Chicano Visions : Historic exhibit is the first survey of the art that emerged along with the spirit of a people

Politics and the arts have always been intertwined in the Chicano movement--El Movimiento. Cesar Chavez’s efforts beginning in the mid-’60s in Central California to unionize farm workers were dramatized by Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino--a company that was founded in 1965 and inspired countless Chicano theater groups, which used the stage to explore other political issues, including the Vietnam War, job discrimination and immigration policies. The political awakening of La Raza--”The Race”--was also played out against the backdrop of murals in cities across America. But, since those fiery beginnings, social gains have led to increased assimilation and somewhat cooled the fervor of the Chicano spirit. In turn, the number of Chicano theater groups has diminished and Chicano art was homogenized when it entered the mainstream commercial art world. Here in Los Angeles, scene of early ‘70s protests and boycotts, an upcoming theater production and a retrospective exhibition recall the spirit of La Raza and help cast some perspective on the evolution of Chicano politics. (A contemporary manifestation of Chicano awareness is the rap music of Kid Frost. Despite his controversial use of gang imagery, the East L.A. rapper is stirring pride among the younger generation with his hit single “La Raza.” Page 8.)

In California, farmworkers went on strike to protest their treatment and living conditions.

In New Mexico, activists were trying to reclaim land they said was stolen from their Spanish ancestors.

In Texas, a long-silent community erupted when the Anglo mayor of San Antonio said on national television that Mexicans in his city were fun-loving people who loved to sing, dance and take siestas.

There were incidents in Arizona and Colorado as well. Word of burgeoning unrest in the Southwest traveled to Seattle and Chicago--the northernmost points on the twin migrant trails that bracketed the country’s largest Spanish-speaking population.

This mid-’60s political awakening and demand for social change became known as the Chicano Movement, and it inspired a parallel emergence in the artistic community.

For the first time, an exhibition has been organized to provide a comprehensive historical perspective on art produced from this era and experience.

“Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965--1985” opens Sept. 9 at UCLA’s Wight Art Gallery. Featuring more than 130 works by more than 90 artists, the exhibit was almost seven years in the making and organized with the same cooperative approach used to paint murals in barrios throughout the Southwest.

No single curator determined the content of the exhibition. Instead, regional committees of artists, scholars and administrators made recommendations to a five-person selection committee, whose decisions were approved by the exhibit’s executive committee. If this sounds like a convoluted way to organize an exhibition, it was the only way to achieve a goal set by the organizers.

“The intent was to give a certain amount of empowerment to people in the community,” says Rene Yanez, a Bay Area artist and curator who served on the selection committee.

Wight Gallery Director Edith Tonelli says it’s important that the exhibit didn’t come from “a traditional museum perspective.”

The idea of them exhibit originated in 1984, when a group of Chicano graduate students and professors approached Tonelli about organizing a national, historical survey of Chicano art. The group chose 1985 as a pragmatic cutoff point. “We had no idea the show would take this long to organize,” Tonelli says.

Realizing such an effort would require an immense planning process, Tonelli applied for a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities--a move that renewed an old debate and divulged a lingering misunderstanding of this region’s changing politics.

“There was some difficulty with the term Chicano at the endowment,” Tonelli remembers. “They thought it was derogatory or offensive to some people. We had to defend our use of the word. That was the beginning of bringing the exhibit together.

“We’ve repeatedly had to explain that Chicano was a self-designated term--that’s what the artists and activists called themselves. That’s why one of the first sections in the show is called ‘Defining Chicano.’ ”

C hicano is a term that can still spark heated debate between generations of a familia. Conservatives bristle at its harsh sound and politically liberal connotations. Appropriators of the term claim it represents their standing as being neither Mexican nor American.

Despite claims from some detractors that the term derives from chicanery , the most commonly accepted origin has it evolving from the Mexica tribe of Aztecs in pre-Columbian Mexico. According to historians, tribe members called themselves Mexicanos, which in their native tongue--Nahuatl--was pronounced “meh-shee-KAH-noes.” The shortened variation was adopted by activists as a tie to their ancestral roots.

In 1970, Times columnist Ruben Salazar provided a succinct definition when he wrote: “A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself.”

But 20 years later, the days of militancy have somewhat given way to assimilation, perhaps resulting in a loss of identity for the younger generation.

In “The Mission,” a show at the Los Angeles Theatre Center put on by the iconoclastic Latino comedy group Culture Clash, a tongue-in-cheek glossary of terms is presented with one entry that rings of truth. The definition for Chicano reads: “Still trying to figure that one out.”

“That issue of being a historical show and being specifically Chicano and defining our terms was important,” Tonelli says. “The intent was to be as specific and clear as we could be. But we still get questions like, ‘Wasn’t there just a show like this at the County Museum?’ ”

Tonelli refers to “Hispanic Art in the United States,” the exhibit organized by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and seen last year at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was the highest-profile exhibit of its genre in the ‘80s, a decade that saw the emergence and popularization of Latino art.

That emergence was no accident.

In the so-called Decade of the Hispanic--a phrase critics allege was coined as a marketing tool to conveniently target all Spanish-speaking cultures--advertisers conceived exhibitions as an attractive way to seek new commerce. Hence, there was “Mira!--The Canadian Club Hispanic Art Tour,” and “Expresiones Hispanas--The 1988/89 Coors National Hispanic Art Exhibit and Tour.”

Museum-organized exhibits in the genre--”The Latin American Spirit” from the Bronx Museum (seen last year at the San Diego Museum of Art) and “Hispanic Art in the United States”--were less overtly commercial. The latter exhibit, however, shared criticism with its more commercial counterparts for lumping the art under the generic Hispanic label--the “politically correct” term is Latino .

In keeping with its theme of “resistance and affirmation,” the Wight Gallery show attempts to resist commercialization and cultural homogeneity, while affirming the art and its place in history.

“Taking a historical approach was important because this art was beginning to get into the mainstream, and it was seen by some of the museums as having appeared out of nowhere, or as if it had been made by people who came out of art school and suddenly started doing their best work,” Tonelli says.

The show seen last year at LACMA was strictly contemporary, including lush and attractive work that was practically devoid of political content. In the Wight Gallery show, almost all the work--including the most recent--is overtly political. Still, the exhibit is bound to prompt debate about the status of Chicano art in an age where the value of art is almost strictly financial.

“One doesn’t expect to be validated by the same system that you are criticizing,” says artist Malaquias Montoya, explaining how contemporary Chicano art has changed to enter the mainstream. “If you want to be famous you do it another way, but I think the validation of Chicano art should come from our community. For me, the role of Chicano art hasn’t changed--it should be to reach and educate the community.”

Montoya was living in the Bay Area in the mid-’60s, silkscreening posters for a commercial artist when he became involved in the Chicano Movement. He has four works in the “CARA” exhibit that date from 1969 to 1981 and include themes related to civil liberties.

Now a professor of Chicano studies at UC Davis, Montoya’s work continues to be political in nature. He is currently designing posters for Bert Corona’s various social-service efforts in L.A.’s Mexican and Chicano communities. “Educating the Chicano community is even more important now because things are so much more subdued,” he says.

Acknowledging that Chicano art has made inroads into the cultural mainstream, Montoya says, “Diversity is the catchword now. It should be a positive thing, but I think it’s really the institutions saying, ‘We’re going to have a bunch of these people around so we better pay attention to them.’ And if Chicanos don’t understand it enough, we’re going to end up playing a secondhand role. We’re being acknowledged now, but we’re still not in charge.

“It’s like the difference between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. People accepted one but not the other. Chicano artists who continue to struggle or point out the (community’s struggle) are not the ones who are being recognized.”

However, Montoya says, he doesn’t begrudge the commercial success some Chicano artists have achieved.

“About 10 years ago, the art gallery circle was opening up, and many artists were tired of struggling and thought this was the way to go. I would like to be a purist and say there should be a difference (between Chicano art and commercial art made by Chicano artists), but I know many fine artists who exhibit in prestigious places and I respect their work. I wish there was a clean way of separating it so we wouldn’t be at odds with each other. The problem is that when (galleries and museums) need a Chicano artist, they don’t pick those artists who are in the community, they’ll pick someone who represents their values.

“This (political) work has to continue or in 10 years our kids will accuse us of failure for not continuing the struggle. People think it’s over with but that’s very short-sighted. Struggles take a long time.”