Fifty years after the death of Diego Rivera, the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City has launched a major exhibition to celebrate the famed Mexican Muralist. Having opened on September 28th, 2007, the important exhibit titled, Diego Rivera: Epopeya Mural (Diego Rivera: Epic Mural), presents 170 works of art by the radical Mexican artist, including…
Ricardo Favela, a founding member of the groundbreaking Chicano Arts collective, the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF, aka: The Rebel Chicano Art Front), died of a heart attack this past July 15th, 2007. He was 62. The RCAF colectivo was founded in Sacramento, California, in 1969, and through its inspired and tireless output was intrumental in helping to establish the…
To celebrate the 100th birthday of artist Frida Kahlo, which falls on July 6th, 2007, Mexico’s Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) is exhibiting the largest body of Kahlo’s artworks ever to be put on public display anywhere in the world. Opening June 13th, 2007 and running until August 19th, 2007, the show is the first comprehensive exhibit…
Xican@ Demiurge: An Immediate Survey at L.A.’s downtown Pharmaka Art gallery, is the latest examination of Chicano art to grace the L.A. art scene. I viewed the works of the twenty-one artists in the exhibit, which according to the organizers of the show are referred to as “Los In-betweens”, both for their standing in-between cultures and for evading the clichés…
At Work: The Art of California Labor, opened with a fabulous Artist’s Reception on June 17th, 2006. Well over 500 art lovers from all over Southern California and beyond made their way to the event at the historic Pico House Gallery in downtown Los Angeles, located on the founding avenue of the city, Olvera Street. At Work is of course…
Turning the Frida Kahlo legacy into a brand name tequila is the final straw when it comes to “Fridamania,” the cult promoted by the unscrupulous that the artist railed against her entire life. Isolda P. Kahlo, the niece of the famed Mexican painter and the founder of “The Frida Kahlo Corporation,” is marketing Frida Kahlo Tequila, claiming the right to…
I’m a participating artist in Dia de los Muertos: The Journey Home, the nineteenth annual Day of the Dead exhibition at Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art. I’m honored that the institution chose to exhibit my oil painting Dia de los Muertos in its group show of forty artists from across the U.S. and Mexico. This is the nation’s biggest…
I’ve been studying Aztec art for decades. Many artists active in or familiar with the Chicano arts movement of America’s Southwestern states have appreciated the blunt figurative style and bold colors of the Aztecs. As African art influenced European artists to establish cubism, so too has Aztec art given inspiration to Mexican-American painters and print makers from the late 60’s…
