They’re Chicanos and Artists. But Is Their Art Chicano?

... It has long been said that the identity-based show is an evil whose necessity would disappear in a more equitable world, but museums and grant-giving foundations will continue to support this kind of project because of its appeal to various interest groups. In truth, it as much a bureaucratic artifact as a curatorial one.





Photos by Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times

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By KEN JOHNSON
NY Times

Is it time to retire the identity-based group show? Back in the 1970s, exhibitions devoted to the work of women, blacks, gay people, American Indians and other disenfranchised groups brought into the mainstream all kinds of new styles and ideas. They changed the course of modern art history.

If it is hard to imagine that sort of exhibition making waves now, there is good reason. Artists of many different backgrounds and sexual orientations have been assimilated into the art world. There are more women than men in this year’s Whitney Biennial. Questions of equitable representation probably will never go away, but at this point, many artists would balk at being included in an identity-based show. They want to go to the big dance.

These thoughts were occasioned by “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement,” a confused and confusing exhibition at El Museo del Barrio presenting works by Mexican-Americans who have come of age since the 1990s. In the catalog the exhibition’s curators acknowledge that some artists who were invited declined to be in a “surname-based” show. (The exhibition was organized by Rita Gonzalez and Howard N. Fox, curators at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it opened in April 2008, and Chon A. Noriega, of the Chicano Studies Research Center of the University of California, Los Angeles.)

In his foreword to the catalog, Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles museum, observes that the 27 artists and collectives in the show are not grouped “by their own volition or consensus.” Selecting by ethnicity is “a curatorial artifact, a device to reflect and speculate on the issues facing Chicano artists today.”

It becomes readily apparent that the artists are not unified by any single style or conceptual approach. The work ranges from Victor Estrada’s funky-surrealist paintings to Sandra de la Loza’s complicated installation of old documents and a digitally manipulated video dedicated to Fort Moore, a historic site in Los Angeles.

Few pieces resemble the ideologically charged paintings and graphics of the Chicano movement, which blossomed in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Christina Fernandez’s large color photographs of laundromats represent an experience that people from many backgrounds know intimately. Without the works’ titles, you would not know that Delilah Montoya’s sumptuous, wide-angle landscape photographs depict stopping places on illegal-immigrant trails out of Mexico. Turning ugly subjects into beautiful pictures is something photographers do all over the world.

Some works relate to Chicano art, but with knowing, retrospective sophistication. Carolyn Castaño’s brightly painted, cartoonish portraits of pretty Mexican women surrounded by flocked and glittery stripes or floral patterns could be mistaken for cheap beauty parlor décor (in a good way). Folksy, signlike paintings and cases displaying sneakers and sandals made of painted cardboard by Gary Garay similarly refer to low-budget commerce and extend to the present the Chicano movement’s affectionate embrace of “low-brow” Mexican-American culture.

Eduardo Sarabia’s room covered with faux-antique blue-on-white tiles with emblematic designs alluding to the drug wars adroitly combines popular tradition and contemporary political savvy. And Alejandro Diaz’s display of distressed cardboard signs bearing hand-written messages, like “I beg to differ” and “Wet Back by Popular Demand,” play with themes of homelessness and racism with unusual good humor. He first exhibited them while wearing a white suit outside of Tiffany & Company in New York.

The most impressive effort in this quasi-populist vein is Margarita Cabrera’s sculpture of a full-size yellow Volkswagen Beetle, a car that was produced in Mexico from 1967 to 2003. Made of mainly sewn-together pieces of colored vinyl, it evokes the soft sculpture of Claes Oldenburg. According to the catalog, it also draws attention to the poor working conditions of industrial laborers in Mexico.

The curators explain in the catalog that the point of the exhibition is not to show the evolution of a particular visual or formal style but to demonstrate how Mexican-American artists have adapted mainstream conceptual strategies to more local concerns. It is the top-down opposite of the Chicano movement, which raised conventions of popular culture into the realm of high art, and it looks as if the biggest influence on most of these artists were M.F.A. programs.

“Black on Black,” a sculpture by Juan Capistran consisting of a black Minimalist slab leaning against another bent one, as if with sexual intent, looks like the sort of postmodernist riff on formalist abstraction associated with artists like Peter Halley, Sherrie Levine and countless others who have toyed with Modernist semiotics.

Finish-fetish-style panel paintings by Rubén Ortiz-Torres, rendered in glossy and glittery auto-body paint, conflate Modernist abstraction and custom-car painting. “Rigor Motors,” a pair of sculptures in the form of coffins by Ruben Ochoa and Marco Rios — one is half upright with an automobile bucket seat inside — allude to a car culture of death.

Death is more grimly invoked by Ken Gonzales-Day’s display of old postcards bearing pictures of people standing around under trees. Before selective erasure by the artist, they depicted lynched Mexican-Americans, and thus symbolize a pernicious historic amnesia.

Taken altogether, it is not clear what this show says about today’s Mexican-American artists. Are they doing something unusual that the art world needs to catch up on? Not those in this show. Is it news that they are as creatively diverse as American artists in general? It should not be.


It has long been said that the identity-based show is an evil whose necessity would disappear in a more equitable world, but museums and grant-giving foundations will continue to support this kind of project because of its appeal to various interest groups. In truth, it as much a bureaucratic artifact as a curatorial one. A more astutely focused, judiciously selected exhibition might lead to different conclusions, but this one will not alter the impression that last rites for this type of show are in order.

“Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement” continues through May 9 at El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, at 104th Street, East Harlem; (212) 831-7272, elmuseo.org.

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Culture Clash is proposed to help spur an LA theater's revival

[Click image to enlarge. Photo by Don Bartletti of the Los Angeles Times]

The LA Times is reporting that Community Redevelopment Agency of the city of Los Angeles is undertaking an initiative to revamp the Westlake Theatre. The Agency plans to make the space into a performance and multimedia center, with facilities for stage and music performances, film, and community and social events. In addition, the Latino performance ensemble, Culture Clash, is set to become the resident theatre company of the space.

"They're very popular; they attract a big audience," said CRA Administrator Leslie Lambert speaking to the LA Times. "Ethnically, they fit perfectly with that community. They're very much in touch with that community. [And] they'll bring in audiences from elsewhere."

A historic MacArthur Park theater could become the permanent new home of the performance trio Culture Clash under an ambitious city plan to bring more cultural amenities to the heavily Latino urban neighborhood.

Under a proposal spearheaded by the Community Redevelopment Agency of the city of Los Angeles (CRA/LA), the Westlake Theatre, which was built in 1926 and currently is used for a swap meet, would be converted into a multi-use entertainment space for live theater, film screenings, musical performances and community and social events. The project also would include the creation of 49 units of affordable housing and a 300-space parking garage.

According to CRA officials, the Music Box@Fonda, which runs the Music Box theater in Hollywood, would operate and program the revamped Westlake Theatre, and Culture Clash, the popular and respected Latino performance ensemble that is marking its 25th anniversary this year, would become the facility's resident theater company. In addition to performing at the theater for a minimum of 30 days per year, Culture Clash would provide youth-oriented programming and instruction in writing and acting, said Leslie Lambert, the CRA's administrator for its Hollywood and Central region.

Richard Montoya of Culture Clash, who with colleagues Herbert Siguenza and Ric Salinas has operated as a gypsy ensemble since the group moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, praised the Westlake Theatre as "a grand old faded lady" and said the trio was excited about finally acquiring a "bricks and mortar" home of its own.

"Thank God there's angels in bureaucracy -- there are -- that have said, 'You guys deserve a home,' " Montoya said in a recent interview. "We're, like, two Salvadorans, one Chicano, there's a need in the area."

However, he emphasized, MacArthur Park is "not an area devoid of culture. No, it's a very, actually, sophisticated place."

Indeed, the new facility is intended to enhance the revitalization of one of the city's most culturally rich neighborhoods, following a long period in which soaring crime rates and economic decline marred the area's image. The 633-acre Westlake Recovery Redevelopment Project Area was conceived in 1999 with the aims of stimulating economic development, rehabilitating existing housing and businesses, creating new housing, and improving public infrastructure and services. Other neighborhood projects include buffing up building facades.

Last week, the CRA's board of commissioners voted to begin negotiations with the project's developers, Millennium Partners, which will have up to 15 months to produce a formal plan to convert the 18,000-square-foot structure and the 1.2-acre site, which is bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, 6th and Alvarado streets and Westlake Avenue.

Plans call for the facility's ground floor to be used for retail; and there has been discussion of adding a central courtyard and a rooftop restaurant. The city will help the swap meet vendors operating in the building to find new quarters.

Lambert estimated that the total cost of the project would be between $20 million and $25 million. She said it is likely that a not-for-profit entity would be formed to assume ownership of the building or else lease it from CRA, which purchased the structure in 2008.

The project would be funded by "largely if not entirely public money," she said, and historic tax credits could be applied, given the building's landmark stature.

Millennium -- which, Lambert said, was chosen as the project's overall developer after a lengthy process of competitive application and soliciting community input -- has developed mixed-use properties, including apartment complexes, hotels and office space.

Neither Music Box nor Millennium representatives could be reached for comment.

Lambert said the theater's old proscenium stage will have to be rebuilt, and retractable seats will be installed. Reduced ticket prices for Culture Clash performances will be offered to area residents, she added.

Montoya said that having a permanent space would enable Culture Clash to extend its creative endeavors and share its resources and knowledge with emerging artists.

"At least turn the keys over to some young people and say, 'We're done, we're just over here if you need us, but here's the keys to the asylum.' "

reed.johnson@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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Interview with author & poet Daniel Olivas

Mayra Calvani, examiner.com

It's an honor to have here today accomplished poet, novelist, short story writer and editor Daniel Olivas. As if this isn't enough, he also is an attorney with the California Department of Justice and a regular contributor to La Bloga, a very popular Chicano/Latino literature blog. Olivas was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions.

BIO: Born and raised near downtown Los Angeles, Daniel Olivas is the middle of five children and the grandson of Mexican immigrants. Olivas received his BA in English literature from Stanford University and law degree from the University of California at Los Angeles. By day, he is an attorney with the California Department of Justice where he has worked in the Public Rights Division since 1990. He is married to his law school sweetheart, Susan Formaker, and they have a 19-year-old son, Benjamin. They make their home in the San Fernando Valley.

Olivas is also the author of five books of fiction including the forthcoming Anywhere but L.A.: Stories (Bilingual Press, fall 2009), and a children’s book, Benjamin and the Word / Benjamin y la palabra (Arte Público Press, 2005). He edited the landmark Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Press, 2008). Olivas has been widely anthologized including in Sudden Fiction Latino (W.W. Norton, forthcoming 2010), and Hate Crimes: Social Issues Firsthand (Greenhaven Press, 2007). His writing has appeared in many publications including the Los Angeles Times, La Bloga, The Jewish Journal, The MacGuffin, Exquisite Corpse, El Paso Times, PALABRA,California Lawyer, The Elegant Variation, and New Madrid. His first poetry collection,Crossing the Border, will be published next year by Ghost Road Press.

Olivas has just learned that the University of Arizona Press has accepted for publication his first full-length novel, tentatively titled The Book of Want, which will be published in 2011.

MAYRA CALVANI : Thanks for this interview. It's a pleasure having you here at the Examiner. Why don't you start by telling us a little about yourself and how you started writing.

DANIEL OLIVAS: When I was very, very young—in preschool—I was creating little books. I loved telling stories. My parents always read to us and our house was filled with books. But I never imagined that someone would actually want to publish my books let alone that my books would be studied in college.

When I majored in English literature at Stanford, I purposely didn’t take any creative writing classes thinking that I wouldn’t be able to “do” anything with it. But I always remained creative in my non-academic activities. For example, I was a staff artist and then art director of Stanford’s humor magazine where I not only drew cartoons but also wrote a few pieces. In law school at UCLA, I was appointed editor-in-chief of the Chicano Law Review (it’s now called the Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review) where I edited pieces and wrote a legal article on an important immigration court decision. As a lawyer, I’ve written many articles and essays for legal publications. Eventually, I started to write fiction. This was in 1998 when I started writing a novella. It was a way for me to deal with grief arising from my wife’s multiple miscarriages. I helped Sue and our son, Benjamin, with their emotions, but I wasn’t dealing with mine very well until I started writing. It proved to be quite cathartic.

After selling my novella to a small (and now defunct press), I couldn’t stop writing. Eventually, my short stories started being accepted by print and online literary journals. Then one of my poems was accepted by Lee & Low Books for a children’s anthology, Love to Mamá, edited by the great Pat Mora. I figured that as long as editors kept accepting my stories and poems, I’d keep writing.

CALVANI: You write in English with a little Spanish thrown in depending on the character. Can you tell a little about this “code switching” and why you utilize it in your writing?

OLIVAS: I admit that I’m a pocho. My Spanish is not very good. My parents were raising us bilingually but when I was three, I stopped speaking completely. This lasted a whole year. During that time, my parents panicked. They took me to be tested. At the end of the testing, the doctor told them that I was of normal intelligence but he strongly recommended that they cut all Spanish in the household. This was in the early 1960s so the bias against bilingual homes was fairly strong. In any event, my parents agreed to follow the doctor’s recommendation. So, I struggle with my Spanish but I try to have some of my characters switch between Spanish and English when it’s appropriate for that character. I want my fiction to ring true so I think it’s important that I do that.

CALVANI: Please tell us about your latest anthology, Latinos in Lotusland. It has garnered a lot of rave reviews. What inspired you to put this anthology together?

OLIVAS: I was sick and very tired of what allegedly well-read book critics called classic “Los Angeles fiction.” Whenever some critic said this, he or she typically referred to novels or short stories that involved movie moguls, starlets and Malibu scenery. Seldom did you see Chicanos or other non-white characters unless they fell into some ugly stereotype. I wanted to change this and bring together fiction by Chicanos and other Latinos about my hometown. The result was 34 amazing and powerful stories going back to 1947. We have authors who have written many books alongside writers who are at the very beginning of their careers. I am so delighted by the response we’ve had to the anthology. It has been and will be taught in universities such as Rutgers, UC Irvine, and Ohio State. And we’ve had Latinos in Lotusland readings from L.A. to Chicago to Denver to Santa Barbara and elsewhere. I’ve been so honored and enriched by the authors who are in the anthology.

CALVANI: Latinos in Lotusland is a great title. Why “Lotusland”?

OLIVAS: The original working title was Latino L.A. but Gary Keller, the director of Bilingual Press, wanted to explore other potential titles with me. So, he suggested that we use a nickname for Los Angeles. One nickname is “Lotusland” which harkens back to the mythological race of lotus (or “lotos”) eaters “represented by Homer as living on the fruit of the lotus and living in a state of dreamy forgetfulness and idleness” according to The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Therefore, the term has entered the English language to mean “a place or state of idle pleasure and luxury, contentment and self-indulgence.” (Websters New Millennium Dictionary of English.) Some non-native Angelenos decided long ago to pin it on Los Angeles. As William Safire explained in a New York Times essay:

“La-La Land is a play on the initials L.A., perhaps influenced by Lotos-land in ‘The Lotos-Eaters,’ a poem by Tennyson: ‘In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined / On the hills like Gods together.’ In his 1941 novel, The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald had a character describe Hollywood as ‘a mining town in lotus land.’”

Of course, I use the name “Lotusland” ironically. As I explain in my introduction to the anthology: “[N]otwithstanding the fact that the characters who populate this anthology may have feasted on the City of Angel’s lotus flowers, they do not live in blissful oblivion and they certainly have not forgotten who they are.”

CALVANI: You have written many short story collections. Have you written novels as well?

OLIVAS: My first book, The Courtship of María Rivera Peña (Silver Lake Publishing, 2000), was a novella but I do love the short story form. Every word has to count. I’ve even dipped into the very, very short story form such as flash, sudden and hint fiction (hint fiction is a story of 25 words or fewer). One of my very short pieces will be featured in W. W. Norton’s forthcoming Sudden Fiction Latino (2010), edited by Ray Gonzalez and Robert Shapard. However, I have written a full-length novel that is made up of linked stories, many of which have been published in literary journals already. It’s called The Book of Want (as of right now) and has just been accepted for publication by the University of Arizona Press for its Camino del Sol series. I am so excited by this. I have enjoyed many of the press’s titles over the years so I know they publish wonderful books. Their author list is a who’s who of Chicano and Latino literature including such names as José Antonio Burciaga, Stella Pope Duarte, Luis Alberto Urrea, Kathleen Alcalá, Ray Gonzalez, Pat Mora, Sergio Troncoso, and Juan Felipe Herrera, to name but a few. We have a tentative publication date of 2011.

CALVANI: Do you outline your stories beforehand or do your ideas develop as you write?

OLIVAS: I never outline. That would take the fun out of writing! I let my characters take me where they want to go.

CALVANI: Let's talk about short fiction writing. What would you say are the three most important elements of a great short story?

OLIVAS: I can’t speak for other writers or readers, but I think that interesting characters play the primary role for me. If I don’t have characters I care about, my story goes nowhere. The second most important element (for me) is conflict. Without conflict, a story is boring, to put it simply. The conflict could be big such as two robbers arguing over whether they should kill for money, or small such as which tie a widower should wear on the first date since his wife’s death. Conflict and how the characters deal with it is at the center of all great short stories. The third most important element revolves around language. This, for me, is the toughest element because it truly involves what we call “art.” There are a million ways to convey one idea, but not all paths lead to the creation of literature.

CALVANI: You're a regular contributor to La Bloga, a very popular Chicano/Latino literature blog. What do you blog about?

OLIVAS: We’re pretty freewheeling over at La Bloga but, obviously, our primary focus is on literature. My blog day is Monday. I do author profiles, interviews, book reviews, notices of literary events, listings of writing opportunities, things like that. I try to write my post on the weekend before it goes live. I also like to cover Chicano and Latino artists, community activists, store owners. In other words, I focus on what we call “culture.” We don’t get paid for what we do so we do as we please. La Bloga was founded in 2004 and I was invited to join as a contributor a couple of years ago after the founders read some of my work on another literary blog, The Elegant Variation, which was created by the novelist, Mark Sarvas. Right now at La Bloga, we have eight authors working on the blog. It’s a great virtual home and I’m in the company of dedicated, interesting writers. All kinds of gente read us: students, educators, judges, lawyers, editors, book publishers, etc. I find that La Bloga keeps me in touch with so many readers and writers in a way that was not possible 15 years ago.

CALVANI: What's in the horizon?

OLIVAS: Well, I’m working with Bilingual Press to put the final touches on my new collection, Anywhere but L.A., which comes out this fall. I then must turn to promoting that book which takes a lot of time and energy particularly because I’m a fulltime attorney, father and husband, not necessarily in that order. I have to squeeze whatever little time I can out of an already hectic schedule. Then I will turn to my poetry collection, Crossing the Border, which will be published in 2010 by Ghost Road Press. I’m writing short stories, book reviews, and essays, here and there, that I am submitting to various publications. I’m participating in book events, too. I’ve started a new novel but I’m having a little trouble making time for it. And I’m reading, reading, reading all kinds of wonderful books and print and online literary journals.

CALVANI: Is there anything else you'd like to tell our readers?

OLIVAS: Number one: Support Chicano and Latino literature! Number two: Read a book! Number three: Get involved in your community!

CALVANI: Thanks for the great interview!

For more information go to : www.danielolivas.com

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