Patssi Valdez, The Magic Room, 1994, Acrylic, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum highlights more than 200 years of Latino art from across the United States. This exhibition of 64 paintings, sculptures and photographs represents many cultural traditions, illustrating the wide range of expression developed by artists of Latin heritage who have settled in the United States and Puerto Rico. The exhibition will be on view at the Oakland Museum of California from November 2, 2002 to January 26, 2003.

"These artists present human stories that are at once culturally specific, but also universal," said Elizabeth Broun, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

 Many of the artists in Arte Latino explore issues of personal identity through cultural heritage. They include both U.S.-born and immigrant artists, among them Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans and Chicanos, Cuban Americans and other Latin Americans who have created art throughout the United States. The current exhibition is a sampling of these rich traditions, selected from almost 500 Latino artworks in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.

The earliest works on view are from Puerto Rico, which became a territory of the United States in 1898. Others reflect the heritage of the Hispanic Southwest, from 18th-century religious carvings to recent works that reinterpret traditional images using the language of today. Several contemporary artists have combined American popular culture with their Latino experience to stimulate dialogue and encourage activism. The Chicano American Movement of the 1960s, in particular, inspired artists to address social and political issues. Many Cuban American artists and those who moved from Central and South America express a divided identity, reflecting their feelings about leaving family and their past behind them.

The sole national visibility partner and local presenting sponsor of Arte Latino is the Principal Financial Group. "The Principal is thrilled to assist in bringing some of America's finest treasures to the public," said J. Barry Griswell, president and CEO, the Principal Financial Group. "We are especially excited to bring Arte Latino to the Oakland area. This tour is one more way we can contribute to a deeper understanding and appreciation of our country's rich Latino heritage. We hope people from across the West will take advantage of this opportunity to view this remarkable exhibition."

CALIFORNIA ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION

The exhibition includes works by a number of Chicano artists living in California. These artists incorporate in their art explorations of personal and cultural identity related to dealing with life as persons of Mexican descent in the United States. Some of these are explicitly political, like Frank Romero's 1986 painting "Death of Rubén Salazar," an image of the police shooting of a newspaper columnist and investigative reporter who is considered by many a martyr for the Chicano cause. Other works, like "Screen" by Roberto Gil de Montes (1996), express personal issues of identity in universal terms.

Carmen Lomas Garza, Camas para Suenos (Beds for Dreams), 1985, gouache, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Carmen Lomas Garza, now a resident of California, draws on a rich folk art tradition and on her childhood in Kingsville, Texas, to create paintings filled with real-life observations as well as universally shared experiences. In "Camas para Sueños (Beds for Dreams)," painted in 1985, the artist and her sister appear as children seated on the roof of their home. They look at the stars and dream about their future as their mother turns down their beds. Consuelo Jiménez Underwood, daughter of a Chicana mother and a father of Huichol Indian descent, expresses a quite different feeling in the 1994 wall hanging "Virgen de los Caminos (Virgin of the Roads)," into which she weaves the rage, pain, history and hope of her forebears.

Muralist Judith Baca and installation artist Amalia Mesa-Bains use portraits of individuals to make statements about identity as related to history and society. Baca's "Las Tres Marias (The Three Marias)," created in 1976, surrounds a mirror with portraits of a young Chicana and Baca herself, creating a provocative reinterpretation of the three Marys of the Crucifixion that invites viewers to consider their place in relation to ethnicity, gender, religion and culture. Mesa-Bains' "An Ofrenda for Dolores del Rio" (1984) honors a cultural icon who symbolized a universal yet particularly Mexican beauty.

Patssi Valdez was born in East Los Angeles and grew up during the turbulent days of the Chicano Movement, participating during the 1970s in an urban performance group, Asco. Since 1988 she has worked primarily as a painter. In "The Magic Room" (1994) bouncing balls and swinging gymnastic rings seem to have a life of their own. Carlos Almaraz also creates an image full of movement in "Homage to Still Life" (1986), with unexpected contemporary elements such as cars on the freeway, talking heads on television and, in the lower right, the artist himself observing the world he has created.

Charles "Chaz" Bojórquez adapts the graffiti of East Los Angeles Chicano gangs for his monochromatic abstract painting from 1992, "Somos la Luz (We Are the Light)." The title appears among the painting's phrases, numbers and names in this tribute to the achievements of tenacious urban youth. John Valadez, who also finds his subject matter in urban Los Angeles, in "Two Vendors" (1989) uses an almost photographic style to depict the aftermath of a hostile exchange between two young men on Broadway Street.

Alexander Maldonado, a San Francisco riveter, began a second career at age 60 as an "outsider" artist painting futuristic cityscapes. In the 1976 "Untitled (Futuristic City)" he envisions a world free of pollution, bigotry, even parking problems.

A SELECTION OF OTHER WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
José Campeche, the son of a black slave in 18th-century Puerto Rico, became an accomplished painter without ever leaving the island. Classical engravings inspired the figures in his religious paintings such as "San Juan Nepomuceno (Saint John Nepomuk)," painted about 1798. Many wood representations of religious figures, or santos, were also made by self-taught artists on the island.

 Two works in the exhibition are the oldest in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection--"Santa Barbara (Saint Barbara)" from about 1680-90, and "Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows)" from about 1675-1725.

 Another group of artworks in Arte Latino features the long traditions of the Hispanic Southwest. Religious icons range from an 18th century carved devotional crucifix to a 20th century painted altarpiece. Agueda Martínez carried on ancient textile traditions and continued to inspire the area's weavers until her death at 102. In her textured, geometric "Tapestry Weave Rag Jerga" (1994), Martínez used T-shirts torn into strips, sewn together end to end, and twisted into yarn.

 While living in a Puerto Rican section of the Bronx in New York City, Pepón Osorio created installations of layered meanings using five-and-dime-store objects. In "El Chandelier" (1988), the artist encrusted a crystal chandelier with such everyday objects as costume jewelry, dolls, fringe, Astroturf and plastic saints, inspired by the elaborately decorated cakes his mother made for special occasions when he was a child in Puerto Rico. Angel Rodríguez-Díaz, also born in Puerto Rico, painted the powerful portrait of Chicana author Sandra Cisneros in "The Protagonist of an Endless Story" from 1993.

Many Cuban American artists have expressed a divided identity, reflecting their feelings about leaving their families and their own pasts behind. Ana Mendieta's untitled photograph from her 1980 "Silueta" series documents her site-specific sculptures that reflect her attempts to reconnect with her past using elemental nature such as earth and healing symbols from Cuban Santería, a Caribbean religion that combines Roman Catholic and African spiritual traditions.

 Latin American-born artists also grapple with the culture they left behind after moving to the United States. In the satirical "Señor Presidente’s Wake" (1988-93), Alfredo Ceibal comments on political corruption and intrigue in his painting of a deceased Guatemalan president lying in state. Vik Muniz, born in Brazil, speaks to the legacy of the sugar trade in both the subject matter and material he uses in his 1996 series of photographs "Sugar Children." He constructs these images of sons and daughters of sugarcane workers using refined sugar on a black background.

Contemporary artists often combine popular American culture and their Latino experience in their artworks. The Chicano Movement in particular inspired artists to address social and political issues. One of the treasures in this exhibition is a Chicano painted mahogany altar by Emanuel Martínez from 1967, a key symbol of the nonviolent farm labor movement. Cesar Chavez, who founded the United Farm Workers Union in 1963, marked the end of his 25-day hunger strike in support of the farm workers' struggle in Southern California by celebrating Mass with Robert Kennedy in front of Martinez's "Farm Workers’ Altar."

Arte Latino is accompanied by a 112-page full-color catalog depicting 50 of the works in the exhibition. The catalog is copublished by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Watson-Guptill Publications.

Arte Latino is one of eight exhibitions in Treasures to Go, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, touring the nation through 2002. The Principal Financial Group is a proud partner in presenting these treasures to the American people. We wish to thank the Principal Financial Group for their generous support in presenting this exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California.

The Oakland Museum of California's presentation of Arte Latino is also sponsored by the Oakland Museum Women's Board, with major support provided by the California Arts Council. Media sponsors are KDTV Univision 14/KFSF Telefutura 66 and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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