwork. Con Safos also splintered because of disagreements over the definition of Chicano art. Various members, several of
whom would eventually establish another art collective, did not believe
Con Safos and Los Quemados I 5 I
that Chicano art had to deal exclusively with social and political issues.
Though they believed that art should reflect the social and cultural struggles of the community, they did not believe their artwork had to serve or
represent any particular political ideology (Quirarte 1991).
Upon the disbandment of Con Safos in 1975, a second Chicano art collective emerged in San Antonio called Los Quemados (The Burnt Ones).
Members of Los Quemados came from San Antonio and Austin, Texas,
and included Santa Barraza, Carolina Flores, Carmen Lomas Garza,
Amado Pena, and Cesar Martfnez. These artists came together agreeing on
the common platform that they wanted to create artwork free “from
dogma, political or otherwise” (Quirarte 1991, 167). Cesar Martfnez, in a
catalogue of his work, states that Los Quemados wanted to be “more people
and less politically oriented” (Martfnez 1999, 28). Many of the artists in Con
Safos and Los Quemados have been discussed throughout this book, an
indication of their works’ strong representation of the diverse and multiple
elements constituting Mexican American traditions and ways oflife.
LosFou 1973-1983
Los Four was a seminal Chicano art collective com posed of Carlos Almaraz,
Gilbert “Magu” Sanchez Lujan, Roberto “Beto” de la Rocha, and Frank
Romero. John Valadez and J udithe Hernandez would later be core contributors to the collective. The emergence of Los Four and the development of
its artistic production sharply contrasted with that of its Los Angeles counterpart, Asco. Los Four, according to Chicano scholar Max Benavidez,
represented a “cool, intellectual approach” to art making. He notes that
several of the artists in Los Four were educated in the arts and held
advanced degrees. Though their impetuses and artistic production differed
greatly, Los Four and Asco had a similar goal of supporting the development of a visual art that represented the Chicano experience. John Valadez
states, “We were so starved for any kind of positive identity that any
recognition of who we were, that we were even there, caused a deep response” (Benavidez 2002, 18). Valadez’s sentiment reflects the larger theme
of cultural reclamation and representation of the Chicano art movement.
Los Four is credited as the first group of Chicano artists to exhibit either
individually or collectively in a large, mainstream art institution. In 1974,
Jane Livingston organized the exhibition Los Four: Almaraz/de la Rocha/
Lujan/Romero at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition
152 Chicano Art Collectives
was also one of the first major Chicano art exhibits reviewed in the mainstream media. Not surprisingly, although the Los Four exhibition was a
breakthrough for Chicano artists in that the members’ art was considered
important enough to exhibit, representatives of mainstream art institutions
and the media misunderstood the works’ meaning and sources. Los Angeles
Times art critic William Wilson, in reviewing the Los Four exhibit, stated
that the exhibit was a decent show, but it gave him a headache. Wilson
erroneously described Los Four and Chicano art’s origins, stating that, “No
individual invented this style, it grew naturally as an indigenous expression
of thousands of Chicanos in the Southwest. It is an urban folk style. As far
as I know it took shape in the 1940s among adolescent Mexican Americans” (Quirarte 1991, 170). Wilson thus equated Los Four’s paintings to the
1940s gang-affiliated graffiti of pachuco youth in El Paso and Los Angeles.
Although the mainstream art world failed to understand the cultural reclamation and political aspects of the work, Los Four opened the doors of
mainstream art institutions to Chicanos and Chicanas by attempting to
negotiate Chicano art’s political intentions and emphasis on community
with mainstream success and recognition.
Co-Madres Artistas, 1992-
Co-Madres Artistas is a collective established in 1992 by six women: artists
Irma Lerma Barbosa, Carmel Castillo, Laura Llano, Mareia de Socorro,
and Helen Villa, and the collective’s administrator, Lucy Montoya Rhodes.
The artists, ranging in age from forty-four to sixty-five at the time of the
organization’s inception, were brought together when Irma Lerma Barbosa coordinated an exhibition coinciding with a Latina Leadership conference. Centered in northern California’s Sacramento Valley, Co-Madres
Artistas have played a major role in the cultural legacy of Chicano and
Chicana art and art organizations in the region, including La Raza Galerfa
Posada, the RCAF, and community businesses such as Cafe Luna (Ochoa
2003). Through their support and work for such organizations and institutions, the members of have worked together on and
off dating back to 1969.
While all the members of Co-Mad res Artistas produced art individually
and collectively from the beginning of the Chicano movement, employment and family responsibilities left them with little time or opportunity to
consistently pursue careers as artists. Many of the members taught in
Co-Madres Artistas 153
public schools and ran their own art-related businesses to generate income.
Although members of Co-Madres Artistas first acknowledged themselves
as a collective centered around a specific art exhibit, the collective gave
them a much-needed support mechanism to help them navigate the difficult path of balancing family and economic responsibilities while confronting a still very male-dominated art world. As Marfa Ochoa (2003)
explains, all the Co-Madres worked outside of the home to support their
families, placed a high value on their families, and balanced their careers
with other interests. Helen Villa recalled that she would regularly see other
Co-Madres at art-related events in Sacramento: “I used to see Irma and
Laura at different cultural events … usually art shows that the RCAF
artists were putting on. We would always say, ‘Hi! Are you painting? Are
you doing any art?’ We would always respond, ‘Well, I haven’t had a
chance to, … the kids and everything.’ One day Irma said, ‘This is it. We
have a chance to exhibit, and get your stuff out’ ” (Ochoa 2003, 60).
Co-Madres Artistas’ importance as a Chicano art collective lies in its
development, less as a political and social fusion of ideas and art production
than as an aid to its members’ efforts to persist as artists through the middle
of their careers and negotiate the balance that women face between work
and family, particularly in the family-oriented Mexican American culture.
Members of Co-Madres have worked in a variety of media with a special
emphasis on easel painting. Their imagery predominantly deals with Chicanas in empowering situations, the Chicano family, and varied representations of Mexican American spirituality.
Discussion Questions
I. Why were Chicano artists motivated to work collectively? How does collectivity further the ideals of creating socially and politically relevant art?
2. How did art collectives attempt to promote a vision of Chicano art that was
socially relevant and anchored in the community? Discuss the variety of media
that Chicano art collectives used. How did each form of visual creation promote the collective’s goals?
3. Most Chicano and Chicana art collectives have been short-lived. Discuss the
reasons why this might be so.
154 Chicano Art Collectives
Suggested Readings
Benavidez, Max. Cronk, A Ver: Revisioning Art History. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano
Studies Research Center, 2007.
Davalos, Karen Mary. Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s House: Cultural Politics
and the CARA Exhibition. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
Griswold del Castillo, Richard, Teresa McKenna, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, eds.
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985. Los Angeles: Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, 1991.
Noriega, Chon, ed. Just Another Poster? Chicano Graphic Arts in California. Santa
Barbara: University Art Museum, University ofCalifornia, 2001.
Ochoa, Maria. Creative Collectives: Chicana Painters Working in Community. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.
Suggested Readings I 55

Community Art Centers and Workshops
0 ne of the lasting contributions of the Chicano art movement is the
proliferation and development of community-based art centers,
galleries, and silkscreen-poster workshops. Community art centers developed during the Chicano movement out of the need for alternative structures to support artistic creation, to use the arts as a community
development tool, and to disseminate information and education about
Chicano art (Goldman and Ybarra-Frausto 1985). Numerous Chicano art
centers established during the height of the Chicano movement continue to
exist today with the same functions that prompted their foundation.
The ideological foundations of the Chicano movement found an ideal
manifestation in the development of cultural centers that used the arts as a
tool to bring people together not only to share culture, but also to meet,
organize, and dialogue. “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan” provided a political
platform encouraging the creation of independent, Chicano-controlled institutions. Independence as a way to ensure self-determination was a central theme of the movement. “El Plan Espiritual” states that Chicanos seek
to be “autonomously free, culturally, socially, economically, and politically.” Many scholars have described these words as separatist, ignoring the
fact that Chicanos and Chicanas most often worked through U.S. government systems and institutions to seek their independence and autonomy.
The Mexican American community prior to the emergence of the Chicano
movement was described as an “internal colony” because people from
outside the Chicano community and experience controlled many of the
decision-making institutions, such as school boards and elected offices. In
order to combat this lack of voice, activists decided it was essential to
establish cultural, political, and economic control of their communities.
Furthermore, activists sought to reconfigure the capitalist-based value system that encouraged community members to compete with one another
for resources into a system of community cooperation for mutual benefit,
which is more in line with Mexican American culture. According to “El
Plan Espiritual,” instead of viewing fellow community members as com-
petitors, Chicanos and Chicanas should draw on their “cultural background and values that ignore materialism and embrace humanism.” It
was believed that this would “lead to the act of co-operative buying and
distribution of resources and production of resources and production to
sustain an economic base for healthy growth and development.” This
section of the plan does not speak directly to the arts, but it does provide a
context for the efforts of activists and artists to work collectively and to
create institutions that fostered development of the entire community.
At the Crusade for Justice’s Second Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1970, much of the rhetoric behind “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan”
was elaborated upon, including in special workshops dedicated to arts
activism. The papers produced from these workshops express the sentiments that motivated Chicano artists across the United States to establish
art centers and workshops in Chicano communities. At the workshop
called “Los Artistas de Aztlan,” attendees resolved the following:
Resolve: That Chicano art is an art of our people and should be exhibited
namely in those areas in which our people live; the barrios, campos, etc.
Chicano art should not be aimed for the sake of selling to tourism or as an
ornament to please the gringos, so we therefore, refuse to exhibit our
work in gringo institutions and galleries. (Crusade for Justice 1970)
These sentiments were also proclaimed in El Plan de Santa Barbara in
1969. El Plan de Santa Barbara primarily described in detail how Chicano
studies programs would be instituted in colleges and universities. One of
the central goals of this document was to create a bridge or conduit between universities and the Chicano/Latino communities in surrounding
areas. El Plan de Santa Barbara identified the need to develop “community
cultural and social action centers” (Chicano Coordinating Committee on
Higher Education 1969, 10). The drafters understood that community art
centers would be more accessible to Mexican Americans if they were located in their immediate communities. While these ideas were not the
immediate motivation for every community art center and workshop that
developed out of the Chicano movement, they did provide the impetus for
a new social structure where Chicano artists could engage in art making.
This new structure would encourage community development and at the
same time redefine the criteria that determined which artists and art forms
were successful.
Community art centers and workshops often struggled to survive
Art Centers and Workshops 157
economically, so had to creatively finance their operations through a mixture of public and private grants as well as fundraisers. Many centers and
workshops did not have a business model or mission of selling their artistic
production for profit. Instead, much of the work at community centers and
workshops sought to “counteract the influence of the mainstream” (Davalos 2001, 60), which artists and activists saw as disempowering to the Chicano community. Many centers and workshops were initially funded by
government agencies as a means to reduce poverty and promote community development. The Comprehensive Employment Training Act
(CETA), a federal antipoverty program, provided funding to many early
poster workshops. Even though CETA kept many early workshops and
centers afloat, the organizations still struggled financially to serve their
communities’ cultural and creative needs.
Despite their precarious financial situation, these spaces enabled Chicanos and Chicanas to become the authorities on their own culture and
how it was interpreted by society at large. Scholar Karen Mary Davalos
explains that community centers and workshops “did not take the public
museum as their guide; not only did they lack the money and trained staff,
they focused on those subjects denied by the public museum’s homogenized narrative and history of the United States” (Davalos 2001, 61). It was
in this environment that Day of the Dead celebrations could be exhibited
alongside images of pachucos and the Virgin of Guadalupe. In the spirit of
self-determination, cultural workers, artists, and activists used community
centers and workshops to define the lens through which Chicano culture
and history would be viewed. Traditional categories and designations such
as folk art, fine art, or popular art were often ignored. Instead, the entire
creative expression of artists and regular community members alike was
valued and promoted within this alternative structure.
The selected community art centers discussed in this chapter provide an
overview of the socially and geographically diverse Chicano art centers
that proliferated during the late 1960s and 1970s. The particular focus of
this chapter are those centers and workshops that developed during the
early phase of the Chicano movement. Chicano art centers that deserve
greater attention and research include Chicago’s Casa Aztlan, organized
by Movimiento Artfstico Chicano (MARCH); Guadalupe Cultural Arts
Center in San Antonio, Texas; Mechicano Art Center and Plaza de la Raza
in Los Angeles; and Casa de la Raza in Santa Barbara. Although many of
the early Chicano art centers have closed, a significant number have man158 Art Centers and Workshops
aged to sustain themselves for thirty or forty years and continue today. The
2000 exhibition entitled Hecho en Califas: The Last Decade 1990-1999
highlighted the ongoing cultural creation of Chicano art centers in California that emerged during the Chicano movement as well as during the
1980s and 1990s. Some of the centers that participated were Arte Americas
from Fresno, Centro Cultural de la Raza from San Diego, East Bay Center
for the Performing Arts from Richmond, Mexican Heritage Plaza from
San Jose, La Pena Cultural Center from Berkeley, Plaza de la Raza and
Self Help Graphics from Los Angeles, and La Raza Galerfa Posada from
Sacramento. While these organizations’ missions and activities vary, all
continue to encourage the exhibition and creation of Chicano/Latino art.
Self Help Graphics and Art Inc., 1970-
Self Help Graphics and Art is a community-based art center located in
East Los Angeles (see www.selfhelpgraphics.com). It has had a major
impact on the development of Chicano art, serving as a premier center for
silkscreen printmaking, an exhibition location, and a space for various
types of civic engagement. Self Help Graphics has trained printmakers and
worked with countless Chicano artists to develop prints.
The late Sister Karen Boccalero, a Catholic nun, artist, and printmaker,
established Self Help Graphics in 1970. Sister Karen, as she was affectionately known, was of Italian descent and was born in Arizona in 1933. She
was raised in Boyle Heights during the 1940s and 1950s. During this
period, Boyle Heights, which borders East Los Angeles, was a diverse
community of mainly Jewish Americans and Mexican Americans. Sister
Karen gained an art education at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, where a generation of women was encouraged to investigate and
evaluate “the tenets of the Church, and these women, in turn, formulated
critiques of the Church’s patriarchal hierarchy” (Guzman 2005, 7). At
Immaculate Heart College, Sister Karen studied with Sister Carita Kent,
an educator and poster maker who “had a profound effect on [her] artistic education and emerging sociopolitical consciousness” (6). Sister Karen
joined the Order of the Sisters of St. Francis and set out to work in Boyle
Heights, which by then had become predominantly Mexican American.
Using her background as an artist, Sister Karen made it her mission to
foster the potential of every individual.
Sister Karen teamed up with artists Carlos Bueno, Antonio Ibanez, and
Self Help Graphics and Art 159
Frank Hernandez to create an art center that would foster Chicanismo by
nurturing young artists. Sister Karen stated that “individuals have a significant contribution to make for themselves and society. Chicano art and
artists are a gift to society, mirroring a powerful and desired cultural
richness” (Guzman 2005, 7). Working out of a garage in East Los Angeles,
the founding group of artists set two distinct goals for Self Help Graphics:
(1) to provide training in silkscreen printmaking for local Chicano artists,
and (2) to “offer the surrounding community, including families and children, cultural experiences that would instill a sense of cultural pride” (6).
Sister Karen, Bueno, Ibanez, and Hernandez staged their first exhibition at
El Mercado, an indoor community shopping plaza in East Los Angeles. In
1972, Sister Karen secured seed money from the Order of the Sisters of St.
Francis to be used for basic operational costs and for renting a larger venue.
In 1978, Self Help Graphics moved to its on Cesar Chavez and Gage, the rent on which is underwritten
by the Sisters of St. Francis.
With an established location, Self Help Graphics began offering community batik and silkscreen classes that culminated in exhibitions of work
created in the workshops. In an effort to reach out to the Chicano community, Self Help Graphics created the Barrio Mobile Art Studio (BMAS), a
converted van that offered mobile community art activities. When school
was out of session, local artists created lesson plans in painting, photography, puppetry, and silkscreen printing for community members. It has
been estimated that in its first eight months of operation, BMAS reached
more than seven thousand community members of all ages. In 1972, Self
Help Graphics also began its annual Dia de los Muertos exhibition and
celebration. Typically scheduled on November 2, the event included a
procession that began at a local cemetery in Boyle Heights and ended at
Self Help Graphics. The procession coincided with an exhibition of altars
and creative artworks and installations paying homage to the deceased.
Notable Chicano art collectives such as Asco and Los Four often contributed. Asco, in particular, used this public procession and celebration to
create street performance art that pushed the interpretation of Dfa de los
Muertos and its relevance to the contemporary Chicano community. The
event would set a standard for and influence celebrations at other Chicano
art centers and galleries. Chicana scholar Kristen Guzman (2005) highlights the influence of Self Help Graphics’ Dfa de los Muertos celebration,
noting that the Mexican Museum in San Francisco dedicated a large por160 Art Centers and Workshops
tion of its 2000 exhibit “Chicanos en Mictlan: Dia de los Muertos in California” to Self He! p Graphics and Sister Karen.
Self Help Graphics’ silkscreen atelier has been a major contributor to
the development of Chicano art. Atelier is the French word for an artist’s
studio, but here it refers to a program that offers artists an opportunity to
work with an experienced silkscreen printer, or “master printer,” to develop a limited-edition silkscreen print. The program enabled Chicano
artists not proficient in the silkscreen process to access the benefits of
printmaking and reach a wider audience with multiple copies of a single
work and also allowed them to create artworks affordable to those within
the Chicano community interested in supporting artists and purchasing
art. The first atelier occurred when Sister Karen invited Gronk to create a
series of silkscreen prints with master printer Steven Grace (Guzman 2005,
16). In traditional printmaking ateliers, the artist keeps half of the prints,
and the studio keeps the other half as payment for the use of its facilities
and for use as a fundraising tool. Artists often exhibit their own prints
or sell them to support themselves financially. Self Help Graphics used
Gronk’s prints to raise funds for its operation and to lay the foundation for
the atelier program, which continues to this day. Many of the most prominent Chicano artists have participated in Self Help Graphics’ atelier program, including Ester Hernandez, Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Michael Amescua, Barbara Carrasco, Y reina Cervantez, Richard Duardo,
Diane Gamboa, Patssi Valdez, Gronk, Harry Gamboa, Willie Herron, Leo
Limon, Malaquias Montoya, Linda Vallejo, Alex Donis, Juana Alicia, Sam
Coronado, Samuel Baray, Lalo Alcaraz, Lysa Flores, Artemio Rodrfguez,
and Vincent Valdez. Most of these works have been archived at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s, California Ethnic and Multicultural
Archives (CEMA; http://cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu).
Today, local musicians, art groups, and community organizations continue to use the top floor of Self Help Graphics as a space for dialogue and
unity. While Self Help Graphics is a symbol of success in supporting the
development of Chicano art and encouraging cultural empowerment and
community development, it has often struggled to maintain its direction
and sustain itself financially. The art created at Self Help provided fodder
for a fertile debate on the direction of Chicano art that surfaced in the
1980s with the emergence of more culturally based imagery that did not
directly reflect the political themes common in the early period of the
Chicano movement. In addition, Self Help Graphics established various
Self Help Graphics and Art 161
relationships with universities, foundations, and corporations in an effort
to provide the necessary funding and research base to support the organization’s activities. Self Help Graphics’s ongoing struggle to remain afloat
demonstrates that even after years of dedication and worthwhile contributions, providing alternative community-based spaces to create and exhibit
culture is never easy.
Galeria de la Raza, 1970-
Galerfa de la Raza is a community arts organization and center in San
Francisco’s Mission District (see www.galeriadelaraza.org). Founded in
1970 by Nicaraguan Rolando Castellon, Galerfa de la Raza brought together a wide range of artists from a number of different collectives such
as MALAF, Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes, Artes 6, and Artistas Latino
Americanos (Goldman 1990). The diversity of this initial group is reflective
of the diverse Latino population in San Francisco’s Mission District. In
1971 Galerfa de la Raza settled into a storefront at the corner of Bryant and
24th Streets, where it continues to provide exhibitions and art workshops
for the Chicano/Latino community. From 1971 through 1974 Galerfa de la
Raza was funded through San Francisco’s Neighborhood Arts Program,
which provided funding for operational costs and paid the salaries of
codirectors Rene Yanez and Ralph Maradiaga. The Galeria survived on a
mixture of grants and fundraising until Marfa Pinedo turned an adjoining
room into a photocopy service and gift store that made the organization
economically self-sustaining (Davalos 2001).
Galeria de la Raza holds community art workshops but is mainly known
for its support of San Francisco muralism. The Galerfa brought together
many highly influential artists of the Chicano art movement. Las Mujeres
Muralistas, Mike Rfos, Tony Machado, Spain Rodriguez, Chuy Camusano,
Ruben Guzman, Domingo Rivera, and Gilberto Ramfrez have all worked
with and at the Galerfa (Maradiaga 1977). The Galeria _printed the first
edition of its Mission Community Mural Tour Guide guidebook in 1975. It
encouraged muralism in numerous other ways as well, including by appropriating a Foster and Kleiser billboard on the side of the Galeria’s building
(Goldman 1990). Galerfa-affiliated artists decided to seize the billboard and
begin painting revolving community murals on it to promote exhibitions
and record issues critical to the community’s well-being. Since 1975, except
for a brief interlude when the corporate owners tried to wrest it away, the
162 Art Centers and Workshops
40. Michael Rios. Dia de las Muertos: Marking Time/Marking Place. Temporary billboard
mural, Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, 1992. (Courtesy of the artist)
billboard has displayed a number of highly successful murals. While many
of the works created on this billboard have specifically related to the issues
and culture of the Chicano/Latino community, others have moved “beyond
the Chicano cultural nationalist paradigm” (Davalos 2001, 93). Xavier
Viramontes created numerous murals on the Galerfa billboard dealing
with a variety of issues and themes. In 1976, he painted International Hotel,
a visual protest against the closure of the Chinatown hotel of that name,
which was inhabited mainly by retired Filipino merchant seamen. In 1992,
Michael Rios painted Dia de los Muertos: Marking Time/Marking Place to
announce an exhibition recognizing and protesting the five hundredth
anniversary celebration of Christopher Columbus’s encounter with the
Americas (figure 40). Rfos’s image represented Columbus as both Death
and Life, alluding to the disease and warfare brought upon the indigenous
communities. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has also been a prominent figure
in Galerfa billboard murals. In 1978, Rios painted Frida’s portrait with the
words “Homenaje a Frida Kahlo” scrawled across an open landscape.
Again, in 1987, Rios painted Recuerdos de Frida (Memories of Frida), announcing an exhibition of works dedicated to her life and work. The
Galerfa’s billboard murals, as well as the concurrent exhibitions dealing
with the history and culture of countries throughout Latin America, have
Galeria de la Raza 163
provided the community with alternative, informative, and educational
imagery. As Rene Yanez stated in 1977, “the importance of the Galeria de la
Raza is that we have broken ground. The Galeria’s existence has made it
possible for other groups to get started. We broke the ground and through
murals, posters, and exhibitions, created an interest among the audience”
(Maradiaga 1977, 31).
Centro Cultural de la Raza, 1970-
Centro Cultural de la Raza was established in 1970 in San Diego (see
www.centroculturaldelaraza.org). Its mission is to promote Chicano culture by providing a space that encourages a variety of artistic practices.
Owing to its location close to the U.S.-Mexico border, the center has often
promoted cultural creations dealing with border issues. During the 1970s
the Centro was crucial in fostering a new Chicano mural movement, and
in the 1980s it served as a space for artists to criticize and protest the
militarization of the U.S. border and the criminalization of Mexican and
Latin American immigrant workers.
In the late 1960s numerous San Diego-based Mexican American artists
were creating art aligned with the emerging Chicano movement. Notable
among them were Guillermo Aranda; Victor Ochoa; Alurista, the poet
who wrote the introduction to “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan”; and Salvador Roberto Torres, also known as “Queso”; all of whom were working
in San Diego prior to 1968. Torres had attended the California College of
Arts and Crafts where he met artists Jose Montoya and Esteban Villa. The
three artists greatly influenced one another’s ideas and artistic development, especially as all went on to establish vital Chicano art organizations
and community centers.
Centro Cultural de la Raza began as an informal art center in 1968 when
the San Diego Parks and Recreation Department gave Torres permission
to use an abandoned facility in Balboa Park as an art studio. Torres intended to make a series of large, portable murals that required a goodsized studio space. Torres began inviting other artists to join him in this
building, a former Ford Motor Company display space for a 1935 international expo. Initially, painters gathered in the studio to produce paintings and murals, but the group soon expanded to include writers and
performance artists who practiced theater and pre-Columbian dance. The
164 Art Centers and Workshops
41. Victor Ochoa. Geronimo. Mural, Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, 1981. (Courtesy of the artist)
Centro truly had a grassroots beginning as recalled by Victor Ochoa, who
used the facility for printing posters and painting murals (figure 41):
I met Queso at San Diego State where I was studying art. I was bummed
out by the classes there and he told me about what they were doing.
There was a demand for posters, so we set up a table in the Ford Building
and started stockpiling paints and materials for a workshop. But we primarily printed stuff from one day to another, for a picket, demonstration
or some kind of activity like that. We were meeting in people’s houses
because there wasn’t even electricity at a certain time in the Ford Building.
We would bring stuff that we were working on and share poetry. This was
in 1969. (Brookman and Gomez-Pena 1986, 18)
It was in this environment that artists and activists began seeking to solidify these activities and workshops into a permanent community art center.
Los Toltecas en Aztlan was the official name of the artists working at
the Ford Building. Alurista came up with the organization’s name, which
Centro Cultural de la Raza 165
signified the pre-Columbian cultural heritage of the Mexican American
community. In their founding mission statement Los Toltecas en Aztlan
stated that their collective “shall be constituted of all those Chicano Artists
dedicated to Human Truth and Chicano Beauty, which in our belief can
only be lived up to through Mutual Self-Respect, Self-Determination in
our endeavors, and the Self-Sacrifice of our individual differences for the
sake of a Centro Cultural de la Raza, where our indigenous ancestral spirit
of brotherhood, justice and peace can flourish in contemporary Chicano
Art Forms” (Brookman and G6mez-Peiia 1986, 18). The mission statement clearly reflects the goals of the larger Chicano movement but with a
special focus on the values that would govern them in working collectively
and establishing a new cultural art center. Between the creation of Los
Toltecas en Aztlan and the official establishment of the Centro Cultural de
la Raza, the artists and activists working at the Ford Building engaged in
one of the most dynamic episodes of the Chicano movement, the struggle
to establish Chicano Park. Chicano Park is discussed in chapter 2 but
deserves mention here as well because the community activism displayed
in its establishment was similar to the agency displayed in the development
of the Centro Cultural de la Raza.
On the same day that the takeover of Chicano Park began, Los Toltecas
en Aztlan approached the San Diego City Council, requesting that the city
permanently turn over the Ford Building to them for the establishment of
the Centro Cultural de la Raza. Salvador Torres represented Los Toltecas
in negotiations. Initially, the city council had slated the Ford Building to
become an aerospace museum, providing a parallel to the fight for the
Coronado Bridge underpass, which was intended to house a Highway
Patrol station. Salvador Torres presented three demands:
(I) that the Ford Building be turned over to the Toltecas en Aztlan board of
directors to be converted into a Centro Cultural de la Raza. (2) T hat in the
event another building is offered by the city, such a building must be of comparable size to the Ford Building and be located in Balboa Park. (3) That the
city commit itself to match the funds that the Toltecas are able to raise with
an equal amount. (Brookman and G6mez-Peiia 1986, 21)
After fierce negotiations that included eviction notices, an agreement was
eventually reached whereby Los Toltecas were given a one-dollar-per-year
lease on an abandoned concrete water tank located in the same park.
166 Art Centers and Workshops
In May 1971, Los Toltecas moved into its new space, and in July the
members held their opening reception, attracting more than five hundred
attendees.
The Centro Cultural de la Raza gave artists a base from which to
execute public art projects such as the Chicano Park murals. During its
first years the Centro took a multimedia and multidisciplinary approach
to artistic creation and education. Workshops were conducted in painting, mural painting, pottery, jewelry, film, Aztec dance, and theater. Ballet Folkl6rico en Aztlan is a performing arts group active at the Centro
from its inception, providing workshops in folkl6rico dancing in addition
to performing. Alurista, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Mario Aguilar organized Los Servidores de Arbo! de la Vida, another arts group that performed music combining pre-Columbian instruments with dance and poetry. A number of Centro musicians also conducted music workshops.
Teatro Mestizo, a Chicano theater group, performed in the community
and on the picket lines in support of the farmworkers’ struggle, much
like El Teatro Campesino did. These goings-on were just a small sampling
of the diverse and vibrant activities conducted at the Centro Cultural de
la Raza.
The Centro also served as an organizing space for the development of
the Border Art Workshop (BA W ), founded by Victor Ochoa, Isaac Artenstein, Jude Eberhart, Sara-Jo Berman, Guillermo G6mez-Peiia, and Michael Schnorr (see www.borderartworkshop.com). The Border Art Workshop is a collective that emerged in the 1980s of artists engaged in art
making on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. An eclectic group of
cultural workers, scholars, and artists came together with the goal of addressing “the social tensions the Mexican-American border creates while
asking us to imagine a world in which this international boundary has
been erased” (Grynsztejn 1993, 25). Composed of Chicano, Mexican, and
Anglo-American artists in many disciplines, the organization crossed cultures and borders in a common dedication to creating art that directly
spoke to the issues plaguing the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. David Avalos,
with administrative support from the Centro, directed this group of artists
in a series of challenging performances and public artworks. BA W is one
of many examples of the Centro Cultural de la Raza’s continual willingness
to engage the important issues facing the San Diego and national Chicano
community.
Centro Cultural de la Raza 167
La Raza Silkscreen Center (LRSC), 1970-1995,
and Mission Grafica, 1995-
La Raza Silkscreen Center (LRSC) is a community-based poster workshop
founded in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1971 by Al Borvice, Oscar
Melara, and Pete Gallegos. Other artists who initially worked at LRSC
included Eileen Starr, Jos Sances, and Mike Rfos. LRSC was affiliated with
the La Raza Information Center, a nonprofit organization that ran community services such as free breakfast programs, a community newspaper,
a health clinic, and defense committees for community members in need of
legal services. The two organizations shared space in the Mission District,
and LRSC would often produce silkscreen posters for La Raza Information Center events, organizations, and political causes. LRSC also produced hundreds of posters for prominent Chicano issues and organizations
such as the UFW unionization struggles and La Raza Unida Party.
La Raza Silkscreen Center attracted many influential Chicano artists to
the production of silkscreen prints. Herbert Siguenza, a current member
of the Chicano comedy troupe Culture Clash, and Linda Lucero both
became key artists, eventually providing leadership for the LRSC. Other
participating artists have included Juan Fuentes, Rupert Garcia, Carlos
Azucar, Rosa Quintana, Antonio Chavez, Consuelo Mendez, Roberto Andress, Kike Estrada, Miriam Medina, and Rayvan Gonzales. Although
LRSC’s primary activity was producing silkscreen posters, they expanded
their services to offer neighborhood youth silkscreen printing classes. In
1974, LRSC expanded into a larger facility and began providing offset
lithography services and typesetting. This allowed the center greater ability to produce information, newsletters, posters, and brochures on a mass
scale.
La Raza Silkscreen Center underwent numerous reorganizations in
adaptations to the changing political and economic climate. In 1983, LRSC
officially became part of La Raza en Acci6n, an umbrella organization of a
variety of San Francisco-based community services, including La Raza
Information Center, La Raza Tutorial Program, La Raza Centro Legal,
and the Housing Development and Neighborhood Preservation Corporation. LRSC exemplifies the ways Chicano art centers have worked in
conjunction with community service organizations to achieve their common goals and use art for social ends. Until 1993, LRSC continued to
provide the San Francisco Mission District with art workshops in print168 Art Centers and Workshops
making, painting, and drawing. Very respected Chicano/Latino artists,
such as Juana Alicia, Emmanuel Montoya, Kate Connell, and Francisco
Camplis, worked at LRSC during this period teaching workshops and
creating artwork.
In 1995, La Raza Silkscreen Center merged with the Mission Cultural
Center for Latino Arts (see http://missionculturalcenter.org). Many of the
LRSC’s poster makers and artists would help establish Mission Grafica, a
printmaking studio within the Mission Cultural Center. Established in
1977, the Mission Cultural Center still exists today, offering a variety of
community-based art activities for Mission District residents. Throughout
LRSC’s many transformations, Linda Lucero continued to organize exhibitions and provide workshops, while creating her own posters and
silkscreen prints. In 1986, Lucero organized a very important exhibition
documenting and celebrating the LRSC’s first fifteen years. Entitled Buscando America (Looking for America), the exhibition featured such artists
as Enrique Chagoya, Jose Letelier, Antonio Ramirez, Domitila Dominguez, Sal Garda, Irene Perez, Rene Castro, Ester Hernandez, Juan Fuentes, Herbert Siguenza, Linda Lucero, and Oscar Melara. These names
alone document the incredible importance of LRSC in the development
of Chicano printmaking. Today, Juan Fuentes continues to lead Mission
Grafica, offering silkscreen printing workshops and producing posters
relevant to the political and cultural life of the Mission District’s diverse
community.
Social Public Art Resource Center (SPARC),
1976-
Chicana artist and muralist Judy Baca founded the Social Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in 1976 in Venice, California (see www.sparcmu
rals.org). SPARC was established with the goal of promoting and documenting public art that represented America’s diverse communities and
experiences and told the stories not well represented in mainstream media
or art, especially those of women, the working poor, youth, the elderly, and
immigrant communities. As discussed in chapter 2, Judy Baca has had an
incredible impact on the development of the Chicano mural movement
and continues through SPARC to create programming and opportunities
encouraging the proliferation of community murals. Baca was influential
in turning a series of mural workshops conducted with inner-city youth
Social Public Art Resource Center 169
42. Judith F. Baca. Great Wall of Los Angeles: Division of the Barrios and Chavez Ravine. Mural,
Los Angeles, 1983. (Photo by Gia Roland)
into a city-sponsored public mural program. From 1974 to 1976, the Citywide Mural Program supported the development of more than forty murals in diverse communities throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
SPARC’s first project was organizing and executing the massive Great
Wall of Los Angeles. The Great Wall has served as a premier example of a
community art project that involved youth in creating a monumental,
beautiful, and culturally important work (see figure 42). Baca explains the
motivation for using mural ism as a tool to create community:
In the case of the Great Wall the metaphor really is the bridge. It’s about
the interrelationship between ethnic and racial groups, the development
of interracial harmony. The product-there are really two products-the
mural and another product which is invisible, the interracial harmony
between the people who have been involved. (Mesa-Bains 1990, 81)
As Baca describes, community mural making can play a role in encouraging community development and unity, not only in the viewers, but in
everyone involved in producing the murals, whether as artists, assistants,
and students working together or as one of the countless passersby curious
to watch the art in progress.
170 Art Centers and Workshops
Most Chicano art centers, while promoting muralism, have used their
spaces primarily to promote printmaking as a cultural and political tool.
SPARC is unusual because its main focus, muralism, occurs outside of
buildings at sites within the community. In 1988, SPARC began a program
called Neighborhood Pride: Great Walls Unlimited, which commissioned
artists to work with youth on mural projects. SPARC’s Mural Resource
Center is an archive housing thousands of slides that document community
murals throughout the United States. In addition, SPARC holds rotating
exhibitions in its gallery space (Baca 1990). For further discussion of a
specific portion of the Great Wall, murals in Los Angeles generally, and the
importance of muralism to the Chicano movement refer to chapter 2.
Discussion Questions
I. How did the ideals of the Chicano movement foster the emergence of
community art centers and workshops? What purpose did these organizations
serve?
2. How did community art centers and workshops offer alternatives to mainstream art institutions? Why was it important to provide alternative spaces
where Chicano artists could exhibit?
3. Why, in your opinion, was it necessary to demand spaces within communities such as San Diego for the establishment and support of community art
centers?
Suggested Readings
Arreola, Daniel D. “Mexican American Exterior Murals.” Geographical Review 74, no.
4 (1984): 409-24.
Barnet-Sanchez, Holly, and Eva Sperling Cockcroft, eds. Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals. Venice, CA: Social Public Art Resource Center, 1990.
Chavez, Patricio, Madeleine Grynsztejn, and Kathryn Kanjo, comps. La Frontera/
The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States Border Experience. San Diego: Centro
Cultural de la Raza, Museum of Contemporary Art, 1993.
Davalos, Karen Mary. Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
Drescher, Timothy W. San Francisco Murals: Community Creates Its Muse, 1914-1994.
St. Paul, MN: Pogo Press, 1994.
Suggested Readings I 71
Dunitz, Robin J., and James Prigoff. Painting the Towm: Murals of California. Los
Angeles: RJD Enterprises, 1997.
Goldman, Shifra. “A Public Voice: Fifteen Years of Chicano Posters.” Art Journal 44,
no. 1(1984): 50-57.
Griswold del Castillo, Richard, Teresa McKenna, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, eds.
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985. Los Angeles: Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, 1991.
Guzman, Kristen. Self Help Graphics and Art: Art in the Heart of East Los Angeles. Los
Angeles: Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA, 2005.
Maradiaga, Ralph. The Fifth Sun: Contemporary/Traditional Chicano and Latino Art.
Berkeley: University Art Museum and Chicano Studies, University of California,
1977.
Noriega, Chon. Just Another Poster? Chicano Graphic Arts in California. Santa Barbara:
University Art Museum, University of California, 2001.
172 Art Centers and Workshops

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