CSRC Newsletter - January 2018

Happy New Year! In looking forward to a new year, I’m haunted by how our times echo the social unrest of the 1960s, or, as Washington Post asks in a recent article: “Why does 1968 loom so large in the narrative of political and cultural change?”

 

Quoting Shakespeare, one could say, simply, “What’s past is prologue.” We must study the past in order to better participate in the present, and thereby make the future. Indeed, Shakespeare’s phrase is etched onto the pedestal of The Future, a statue of a young white woman located outside the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. The National Archives opened in 1935, midway through the Great Depression. The times seemed right for historical reflection—and preservation. One cautionary: Shakespeare’s The Tempest appears to be set in the Caribbean, and the play’s natives, Ariel and Caliban, have been touchstones of Latin American political thought since the Spanish-American War in 1898, when the United States became an empire with colonial holdings that still include Puerto Rico and Guam. In the play, the phrase itself—that almost now clichéd truism about the value of history—is uttered by one European to another as an inducement to commit murder in the New World. The use of this bit of dialog as the statue’s inscription is not ironic, it’s perverse. Standing outside the National Archives Building, The Future gestures to the Caribbean and to its history of colonial violence. But both associations are effaced by the historicizing sentiment that is etched on the base of an accompanying statue that represents the past. Beneath a stern older man holding a book and a scroll are the words “Study the Past,” a statement that, given the context, is hypocritical at best. I’ll have more to say about these two statues in a forthcoming book from CSRC Press on Puerto Rican artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz. But the point is clear: Puerto Rico is not marginal or tangential to U.S. history. Its centrality to the mission of the “American” archives continues to depend on its public negation and neglect. That’s not right, and yet it is etched in stone.

 

The year 2018 is a time for social action, political thought, and historical reflection. So … study the past! This year, archival materials from the CSRC Library are on display in a number of exhibitions, starting with La Raza at the Autry Museum of the American West and Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell at the Vincent Price Art Museum. Other exhibitions include: The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, closing on January 7; Mundos Alternos: Arts and Science Fiction in the Americas at the University of California, Riverside ARTSblock, closing February 4; and ¡Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, closing February 27. See them while you can! Finally, although Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. recently closed, you can buy the exhibition catalog for this and the other shows. All offer groundbreaking scholarship.

 

 

The Latino Politics and Policy Initiative (LPPI) at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs held its public launch event December 6 at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles. Kevin de Léon, current president pro tem of the California State Senate and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, delivered the keynote address. Other speakers were Sonja Diaz, LPPI founding director; Scott Waugh, UCLA executive vice chancellor; Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA Division of Social Sciences at UCLA; Gary Segura, dean of the Luskin School; Laura E. Gómez, professor of law at UCLA and former CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee chair; and Matt Barreto, co-founder of LPPI, professor of political science and Chicana/o studies at UCLA, and CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee member. The CSRC is a partner in this initiative. To view videos and photos from the event go to http://latino.ucla.edu/.

 

The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will close January 21. This is your last chance to see this show, which features more than 100 works by U.S. Latino and Latin American artists from the late 1950s to the present who use the universal concept of “home” as a lens through which to view socioeconomic and political changes in the Americas over the past seven decades. 

 

On Saturday, January 13, the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College will host “Cuerpos Unidos: Performances in Dialogue with Laura Aguilar.” The event, which is part of the REDCAT Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Festival, will feature new works by artists whose practices have been influenced by the Chicana photographer. Performers include Edgar Fabián Frías, Irina Contreras, Cesia Dominguez, Cindy Vallejo, and Freddy Villalobos. “Cuerpos Unidos” is produced in conjunction with the PST: LA/LA exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, which was organized in collaboration with the CSRC and is on view at VPAM through February 10. For more information, visit http://vincentpriceartmuseum.org/cuerpos-unidos.html.

 

Names Printed in Black, curated by Emily Butts, former curatorial assistant for Home—So Different, So Appealing, opens January 4 and runs through February 11 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Home artist Carmen Argote is among the artists in the show, along with Adriana Corral, Carlos Motta, Lisa Soto, and Samira Yamin. Butts’s exhibition is part of the gallery’s Emerging Curators Program.

 

Home artist Salomon Huerta will present new paintings this month in his solo exhibition Still Lifes. The exhibition, at There There Gallery in Los Angeles, runs January 6 through February 10, with an opening reception Saturday, January 13, 6:00-8:00 p.m. For more information, visit the gallery website here.

 

The CSRC celebrates a new partnership between the Autry Museum of the American West and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which will facilitate collections sharing, curatorial collaborations, scholarly research, and programming. This follows a similar partnership announcement between LACMA and the Vincent Price Art Museum in 2017. The CSRC has worked with all three institutions for approximately a decade on exhibitions featuring underrepresented Chicano and Latino artists. The public is invited to attend the Autry-LACMA partnership announcement, followed by a talk featuring museum directors Rick West (Autry) and Michael Govan (LACMA), on Tuesday, January 9 at 7:30 p.m. For more information, click here.

 

On November 17, CSRC director Chon A. Noriega delivered the keynote address for a two-day event that featured guided tours of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions. The event was sponsored by the Association for Latin American Art (ALAA) and organized by Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director and professor of art history and Chicana/o studies, and Elisa Mandell, associate professor of visual studies at Cal State Fullerton.

 

On December 29, ¡Por Favor, No Me Entierren! (Please Don't Bury Me Alive!) (1976), directed by and starring Efraín Gutiérrez, was screened at Nous Tous gallery in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. The screening was part of programming developed for the group exhibition Face to Face, Mouth to Mouth, which showcased works by Rosalee Bernabe, Cinthya Guillen, Robben Muñoz, Oscar Ochoa, and Lauren Woore. The exhibition focused on divergent strategies to investigate transnational narratives that have been historically erased, downplayed, and/or forgotten. Gutiérrez’s film, which is widely described as the first Chicano feature film, was recovered by CSRC director Chon A. Noriega in the late 1990s and restored and preserved by the CSRC in collaboration with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. It was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2015.

 

Inside the MFAH, a blog published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, featured Home artists Manuel Mendanha and Juliana Laffitte of Mondongo, who discuss their artwork Polyptych of Buenos Aires, an altarpiece that portrays Villa 31, a shantytown in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Inside the MFAH, December 29, 2017 (PDF)

 

CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was mentioned in an article on Harry Gamboa Jr.’s exhibition Chicano Male Unbonded. A portrait of Noriega is featured in the exhibition, which is on view at the Autry Museum of the American West through August 5, 2018.

Carla, Winter 2017 (PDF)

 

Hunter Drohojowska-Philp mentioned the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing on the radio show Art Talk on KCRW 89.9 FM. To listen to the story, click here.

Art Talk, December 28, 2017
Transcript on kcrw.com, December 28, 2017 (PDF)

 

The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing was reviewed in Dallas News. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was mentioned as one of the three curators of the exhibition. Several images from the show, courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, were featured in the piece.

Dallas News, December 28, 2017 (PDF)

 

CultureMap Houston reviewed the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was quoted in a discussion of the show’s organizational structure. Several images from the show, courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, were featured in the piece.

CultureMap Houston, December 27, 2017 (PDF)

 

UCLA Newsroom reported on the La Raza photo collection and digitization project at the CSRC and the exhibition of selected images at the Autry Museum of the American West until 2019. The story was also featured in the UCLA Newsroom weekly roundup.

UCLA Newsroom, December 22, 2017 (PDF)

UCLA Newsroom, December 22, 2017 (roundup) (PDF)

 

Inside the MFAH, a blog published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, featured Home artist Carmen Argote discussing her artwork 720 Sq. Ft.: Household Mutations—Part B, a multiroom carpet pulled from the apartment in which Argote and her family lived for more than twenty years.

Inside the MFAH, December 22, 2017 (PDF)

 

The Los Angeles Times reported on Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., an exhibition co-curated by former CSRC visiting scholar C. Ondine Chavoya, who is quoted in the piece. The CSRC is a lender to this exhibition. 

Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2017 (PDF)

“Art Exhibit Focuses on the Meaning of ‘Home’”
The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, was featured on ABC13. The article includes a video of the galleries at MFAH, viewable here.
ABC13, December 20, 2017 (PDF)

 

“Best of 2017: Our Top 10 Los Angeles Art Shows”
The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, and the exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, a collaboration between the CSRC and the Vincent Price Art Museum, were featured in Hyperallergic’s list of best Los Angeles art shows of 2017.  
Hyperallergic, December 20, 2017 (PDF)
 

Inside the MFAH, a blog published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, featured Home artist Daniel Joseph Martinez discussing his two monumental installations that bookend the exhibition: the west bank is missing: i am not dead, am I and The House That America Built.

Inside the MFAH, December 15, 2017 (PDF)

 

“Looking Back on 2017: Art”
Art critic Max Benavidez named the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing one of the best exhibitions of the year. The story featured the top art shows of 2017 as selected by writers, artists, and curators.
BOMB, December 14, 2017 (PDF)
 

“Home—So Different, So Appealing at LACMA, Los Angeles”
Terremoto featured a review of the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing. The story includes photos of the exhibition at LACMA.
Terremoto, December 14, 2017 (PDF)
Spanish version (PDF)
 

“Meet the Devoted Coachella Valley Catholics Leading the Longest Pilgrimage in the United States”
CSRC associate director Charlene Villaseñor Black was quoted in an article about a popular annual pilgrimage from Palm Springs to Coachella to celebrate La Virgin de Guadalupe.
The Desert Sun, December 12, 2017 (PDF)
 

“The Idea of ‘HOME’: An Interview with Curator Chon Noriega”
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was interviewed for a story about the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, which is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through January 21, 2018.
Inside the MFAH, December 8, 2017 (PDF)
 

“Art Calendar: A Look at ‘Home’ and ‘Tensile Strength’”
The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through January 21, was featured in a listing of current art exhibitions in Texas.
Houston Chronicle, December 6, 2017 (PDF)
 

“Art Basel Miami Beach 2017 Anticipates Record Sales”
The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing and Home artist Abraham Cruzvillegas were mentioned in an article discussing Art Basel Miami Beach 2017. The upcoming annual art fair will include more Los Angeles–based exhibitors and, following the example of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, more North American artists with Latin American roots.
Hollywood Reporter, December 2, 2017 (PDF)
 

“Home Is an Intimate Space: Amalia Mesa-Bains and Transparent Migrations”
Amalia Mesa-Bains was interviewed for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s blog Inside the MFAH. She discusses her installation Transparent Migrations, which is on display in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing.
Insider the MFAH, December 1, 2017 (PDF)
 

“Soñadores, Split Issue with Terremoto Magazine (Mexico City)”
The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing was mentioned in essays by Alma Ruiz and Arden Decker in the October 2017 issue of the Art Los Angeles Reader, guest edited by Terremoto.
Art Los Angeles Reader, October 2017 (PDF)

 

 

The 2018 LA Art Show will present programming developed with Los Angeles’s major art institutions, including, for the second year, the CSRC. The CSRC and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will co-present installations created by Home—So Different, So Appealing artists Daniel Joseph Martinez and Leyla Cárdenas and curated by CSRC director Chon A. Noriega. The two installations are:

 

Opening Night Premiere Party: Wednesday, January 10, 7:00–11:00 p.m.
Exhibition schedule: Thursday, January 11–Saturday, January 13, 11:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m.; and Sunday, January 14, 11:00 a.m.­–5:00 p.m. For more information and ticket prices visit the LA Art Show website.
 

Starting with the train station as both symbol and infrastructure, artist Leyla Cárdenas and CSRC director and curator Chon A. Noriega will discuss the modern city as landscape, war zone, archaeological site, and threshold to a past that never ended and a future that never arrives. This talk is part of the 2018 Dialogs LA Series at the LA Art Show. This event is organized by the CSRC in conjunction with the LA Art Show. 
 

Sybil Venegas, curator of Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, on view at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) through February 10, will discuss the exhibition. Additional speakers are Pilar Tompkins Rivas, VPAM director; Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director; and Rebecca Epstein, CSRC senior officer and editor of the exhibition catalog. The exhibition catalog, published by CSRC Press, will be available for purchase at the event. This event is co-organized by VPAM.

 

570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Join us for a celebration of the career and legacy of Juan Gómez-Quin᷉ones, professor of history, former CSRC director (1974–84), and one of the founding editors of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. The event includes moderated panel conversations that will explore Gómez-Quin᷉ones’s accomplishments as a historian, poet, and activist. Click here for a full schedule. Please RSVP here. Self-pay parking is available in UCLA parking lot 9. This event is organized by UCLA College and cosponsored by the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies and the CSRC.

 

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the East L.A. walkouts, the CSRC will present two days of programming. On Saturday, March 10, a speakers’ program will feature walkout participants and scholars; it will conclude with a tour of an exhibition at the CSRC Library featuring related materials from archival collections. On Sunday, March 11, the 1995 documentary Taking Back the Schools and the 2005 HBO film Walkout! will be screened. Producers Susan Racho and Moctesuma Esparza, respectively, will introduce their films. A Q&A will follow the screenings. This event is organized by the CSRC and cosponsored by the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the Institute of American Cultures, the Division of Social Sciences, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies. 

 

 

The celebrated mural Chicano History, by Eduardo Carrillo, Sergio Hernandez, Ramses Noriega, and Saul Solache, will be on public display as part of the exhibition Testament of the Spirit: Paintings by Eduardo Carrillo at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. The mural was painted in 1970 for installation at the CSRC, which had been established a year earlier. The exhibition runs January 21 through June 3, and then travels to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, where it will be on display from June 24 through October 7. For more information, visit: http://pmcaonline.org/exhibitions/eduardo-carrillo/

 

 

Now available from CSRC Press: the catalog for Home—So Different, So Appealing, the acclaimed exhibition that explores the universal concept of “home,” whether envisioned as dwelling, residence, or place of origin. Home, which opened at LACMA and is now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents the artwork of forty US Latino and Latin American artists. Home breaks ground by placing these works—which span the hemisphere and seven decades of artistic production, from the 1950s to the present, and include paintings, photographs, videos, and multimedia works and installations—in a dynamic dialogue.

 

Curatorial essays by Chon A. Noriega (UCLA), Mari Carmen Ramírez (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), and Pilar Tompkins Rivas (Vincent Price Art Museum) discuss the works and explore their interrelationships. The plate section includes installation photographs that show how the exhibition promotes this dialogue without imposing a common identity, cultural influence, or inheritance.

 

With more than two hundred illustrations in a lavish format, Home—So Different, So Appealing is the perfect gift for any art lover—and a beautiful volume for holiday giving. Order the catalog today from the distributor, University of Washington Press, or purchase it directly from the CSRC for half price plus shipping, as a thank you to all CSRC friends for your support of the exhibition! To purchase your copies, contact Darling Sianez at support@chicano.ucla.edu or 310-825-3428. Offer valid through the month of January.

 

The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center is looking for a part-time (20 hours per week) communications and academic programs assistant to provide clerical and research support to the CSRC, including assisting with event coordination, social media promotion, website maintenance, record keeping, and other communications-based duties as assigned. Fluency in Spanish and English preferred. For additional information and to apply, click here or visit http://www.ucla.edu/about/careers and search Campus Job Openings for requisition number 27168.

 

The Institute of American Cultures offers in-residence appointments to support research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os. We especially encourage applications that advance our understanding of new social and cultural realities occasioned by the dramatic population shifts of recent decades, including greater heterogeneity within ethnic groups and increased interethnic contact.

The 2018-19 IAC Visiting Scholars will receive funding for one or more quarters, with an approximate funding of $35,000 for three quarters (contingent upon rank, experience, and date of completion of their terminal degree). In the event that an award is for less than three quarters the stipend will be prorated in accordance with the actual length of the award. Visiting scholars who have a home institution, these funds can be used to supplement sabbatical support for the total that does not exceed the candidate’s current institutional salary. These visiting scholars will be paid through their home institution and will be expected to continue their health benefits through that source. Visiting scholars who do not have a home institution will receive funding for living expenses and may be eligible for health benefits. In the event that an award is for less than the nine-month appointment, the funds will be prorated in accordance with the actual length of the award. Awardees may receive up to $4,000 in research support. The Bunche Center for African American Studies will not have a visiting scholar this academic year.

 
Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States and hold a PhD from an accredited college or university (or, in the case of the arts, an appropriate terminal degree) in a relevant field at the time of appointment. UCLA faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.

 

Application deadline: January 11, 2018. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. Applicants will be notified in March.

Click here for a preview of the application pages. 

 

For further information, please contact the coordinator of the appropriate UCLA Ethnic Studies Research Center.

 

The Inter-University Program for Latino Research is now accepting applications for the IUPLR/Mellon Fellowship Program (academic year 2018-19). The program supports ABD doctoral students in the humanities who are writing dissertations in Latina/o studies. Doctoral students in the social sciences whose research uses humanities methods may also be considered. The fellowship facilitates completion of the dissertation and provides professional development, job market support, and mentoring from Latina/o faculty members. 

With support from the Andrew G. Mellon Foundation, IUPLR will select fellows through six designated research centers. Applicants must be affiliated with the following centers to be eligible:  
 

The fellowship includes a $25,000 stipend, participation in an intensive summer institute in Chicago, and professionalization and writing workshops and programs. For more information and to view the online application, visit https://form.jotform.com/62325487948166.
 

Application deadline: January 30. All queries should be directed to the Mellon coordinator, Dr. Jennifer Boles, jlboles@uic.edu. UCLA applicants are additionally asked to contact Dr. Rebecca Epstein, CSRC communications and academic programs officer, repstein@chicano.ucla.edu.