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The purpose of this brief guide is to provide an overview on the subject of Chicano art, to help acquaint the reader with the history, the meaning, and significance of this important aspect of Chicano culture. The guide includes an annotated list of suggested further readings.

This is the first of several resource guides prepared by Proyecto CARIDAD (Chicano Art Resources Information Development and Dissemination). The project is a component of the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives of the Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The primary focus of Proyecto CARIDAD was to collect, organize, duplicate, and catalog the many slides of paintings, posters, murals, sculptures and other activities of Chicano artists represented in the archival collections of four of the major Chicano cultural art centers in California. The resulting slide library is being made available for study and research at the UC Santa Barbara Library. Selected duplicates from these slides will be available for community use, in the form of visual arts kits which may be borrowed from selected California libraries and cultural centers. A current list of these sites may be requested from Proyecto CARIDAD at the address given on the verso of this guide.

The guide was published under the auspices of the Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, one of the cultural centers which have collaborated with Proyecto CARIDAD. Its existing Chicano Artist Monographs Series consists of informative booklets on Chicano artists printed in a similar format to this resource guide.

INTRODUCTION TO CHICANO ART IN CALIFORNIA

Chicano art is in a most general way a community art form that expresses the experiences, feelings, ideas, and aspirations of both a very real and ideal Chicano community. In the United States, this Chicano community exists in all its diversity of ideas, gender, symbols and shared history with one uniting factor, and that is the history of its cultural origins. The Chicano Art Movement was born out of the frustration, inner necessity, and struggle for basic human, civil, and distinctive cultural rights of a once neglected and even denigrated people in this country, Mexican Americans. It reflects the cultural expressions of Mexican Americans who with their substantial material, political, cultural and artistic heritage and contributions to American culture enrich the pluralistic history of California and the United States. In fact, its works, ideas, and even artists, often cross ethnic and class boundaries. Following the recent dramatic demographic changes in California and the rest of the country, many artists of the original Movement have sought to expand and redefine it. Chicano art is a straightforward activist, political (in the sense of "choosing a side" on an issue), and didactic art form that calls on the viewer to educate him or herself about the cultural origin of the art and the intentions of the artists in order to appreciate and understand it.

Its first known artworks were created in farmworker communities of central California in the mid- Nineteen Sixties in support of the United Farmworker labor struggle of César Chávez, and for Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesino (Farmworkers' Theater). Those Chicano artworks that were later produced throughout the Southwest were often directly inspired by the political and cultural developments among "working class" (low-wage earning) Mexican Americans in this state. The Chicano art community has existed as a relatively cohesive ideological community with shared cultural aspirations since the Chicano youth and student movement of the mid- 1960s, and has produced a substantial body of public artwork from about the year 1970, when the concept of a "Chicano Art" crystalized.

Art historians define artistic Movements as phenomena characterized by groups of artists producing works with basically similar and definable characteristics and aims. The analogy of a "school" of fish who, to the observer, swim together, is an apt one when applied to the concept of a School of artists, who appear from a distance to swim together regardless of their slightly different and individual characteristics. In the case of Chicano and Chicana art and artists, it is the self- chosen, and highly symbolic name and public self-identification as "Chicano/Chicana artists," as well as the social-aesthetic concerns of their works that binds them together in the creative waters of Contemporary American art. Although the term "art" encompasses each creative activity including music, dance, theater, film, and literature, the subject of this essay and the content of the CARIDAD archive is focused on the "Visual Arts," those art forms that provide the "visual" expression of the Chicano people and their cultural experience through painting, drawing, the graphic arts, photography, sculpture, and architecture, as well as through the more recent developments in conceptual, performance, multi- media, video, and interdisciplinary arts recorded in various print or electronic media. The realm of things made or formed by human hands is the realm of the visual arts, and this is the focus of the CARIDAD archival project, which is to our knowledge the first slide collection in the United States documenting in a systematic way, the history of a specific contemporary American vanguard visual art movement in all its forms. The vantage point is the Chicano experience and Chicano worldview in the United States.

Although examples of "Chicano Art," can be traced to the mid 1960s, in California it did not develop as a fully articulated style and movement in the visual arts until 1970, when the first works expressing a distinctive "Chicano" content, style and identity appeared. Previously, works by American artists of Mexican descent in this country with few exceptions had followed traditional "folk" art and decorative artistic styles and genres. After the 1950s, and the entrance of Mexican Americans into college art programs, (mostly through the G.I. Bill) several artists began to work in progressive American vanguard styles such as Abstract, Pop, Minimalist, and Conceptual art. The important events of 1969, in the Chicano Social and Civil Rights Movement (El Movimiento) led directly to a concerted movement of "Mexican American" artists to create public art in the service of the Chicano social revolution. They also created very different and original works in private, non-public art mediums such as easel painting, prints, photography, and sculpture, collage and assemblage, along with completely new indigenous Chicano art forms. These latter are art forms and mediums "unique to," or "native" to the Chicano art experience, such as Magu's lowrider cars created as moving painted sculptures, Jose Montoya's "tortilla art," or Diane Gamboa's "paper fashions." These forms originated in the Chicano art movement as a result of the creativity and originality of Chicano and Chicana artists who drew their inspiration from the pre-Hispanic (pre- Columbian), and colonial Hispanic Mexican traditions and mediums as well as sources in contemporary American art and society.

By its very "Chicano" community-based nature, Chicano art is a public and political art, proclaiming and expressing public and social concerns in its themes and subjects, and even in its most private or seemingly obscure, extravagant, or initially incomprehensible examples. An example of the latter would be the works of the Chicano Conceptual group ASCO (Nausea), performed at Los Angeles' Self-Help Graphics.

It is the aim of this essay to introduce this important visual archive of Chicano art, which contains the visual record of the arts and the artists who originate from and continue to live the "Chicano" experience. The CARIDAD archive is comprised of the visual record of the California artists (Chicano, Chicana, White and other Latino and ethnic origins and mixtures) who were all associated with the Chicano Art Movement. The bulk of the visual materials come from the important art collectives who have committed themselves to expressing that very special "Chicano" experience rooted in economic poverty and cultural alienation within the broader and dominantly white European American cultural reality.

This historic archive collection of slides that record the past and present history of the four key and historic centers of Chicano art production and exhibition in California, will provide an unprecedented visual record of that important art and cultural history for the broader public of California. What is important to keep in mind, is that Chicano art was created for all people of all ethnicities and classes to appreciate. The art which was documented in the slides which will accompany the packets, includes photographs of original works of art, but also many photographs of the very real interdisciplinary process and context in production and exhibition of Chicano art, which at times gives new meaning to the concept of the visual arts.

The four centers of Chicano art which comprise the bulk of the collection all have their origins in the Chicano civil rights movement that peaked in the year of 1969. The national and cultural origins of Chicanos are Mexican, but the fact that Chicanos are born and live in the United States, adopting many North American cultural values and traits, makes them culturally different from Mexican nationals and Mexican immigrants who choose to retain a clear and close relationship with their mother culture, most often fostered by language maintenance. Recently, as can be seen in the slides of Chicano cultural center activities, Central and South American and Caribbean immigrants, as well as some Euroamericans have come to participate in many Chicano art manifestations.

The four cultural art centers represented in the CARIDAD Archive, thus far include Self-Help Graphics, Inc., founded in Los Angeles in 1972 by Sister Karen Boccalero, a Franciscan nun, as a silkscreen print poster collective. Its aim was to produce professional quality posters and fine art silkscreen prints (serigraphs) by Chicano artists who would convey through this public art form, a distinct and indigenous Chicano cultural identity, pride and artistic achievement, through its professionally guided Silk Screen Ateliers (workshops) for emerging community Chicano artists. The silk-screen print was one product, but through idealistic and committed efforts of Sister Karen and the staff over the years, the by-product was the artistic achievement that the collective Atelier experience instilled in young hopeful Chicano and Chicana artists. Equal in importance for the Self-Help Graphics documentation is the large group of slides recording the center's activities and community outreach programs which were as innovative as they were far-ranging. The important slides documenting the now popular November 1st community celebrations of the Mexican Day of the Dead, are of tremendous historical value. In fact, all four centers were involved and continue to be involved in important youth and community-based artistic and cultural programs that celebrate and encourage broad- based interest and development in the cultural contributions and artistic potential of the California Chicano-Latino artistic community. They also encourage and facilitate the exposure of American and World Art to poor and neglected segments of their communities;

Galería de la Raza, which literally means "The Gallery of the People," was co-founded in 1970 by the Chicano conceptual artist René Yáñez and the late serigrapher Ralph Maradiaga, in concert with a group of Latino Bay Area artists. For close to two decades Maradiaga and Yáñez administered the daily operations and curatorial projects of the gallery considered to be one of the most important community-based galleries in the country. Its art education and gallery store component, Studio 24, was founded in 1980 by María Pinedo, its present manager. Studio 24 provides an outlet for highly-prized folk art, books and music from Mexico and Latin America. Since its founding the Galería has been on the cutting edge of ideas and new forms of Chicano/Latino artistic expression in California. It has served as both an exhibition space for progressive and traditional exhibitions of Chicano and Latin American art of all styles and persuasions, and as a community center for the teaching and appreciation of art and culture. Like the other centers in the Archive, it was instrumental in the organization and founding of the Chicano Mural Movement in San Francisco, beginning in the 1970s. With the rich Latin American and Third World immigrant population in the Mission District where the Galería is located, to this day it continues to be a committed Chicano/Latino organization with a broad- based Latin American constituency;

Centro Cultural de la Raza of San Diego, which was also founded as an artists' multi-disciplinary collective in 1970, was the dynamic center of indigenismo (indigenism) in the early years of the Aztlán phase of Chicano art (1970-75). The celebrated Chicano poet Alurista, one of its co- founders, was instrumental in leading the Centro towards this orientation. Contacts and cultural exchanges were initiated with Native American artistic groups as well as indigenous performance groups in Mexico, such as the Mascarones, and Conchero groups, and various Mexican and Mexican American Ballet Folklorico groups who would contribute so much to the Chicano art and performance movements throughout the Southwest, and later, the nation. Victor Ochoa, co- founder of the Centro, who was, and still is actively associated with it, was also a major figure in the formation of the Toltecas en Aztlán artists' collective originally based in the Centro, and who contributed to the monumental mural campaign at Chicano Park in San Diego;

Last, but not least, and actually first in the chronology of Chicano art in California, is the RCAF, or Royal Chicano Air Force. Founded in Sacramento in 1969, by the veteran Chicano artists José Montoya and Esteban Villa, its original name the "Rebel Chicano Art Front" was so-named in homage to the Vietnamese National Liberation Front and other Third World liberation movements of self- determination going on in the world at the time. The two artists had earlier been associated with the pioneering San Francisco Bay area collective Mexican American Liberation Art Front, or MALAF, formed early in 1969. The archive of the RCAF/Centro de Artistas Chicanos of Sacramento, is a comprehensive record of a truly community-based effort of the Chicano art movement, which produced various now-prominent Chicano and Chicana artists working throughout the United States. The RCAF's community outreach program in art education is a model program of humanistic commitment in contemporary Chicano and American art.

The University of California at Santa Barbara was the birthplace of the Plan de Santa Barbara, a Chicano manifesto of self- determination and commitment to the community, issued in 1969. We here, at UC Santa Barbara, have very much accepted Chicano art as a legitimate art movement of contemporary art, and Proyecto CARIDAD is actively involved in an attempt to preserve for posterity the historical visual record of this important contemporary American art movement.

Barnett, Alan W. Community Murals: The People's Art. Philadelphia, PA: Art Alliance Press, c1984. 516p.

Documents the first fourteen years (1967-1981) of the community-based mural movement throughout the U.S. Discusses its history, obstacles and problems and the means utilized to overcome them. Includes largely black and white illustrations and a bibliography.

Beardsley, John. Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors. With an essay by: Octavio Paz. New York: Abbevile Press, 1987. 260p.

Includes several essays discussing various facets of Latino art and society. Also features artists' biographies and bibliographies accompanied by many vivid full-color illustrations.

Cancel, Luis R., et al. The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970: Essays. New York, NY: Bronx Museum of the Arts in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988. 343p.

Various essays documenting and examining the participation and influence of Latin American artists in the cultural life of the United States. Features a vast number of stunning illustrations depicting diverse forms and styles.

Chicana Voices and Visions: A National Exhibit of Women Artists: 27 Artists from Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, and Texas. Coordinated by: Mary- Linn Hughes. Venice, CA: Social and Public Arts Resource Center, c1983. 26p.

Discusses the emergence of Chicana artists and their evolution. Provides brief expressions by the artists regarding their art work. Sparsely illustrated in black and white.

Chicano Art History: A Book of Selected Readings. Quirarte, Jacinto, ed. San Antonio, TX: Research Center for the Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at San Antonio, c1984. 137p.

An anthology of previously published articles on Chicano art. It also offers a glossary of terms and names of historical figures related to Chicano art.

Chicano Expressions: A New View in American Art: April 14-July 31, 1986. Director: Lockpez, Inverna et al. New York, NY: INTAR Latin American Gallery, c1986. 48p.

An exhibition tracing the evolution of urban mass culture. Replete with color and black and white reproductions and offers essays covering the visual arts, graphic arts, mural art and religious folk art.

Comité Chicanarte. Chicanarte: An Exhibition. Los Angeles, CA: Comité Chicanarte, c1976. 108p.

Catalog of an exhibition of 102 California artists. Mainly a black and white illustrative book created to preserve and promote the vibrant expressions of the Chicano artist, portraying various aspects of Chicano life.

Dale Gas: An Exhibition of Contemporary Chicano Art. Curator: Martínez, Santos. Houston, TX: Contemporary Arts Museum, 1977. 72p.

A historical overview of Chicano art which traces the lives of several artists, offering inside stories on the subject. Bibliography included.

Favela, Ramón. The Art of Rupert García: A Survey Exhibition, August 20, October 19, 1986. San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Chronicle Books, c1986. 96p.

This book is the first scholarly exhibition catalog to examine a Chicano artist's work. Included are fifty-five beautiful full-color illustrations of a representative selection of García's silkscreens and pastel paintings, biography and bibliography.

Goldman, Shifra M. Arte Chicano: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Chicano Art, 1965-1981. Goldman, Shifra M. and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, comps. Berkeley, CA: Chicano Studies Library Publications Unit, University of California at Berkeley, 1985. viii, 778p.

Important bibliographic reference work which provides subject, author/artist and title citations to articles, books, catalogs, exhibit brochures and art works. Includes an introductory essay for the study of Chicano art.

Made in Aztlán. 1 ed. Brookman, Philip and Guillermo Gómez- Peña, eds. San Diego, CA: Centro Cultural de la Raza, c1986. 116p.

Four essays attempting to put into perspective the attitudes and developments central to the evolution of the Centro Cultural de la Raza. Photographs and illustrations included.

Mano a Mano Abstracción/Figuración: 16 Pintores Mexicano Americanos y Latino Americanos del Area de la Bahía de San Francisco. By: Eduardo Carrillo, et al. Santa Cruz, CA: Art Museum of Santa Cruz County, 1988. 63p.

An attempt to rectify the lack of recognition of existing abstract currents in Chicano and Latin American Art. Provides brief biographies of such artists complemented with brilliant full-color illustrations.

Quirarte, Jacinto. Mexican American Artists. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1973. xxv, 149p. (The John Fielding and Lois Lasater Maher series: 2).

Examines Mexican American artists' contributions to U.S. culture, while providing a historical account of the various aspects that influenced contemporary Chicano artists.

Signs From the Heart: California Chicano Murals. Cockcroft, Eva Sperling and Holly Barnet-Sanchez, eds. Venice, CA: Social and Public Art Resource Center, c1990. 105p.

Featuring captivating illustrations, it includes four interpretive essays by Chicano scholars revealing the development of the innovative Chicano art style.

A través de la Frontera. Coordinación por: Rodriguez Pampolini, Ida. México City, México: Centro de Estudios Económicos y Sociales del Tercer Mundo, A.C., Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, 1983. 241p.

Broadly examines many aspects of art and culture such as theater, music, films, and the visual arts, while documenting the social and political issues related to the Mexican immigrant. Copiously illustrated and entirely in Spanish.

Essay: Ramón Favela and translated by R. González.

Editing, design, and bibliography: Salvador Güereña. Bibliography annotated by Romelia Salinas and translated by R. González.

Editorial consultant: Yves-Charles Grandjeat

Production assistant: Rosemarie Leon Morales

For more information about Proyecto CARIDAD contact: The California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93117. (805) 893-8563.

Galería de la Raza/Studio 24 2857 24th Street San Francisco, California 94110 (415) 826- 8009

This publication was supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Department of Education under the provisions of the Library Services and Construction Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Education or the California State Library, and no official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education or the California State Library should be inferred.

Proyecto CARIDAD Chicano Visual Arts Kit Guide

Proyecto CARIDAD Chicano Visual Arts Digital Image Collection