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"La
Causa" (The Cause)
Mark Vallen 2011
Oil on canvas
40" x 36" inche
Purchase
this painting on Saatchi Art.
Artist's
statement:
"This
is one of two paintings I created especially for ¡ADELANTE!,
an exhibit of Chicano art at the Forest Lawn Museum
in Glendale, California. La
Causa is a portrait of militants from the Brown
Beret organization, a Chicano group that gained notoriety
in the late 1960s for struggling to advance the civil
and human rights of Mexican-Americans.
The
Chicano Moratorium march againt the Vietnam War took
place in East Los Angeles on August 29, 1970, and
was partly organized by the Brown Berets. The group
originally organized in East L.A. in 1967 as an outgrowth
of the burgeoning Chicano civil rights movement. In
1968 the group organized the first student walkouts
to protest racism and substandard schools in East
L.A., electrifying an entire generation. Soon Brown
Beret chapters sprang up throughout California, Arizona,
Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and beyond - but it all
started in the city of Los Angeles.
Some
30,000 people took part in the 1970 moratorium march,
which culminated in a rally at Laguna Park; dozens
of Brown Berets acted as marshals, providing security
for the protest. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department
attacked the gathering, initiating a riot. Ultimately
police killed four citizens that day, Lyn Ward, José
Diaz (both Brown Berets), Gustav Montag, and L.A.
Times reporter Rubén Salazar. Salazar was slain as
he sat in the Silver Dollar Café; a deputy sheriff
fired a tear gas projectile into the cafe, striking
Salazar in the head and killing him instantly."
Click
here to
read Vallen's full statement regarding his painting.
¡ADELANTE!
ran at the Forest
Lawn Museum
in Glendale, California from
Sept. 9, 2011 through Jan. 1, 2012. Those influential
artists who participated in the exhibit included the
likes of Judith F. Baca; David Rivas Botello; Barbara
Carrasco; Margaret García; Ignacio Gomez; Wayne Healy;
Leo Limón; Frank Romero; Patssi Valdez, and a host
of others.
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