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the 40's and 50's. Rios has also focused his attention on Chicano political events of the 70's as indicated in his "LA MUERTE DE SALAZAR" which comments on the death of Los Angeles journalist Ruben Salazar. Salazar is believed to have been intentionally killed by Los Angeles police during an outbreak of a riot.

Jesus Treviño, who studied portrait painting at the Art Students League in New York, has seen the entire barrio as an art form in itself. As demonstrated in the painting "GUADALUPE Y CALAVERAS", Treviño has become interested in "community portraits" which make the barrio visible as a unique architectural creation.

Pursuing their ancestry, both Frank Fajardo's 3-dimensional "string-spacial drawings" and Jose Rivera's sculpture have been largely influenced by the aesthetic of pre-conquest Indian cultures.

Fajardo's "string-drawings" are reminiscent of the step pyramid shape as well as of the intricate weavings of zarapes and Mayan hammocks to create his own special type of environments.

Jose Riveria, born and raised on the King Ranch in south Texas, is one of only a few Chicano sculptors. Presently residing in San Antonio, Rivera has concerned himself with the use of indigenous materials as well as indigenous symbols in his work. His wood carvings are usually from mesquite trees. The features in his work, especially facial characteristics, maintain a pronounced Indian quality similar to those exhibited in Mayan and Aztec stone carvings.

Although Houston is the most progressive city in Texas, Chicano artists of Houston have only recently begun to develop an emerging consciousness of Chicanismo in their art. As director of a Chicano art center, Joe Rodriguez, in his watercolor "TEJANO", exemplifies a type of preoccupation that is rooted in an indigenous geographical symbolism; Texas as an area and how it relates to Texas-born Chicanos (TEJANOS) rather than the broader concept of AZTLAN (the entire Southwest).

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George Truan of Brownsville produces multimedia assemblages which encompass a variety of objects and pictures that are symbolic of actual Chicano home environments (family and barrio icons). Taking existing objects and presenting them to the public in a new dimension, Truan's assemblages create a striking effect. His assemblages convey emotion as well as offer an insight into the physical and psychological make-up of an actual Chicano environment.

As the decade of the 70's draws to a close, the direction of Chicano art becomes more apparent. The term Chicano will eventually be trapped and these artists will become known as just "artists". However, Chicano artists will continue to take a cultural stance in their work relating NOT TO AMERICANS, NOT TO MEXICANS, BUT TO CHICANOS.

With this exhibition, the time has arrived for Chicano art to be judged by its artistic merits rather than by its token ethnic values which have been so much a part of the past.

Presently, Chicano artists are undertaking a more experimental approach in their work. Those images believed to be a limiting factor in Chicano art ("ZAPATA" AND "VILLA" images, brown, clenched-fists, black HUELGA eagles, and images of Our Lady of Guadalupe) are slowly disappearing. This indicates that the art has evolved beyond the revolutionary-protest stage. Chicano artists are beginning to push and pull their cultural boundaries. They are beginning to explore the different aspects of the barrio, the culture (music, dances, folklore, food, family traditions, etc.), and even using the zarape as the basis for even a more sophisticates abstraction. In short, Chicano artists are undergoing a change in attitude. The discontent which was so much a part of Chicano art in the early years is gone They are content to live their lives more freely, expand their vision, and contribute substance through art to their own growth as individuals as well as TO THEIR PEOPLE. A new era in Chicano art is beginning! !DALE GAS!

Santos Martinez, Jr.
Chief Curator
Contemporary Arts Museum
Houston, Texas