NASHVILLE—”¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now,” an exhibit showcasing graphic arts from the history of Mexican Americans and other related struggles, is open now through Sept. 29 at Nashville’s Frist Art Museum. The presentations are beautiful, thought-provoking, and inspiring. The use of the designation Chicano for those of Mexican descent is reflective in itself, indicating a dynamic change in Mexican American etymology.
The exhibition is from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and presents the magnificence, richness, strength, complexity, and development of Chicano life in the United States over several decades. “¡Printing the Revolution!” embodies the artistic calls for social justice and political awakening and progressive consciousness exemplified in the presentations.
The exhibit evokes the fact that during the 1960s, Chicano artists developed an outstanding and stellar history of remarkable printmaking that remains powerful to this very day. So many of the artists were heavily influenced by the social justice movements abounding at the time, including the civil rights, labor, anti-war struggles, and others still in their nascent forms. This was contemporaneous with a concomitant raise or change in consciousness to embrace the term Chicano as a national/ethnic designation or self-calling heretofore eschewed as unflattering.
The exhibition relates in part to the Indigenous roots of Chicano people, which can be readily seen in graphics such as the posters “Who’s The Illegal Alien, Pilgrim,” by Yolanda Lopez; “Indian Land,” by Jesus Barraza; “Dignidad Rebelde,” by Nancypili Hernandez; “Cruising Turtle Island,” by Gilbert “Magu” Lujan; and “El Coyote,” by Michael Menchaca.
The artists not only provoke reflection on the evolution of the dynamics of the term Chicano but also the development of creative and innovative materials at hand used in traversing the complex landscape of social justice and its interrelatedness to political upheavals far beyond the biased confines of so-called America.
The history of printmaking in the U.S. revels in the brilliance and magnificence of a combination of the cultural depot that emerges from Chicano art and its influence and mind-expanding perspective on mainstream society.
This exposition is the first of its kind to bring together from the age of historic civil rights activism and contemporary productions by present-day printmakers utilizing expanded graphics that go beyond the paper base. Although the preferred mode of Chicano printmaking is still screen printing, this display is composed of works covering a wide range.
Moreover, “¡Printing the Revolution!” looks at how the graphic arts have been used to enhance a community and raise its consciousness, involve the mainstream public, and consider the very development of the term Chicano in the 1960s and ’70s as a barometer of defiance, cultural progression, and political engagement.
In this time frame, activist artists commingled their own struggles ideologically with others to call forth a strategy to confront issues of racism, social justice, and economic inequality that remain extant to this very day. This exhibition is expressive of those thoughts and experiences over the decades and is showcased in works ranging from traditional screen prints to digital graphics and other mediums.
The presentations include 119 works by more than 74 artists of Mexican descent that through the time continuum produced many inexpensive and easily dispensed posters, often distinguished by resplendent colors, bold lettering, and grasping images designed to communicate awareness and support historic social justice issues, including immigrant rights, Indigenous causes, anti-war concerns, and community struggles. The exposition brings attention to a wide spectrum of the oppression permeating not just the U.S. but the entire world.
The exhibition is divided into five sections: The New Chicano, Urgent Images, Changemakers, Digital Innovations and Public Interventions, and Reimagining National and Global Histories. All are vibrant expressions of the history and sentiments of Chicano development over the decades from the 1960s onward.
The first showcase, “The New Chicano,” is indicative of Mexican Americans adopting an expansion of their already-present Native roots. This has to do with Indigenous beginnings with an expression of renewed pride in them.
The next part of the exhibition, entitled “Urgent Images,” deals with issues of struggle and resistance, such as workers fighting for equality, the search for a better life by migration, and the injustice of deportation and racist police brutality.
This section also contains posters evocative of the struggle of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union founded in the 1960s to resist the horrific working conditions imposed on grape pickers by corporate agriculture. Oftentimes, graphic artists answered the call to support the movement of the oppressed workers as exemplified by the Boycott Grapes poster of Xavier Viramontes. With its dark brown visage, Indigenous features, fierce expression, strong hands crushing grapes, and Aztec headdress, this was a warrior call to resist exploitation by Anglo grape growers.
The next segment, “Changemakers,” focuses on leaders in the struggles for social justice, civil rights, human dignity, cultural inclusion, and political advancement. Luminaries such as the revolutionary Emiliano Zapata and the artist Frida Kahlo are featured in portraiture emphasizing and using resplendent colors and the bold letters of pop art.
“Digital Innovations and Public Interventions” is the next division showcasing how graphic artists employ electronic media to attract more and wider audiences. Particularly attention-grabbing is the work of Favianna Rodriguez, an online image entitled, “Mi Cuerpo, Yo Decido” (My Body, I Decide), politically very thought-provoking after Roe v. Wade. Also politically charged is her work “Migration is Beautiful” of a monarch butterfly symbolizing its thousand-mile yearly migratory odyssey to Mexico as a way of opposing anti-immigrant feelings in the United States and anywhere else.
The last section, “Reimagining National and Global History,” expresses how Chicano printmakers connect with and show solidarity with people the world over who are likewise oppressed and struggling for equality and social justice. Much attention is given to the genocide of Indigenous peoples, while also focusing on the Cuban Revolution, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s, and Apartheid in South Africa.
Overall, the exhibition takes the path of linking the struggles of oppressed peoples around the globe.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
Comments