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4F Sunday May 30, 1993
San Antonio Express-News

Artistry vs. political activism

Debate is an old one for San Antonio's Hispanic artists

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cal stance - embarrassing to those who want to quietly blend into the U.S. melting pot. In Mexico, where there was resentment against the Mexicans "who left," the derogative term "pocho" was used to describe Chicanos who lost touch with their native culture, In his catalog essay, David Maciel notes that the Mexican critic Octavio Paz helped create this negative impression of Chicanos.

Why 'Chicano'?
But in the catalog's preface, the organizers explain: "The title deliberately features the ethnically specific, controversial term Chicano, instead of the term Hispanic, which misrepresents the Chicano by homogenizing all Latino cultures into one."

Though this art celebrates Mexican heroes - Kahlo and Emiliano Zapata mainly - and uses many Mexican symbols derived from Catholic imagery and folk art, Chicano artists reflected and illustrated a cultural experience unique to the United States during the '60s and '70s. Pop art, Hollywood movies, television, comic books and other Norteamericano icons of high and low culture have been refracted through a Chicano prism.

CARA also has sparked a debate among art critics over the term "quality." Los Angeles Times critic William Wilson, in his review of CARA, featured at the 1990 Los Angeles Festival, set off a national debate by concluding that the mixture of art and sociology in CARA was "dicey," adding that the issue of "quality will not go away." Wilson insisted that "quality is not a code word for the judgmental domination of white males."

In an essay for the New Art Examiner, art historian Betty Ann Brown countered: "In contrast to (Wilson's) formalist views, I and a growing group of viewers/critics, including many feminists and post-structuralists, are convinced that art is always linked to social and political issues and that the whole question of quality is culturally constructed along race, gender, and class lines."

[[image]]
Local artist Cesar Martinez has three works in the exhibit, including 'La Fulana' (The Other Woman), 1985.

But the issue of formal quality vs. political activism is an old one in art, currently raging in the debates over "political correctness" and "multiculturalism." And the issue split apart San Antonio's Chicano group, Con Safo, organized in 1971 by artists including Mel Casas, who is in CARA, and Felipe Reyes, who isn't.

Casas, represented by "Brownies of the Southwest" juxtaposing Girl Scouts with Indians and the chocolate dessert, is clearly a Chicano painter, while Reyes is known for a more abstract, introspective, formal style that does not feature and explicit political content. Cesar Martinez, another important member of Con Safo, has said he dislikes both emotionless academic art and slick regional work such as, say, the blanket-wrapped Indians of Amado Pena - who also is in CARA.

Martinez's intense, green-and-orange portrait of "La Fulana (The Other Woman)" was used on the invitation for CARA, while Pena, who lives in Austin and Santa Fe, is represented by early '70s silkscreens, including a brilliant Virgin of Guadalupe that is far more stirring than the obese Indian women that have made him financially successful.

With the dissolution of the Chicano movement in the late '70s, many Chicano artists had to adapt to a gallery system where sales took precedence over politics. Martinez has drifted away from the pachuco portraits of his Chicano period, but he still uses the emblems of South Texas - barbed wire and mesquite thorns - in some of his recent paintings.

University of Texas at San Antonio art historian Jacinto Quirarte, who served on the CARA committee and is the guest curator for the Museum of Art, provides a brief history of Con Safo in his essay tracing Chicano exhibits in the U.S. In 1975, Con Safo split over the definition of Chicano art. The dissenters argued that Chicano art did not have to deal exclusively with social and political issues, and should not be the "artistic arm of any political ideology."

A new group formed, Los Quemados, that wanted to be free from "dogma, political and otherwise," and included Martinez and Pena, as well as Carolina Flores and Carmen Lomas Garza. Now living in San Francisco, Garza paints the South Texas of her youth. Her haunting, folklike "Camas para Suenos" - a mother seen through a window while her children are on the roof looking at the moon - is the most lyrical painting in CARA.

By the late '70s, many of the Chicano artists who could not get into galleries and museums were beginning to find open doors.

Quirarte credits Trinity University with having the "first truly national exhibition of Mexican-American and Chicano art" in 1973 in conjunction with the publication of his book, "Mexican-American Artists." Probably the best local exhibit featuring Chicano, Latino or  Hispanic - take your pick - local artists was the Museum of Art's "Influence" in 1987, curated by Jim Edwards. Regardless of its quality, CARA does show that Mexican-American artists are an important aspect of American art that was generally ignored until the political activism of the '60s.

Chicano culture first emerged in the early '40s in California through the zoot-suiters, or pachucos, who turned  distinctive personal style into a political statement - a padded coast with wide lapels, narrow-brimmed hat, draped pants with pleats, a looping chain and double-soled shoes made for dancing. Though zoot-suits caused riots in the '40s, by the '80s Hollywood allowed theater activist Luis Valdez, who founded Teatro Campesino in 1965 to teach and organize Chicano farmworkers, to direct the big-budget movie "Zoot Suit" - which turned out to be the single most important Chicano work to influence Mexican artists.

Mural art
The first major visual expression of Chicano culture was the barrio mural projects, from San Antonio to San Diego, represented in CARA by a continuous slide show. The museum also has commissioned Austin artist Raul Valdez to paint a mural in the Great Hall. Many Chicano murals can be found at San Antonio's Cassiano Homes. In California, the Chicano mural movement was highlighted by the Great Wall of Los Angeles, a half-mile-long mural executed by dozens of artists along the concrete wall of a flood-control channel. Bursting with self-righteous pride, many of the murals draw on pre-Columbian imagery, illustrating the idealism of Aztlan.
No doubt the social realism of the Mexican muralists influenced the Chicano photorealists, including San Antonio's Jesse Trevino. But they eliminated the propagandistic exaggerations of social realism, instead presenting a precisely detailed, relentlessly accurate portrayal of life in the barrio and adopting the objectivity of photo-journalists to show social reality. Trevino is represented by an early self-portrait that explains how he lost his right hand in Vietnam, but there is no overt political message intact - just the facts.
[[image] El Paso artist Ernesto Martinez's 'Si Se Puede' 1973, an oil on canvas, is included in 'La Causa' section of CARA.
Photographs provide some of the strongest images in CARA. Ricardo Valverde's "Boulevard Night" shows a tattooed girl with catlike eyes against a light-streaked lowrider - the epitome of cool. Jose Galvez, Antonio Perez and Miguel Gandert capture the faces and rituals of the 'hood, the home boys and home girls. 
Posters, placards, comics, handbills and other graphic art make up a large part of CARA, showing how artists helped to attract, educate and galvanize the poorly educated blue-collar laborers who formed the backbone of "La Causa." The collective spirit of some artist groups, such as ASCO of Los Angeles and the Royal Chicano Air Force of Sacramento, are encapsulated in minigallery installations within CARA.
Many of the political goals of the Chicano movement have been absorbed by mainstream American culture, and larger political issues have been replaced by more personal concerns in the work of most artists of Mexican descent, both north and south of the border. CARA cuts off at 1985, effectively sealing a time capsule containing the Chicano experience, even though many of the artists still are living and working.
As one of the Mexican-American women working on the exhibit said, "I can't believe Chicano art is in a museum. This all happened when I was in junior high and high school. I can't believe that I was part of history."

"Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985" runs through Aug. 1 at the San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W. Jones Ave., 978-8100.

Exhibits throughout city complement 'Chicano Art'

In conjunction with "Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation" at the San Antonio Museum of Art, many related exhibits and activities are scheduled by more than 20 of the city's other galleries, museums and art centers.
A bilingual guide to CARA, with a complete calendar of events, can be picked up at the Museum of Art. 
Besides CARA, the Museum of Art is featuring an archival exhibit of the Chicano civil rights movement in San Antonio prepared by the local group El Comite de Movimiento Chicano de San Antonio and including posters, photographs, manifestoes, videos and other historical documents.
From June 1 to August 1, local and regional leaders in Chicano visual and performing arts, politics and education will be giving lectures at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and 3 p.m. Sundays in the Museum of Art's auditorium. 
Eduardo Diaz, director of the city's Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and San Antonio native Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, associate director for arts and humanities for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, will lead off the lecture series on Tuesday.
The Museum of Art also is sponsoring a series of free programs featuring storytellers and performance artists on June 23, July 17 and July 20 at the Bazan Branch Library. On June 26, the museum will present a festive family day at Benavides Park featuring live music, a mural project and hands-on art activities. 
Other exhibits and events include:
-"Cara a CARA: Texas Faces" has already opened at the Mexican Cultural Institute in HemisFair Park and runs through June 13.
-"Celebracion CARA" will be held June 13 at Plaza Guadalupe, showcasing the Guadalupe Cultural Art Center's arts staff, the resident dance company, poetry readings and several local bands. "Con Safo," concerning the local Chicano artists group, opens Friday in the Guadalupe's Theater Gallery and will run through June 30.
-The Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in HemisFair Park will present a lecture at 6 p.m. June 10 by Esperanza Garrido, art history professor at UNAM Mexico City, who will discuss the cross-influences of Mexican and Chicano painters. The local branch of UNAM also is sponsoring an exhibit by Armando Sanchez and Gilbert Duran from June 10-25 at UNAM, and a show by Armando Sanchez and Jesse Trevino July 6-16 at Centro de Artes in Market Square.
-"Mystical Elements/Lyrical Imagery: Consuelo Gonzalez Amezcua" is on display through July 25 at the Institute of Texan Cultures, which also is presenting the 15-minute slide show "Painted Walls of the Barrio" at noon and 2:15 p.m. daily through June 30.
-The Jansen-Perez Gallery will have two back-to-back exhibits called "Then and Now: Chicano Art After CARA." The first edition opens Friday and the second will open July 9.
-"Blue Star VIII," curated by Oscar Garza, art editor of the Los Angeles Times, and Arlington artist Celia Munoz, opens July 2 at the Blue Star Art Space with Rolando Briseno, Diana Cardenas, Lucille Contreras, Alex de Leon, Peter Glassford, Robert Gonzales, Meg Langhorn, Lisa Mellinger, Franco Mondini and Victoria Suescum.
Other exhibits include paintings by Alberto Mijangos at the Blue Door Gallery; Corpus Christi artist Bruno Andrade at the Carrington/Gallagher gallery; Louis LeRoy's "Tourista Folk Art Series" at Cruzitas Galeria; oils by Tony Ortega and Alfredo Arreguin at Dagen-Bela; Rodolfo Morales and Adan Hernandez at Milagros Contemporary Art; "Fuerza del Pueblo" at Primary Object; and Terri Ybanez's "Los Desnudos" at the Southwest Craft Center.

CARA called a communication
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incredible outpouring of artistic and cultural expressions from a people who had been disenfranchised and marginalized.
"This (exhibit) was a celebration of its existence and a demonstration of its resistance. This art captures all of that within this movement and represents it to the American people."
Artist Louis LeRoy, who like Rodriguez has one painting in the exhibit, says CARA reflects a new consciousness.
"CARA was the beginning of a new movement in this country and it has taken almost 20 years to determine the name, the reasons for the movement," he said. "It goes back to the whole business of American being a melting pot. That concept was necessary maybe in the early building years of our country, but with the increases in transportation and technology that have made the whole world smaller, we have to be conscious of other countries and cultures.
"A new sensitivity is arising due to the social, economic and political dynamics of a radically changing world. And the CARA exhibit really says it is OK to have an ethnic origin in this country - that it is possible to be both a good American and a good Chicano."
LeRoy notes that CARA is important and illuminating - and not just for Chicanos.
[[Quote box]] "CARA explains who the Mexican American community is." - Eduardo Diaz, director, Arts and Cultural Affairs
"It is a communication that can be addressed to those of Irish descent or German descent or Swiss, because everyone has an ehtnic origin. Everyone came from some place. The Irish may have lost contact with their cultural heritage because of distance and time, but it is just as important that they are Irish as it is that we are Chicanos, or Mexican-Americans.
"That is the real message this exhibit communicates."
Eduardo Diaz, director of the city's Arts and Cultural Affairs office, emphasized how the struggle for cultural identity is universal:
"The more people understand the history of a culture, the better. CARA educates people and explains in an educational, artistic way something about who the Mexican-American community is.
"If you're Angle, Chinese, Jewish, African-American - if you are interested in what makes Mexican-Americans tick, CARA is important. Sometimes the history of the arts created by the people tells a very interesting story that books cannot tell you.
"As long as you are willing and open, a show like CARA can help teach non-Mexican-American community. I think art has that ability; it does not talk back."
CARA is like a window into the culture, says Rodriguez.
"If they want to understand and want to see our face, that's what the show is called - CARA - and they want look inside our soul, they should go see the show."
The exhibit also serves as a validation, says Ricardo Hernandez, director of programs for the Texas Commission on the Arts:
"I remember a time when being a Chicano was disdained. It was celebrated by a very small number of people," he said. "CARA gives credence to the whole notion of Chicano art as a viable aspect of the Latin American culture. It has a value to the broader community."
Chicano art however, has always been an important expression, he said.
"I think many people have seen Chicano art, but never recognized it as that. But it is being validated (now) because it is being exposed in a significant way. And accompanied by scholarship, it begins to take a whole other level of communication."

Transcription Notes:
[[image: hand sketch of a Hispanic woman in a black top]] [[Caption]] Local artist Cesar Martinez has three works in the exhibit, including "La Fulana' (The Other Woman), 1985. [[image: sketch of Hispanic person with American flag]] [[caption]] El Paso artist Ernesto Martinez's 'Si Se Puede' 1973, an oil on canvas, is included in 'La Causa' section of CARA