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Mark
Vallen is featured in the documentary:
American Beauties
In
Pursuit Of Art
Premieres
Dec. 29 '06
Orange
County Center for Contemporary Art
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JUST
ANOTHER POSTER?
Chicano Graphic Arts in California.
Article
written by Mark Vallen - a participating artist in
the exhibition.
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JUST
ANOTHER POSTER? - Chicano Graphic Arts in California,
is the first exhibition and book that explores the
poster art created by dozens of Chicano artists in
California from the late 1960's to the present. I
am honored to be among the artists included in this
historic collection. Graphic art has played a key
role in El Movimiento (the Chicano civil rights
movement), and the poster has been used to educate,
agitate, and organize Americans of Mexican descent.
One could even say that political awareness and social
activism grew out of the Chicano arts movement.
Chicano
art has had many influences. Certainly the great Mexican
artists like José Guadalupe Posada, Frida Kahlo, and
David Siqueiros have had their effect - but so have
American comic books, Cuban political posters, and
placas (spray-painted barrio calligraphy.)
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Chicano
poster art became a means to help preserve and promote
a culture largely ignored by the dominant Eurocentric
society of the United States. Artists glorified
Aztec Gods, Mexican revolutionaries, the Virgin
de Guadalupe, immigrant farm workers, and the experiences
of everyday raza (people.)
In
1973 artist Xavier Viramontes created the Boycott
Grapes poster shown directly above, one of the
era's most famous images supporting the United Farmworkers
Union of César Chávez. The poster at left, titled
Rifa, was created in 1972 by artist Leonard
Castellanos (Rifa is Chicano slang for "we
rule" or "we're the best").
Both works portray Mexican icons... an Aztec warrior
and the revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata, but each
is reworked to express a unique Chicano perspective.
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Mexican
culture has always informed Chicano art, but it's
the American experience that truly gave birth to this
distinct genre. The Aztecs migrated from a mythical
homeland called Aztlán (Place of the White Crane),
and many Chicanos see the Southwestern U.S. as Aztlán,
leading to the popular slogan, "We didn't
cross the border - the border crossed us!"
The
poster at right, Vietnam Aztlán, by artist
Malaquias Montoya, was created in 1972 and typifies
the political works in the show. The Chicano movement
coincided with the waging of the Vietnam War - and
Chicanos who suffered from discrimination, police
brutality, and poverty at home, were also dying in
disproportionate numbers on the battlefield of Vietnam.
As a result, many embraced the anti-war movement.
Montoya's clear appeal for solidarity with the Vietnamese
people was shared by many Chicano artists of the day.
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The
works of many artists and collectives appear in this
exhibition and book, including the artworks of The Royal
Chicano Airforce, Centro de Artistas Chicanos, Self
Help Graphics, Yreina Cervántez, Richard Duardo,
Lalo Alcaraz, Willie Herron, Carlos Almaraz, Rupert
Garcia, and yours truly, Mark Vallen. There are over
100 works of art from 50 different artists in this exhibit
and book. Many
artists in the exhibition drew inspiration from Mexican
traditions like Dia de los Muertos (Day of the
Dead). The silkscreen print at left by Eduardo Oropeza,
created in 1984 and titled, El jarabe muertiano
(Dance of the Dead), pictures a typical festival of
calaveras (skeleton people). My contribution to the
exhibition (shown directly below), also refers to the
celebration of the dead - but with a political twist
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Rafael
Perez-Torres, Associate Professor of English at the
University of California - Los Angeles, wrote an essay
for the book in which he commented on my 1991 silkscreen,
New World Odor. "The title puns on the
phrase President George Bush used to characterize
the sociopolitical configuration of the world after
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.
The poster suggests this new order means nothing but
the same carnage beneath a different regime. The pile
of skulls tumbling toward the viewer presents a macabre,
perhaps slightly mocking version of what awaits us
in a world dominated by capital and commerce. The
gothic lettering seems to reference the poster art
of the Third Reich, suggesting that the fall of communism
has ensured the triumph of fascistic forces. The critique
here is part of that strain in Chicano public art
concerned with political conditions at a global and
international level."
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The
exhibition also generated a beautiful, 218 page,
bilingual book filled with artworks showing why
Chicano poster art is so highly regarded. I'm proud
to say that my New World Odor poster is included
in the volume and that my works are examined in
an essay by Carol Wells of the Center for the Study
of Political Graphics. Several authoritative essays
by professors, curators, and artists make this the
indispensable book for those who wish to understand
the history and evolution of Chicano graphic art.
The
book is available online at Amazon.com, just click
on the ad at left to purchase a copy.
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Organized
by the University Art Museum - University of California
- Santa Barbara, in collaboration with the California
Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA), and the
Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG),
the show ran at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural
History in Los Angeles until December 9th.
2001. The exhibit has also been mounted at the Oakland
Museum of California, the Merced Multicultural Arts
Center in California, the Jersey
City Museum
in Jersey
City, New Jersey, and the Crocker Art
Museum and La Raza/Galería Posada in Sacramento California,
where the show ended on Sept. 14th, 2003.
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