Sunday, September 15, 2013

The Chicana and Chicano School of Art: Q.A. Artist and Qurator, Cheech Marin

Recorded at  Margaret Garcia Studio
Los Angeles, September 2013


1. Purpose of Art

The main purpose is to communicate some part of your soul. It kind of all goes together. 

From an early age, we wanted to be smart, be able to go to a cocktail party in Manhattan.


2. Chicanitas are small paintings. I really love the small paintings. Very intimate, it’s like being

whispered to. People get up close to them and spend longer with them.


3.Small museums, community museums, universities not such a long lead up time.

It’s like going on a club tour



4. Education and Development of Art About his shows:

They boost the Latino attendance at every museum we’ve gone to and it keeps up.  It’s

recurring.  It’s wonderful.

5. Love of Art

…I grew up as a musician. I was a musician and singer all of my life. I was able to sing

and act for children and to be able to use that forum to teach kids real life lessons.

You do the arts because they take the sting out of painful messages.

Arts can be very aggressive too but generally it’s a benevolent way to get painful messages

across.

6.  Art is Sacrificial.

For me arts are all a part of the message.  Actors and painters, painters are like artists,

animators and animation—who does the work for the character.

Painters are more like directors. They control everything in the frame.


7. On Margaret’s Small Series 2013

She’s good enough to do that, her techniques, her facility are always progressing. The

years go by.  Other painters are commenting.  People do. People get better the more they

practice their art.


8.  New Shows?

I’m putting together a couple other shows for the community, a big show about the

influence of Chicano art… a great influence…it is now influencing the traditional

mainstream.

It’s been seminal and about how it influences street art all over the world.


9. Explosion of street art all over the world, and it comes right out of the Chicano art

experience.  Brazil Colombia MX and they’re getting to be international right away,

Berlin, Rome, and the world.

That influence is seminal. I see it happening and fast all of the time, performed in public,

I’m standing back in awe about the speed of how it goes.


10. Global Media?

It’s related to the internet. There’s no filter. There’s no middle man who judges and may

or may not disseminate them. You don’t have to be officially published or accepted.  It

happens so much faster, it’s incredible.

It’s both Good and Bad: there is no body of governance to weed out the crap but there’s

nothing to stop anyone from putting anything out there and people choose it or not or like

it or not.

It’s exciting to watch and it’s amazing.

Global and tribal at the same time.

So many more specific experiences that the variety is immense.

11. Chicano School of Art

Definitely is a school.  What it does is it stresses ….what is it to be Chicano and what is it

to be Chicano comes from a myriad of viewpoints. It’s the most benevolent presentation

of that and it’s political because here’s the picture of the coming change and people are

getting it. It doesn’t have to be forced down their throat.  Beautiful pictures.

We just opened a show at U of Wyoming in Laramie, they have a Chicano studies

program for 1-2 years, and it’s astounding coming from LA AZ. They have 10% Latino

pop in the state. This is a state that has more antelope than people, 3000 more antelope

than people.


It’s unbelievable. People came out in record numbers. They’re astounded And that’s the

reaction of everybody who’s coming to see it. Wyoming is very interesting. They’re very

libertarian, as a state it doesn’t want to be told what to do, and they do what they want. It

has an ornery streak to it but that’s contrasted with the feeling that you can do anything

because there’s enough space there to give everybody a chance to do something. I was

impressed I want to go back there. The country is beautiful, amazing, I loved it there.


12.  Today’s Chicano Art in the World

It’s kind of gentle politicism, I came to that conclusion because I was asking questions

Was this political art? Yes, the pictures of the community and the community is

impacting upon other communities more and more in every state. We have the

biggest wave of immigration and mostly from Mexico and it’s simultaneous.  A huge

demographic shift. How to incorporate the best parts of that energy for the country.


13.  Freedom in Art Collecting and Curating

You can’t get a hold of it.  It’s like standing in front of a lava flow. You can do that but I

don’t recommend it.

No comments:

Post a Comment