PST, A to Z: “MEX/LA” at the Museum of Latin American Art

Pacific Standard Time will explore the origins of the Los Angeles art world through museum exhibitions throughout Southern California over the next six months. Times art reviewer Sharon Mizota has set the goal of seeing all of them. This is her latest report.

Responding to my first PST, A to Z post Armando Baeza wrote, “CALL IT ‘ART BY CHICANOS’ AND IT MAY CLARIFY THINGS.” I assume he was referring to my claim that I was looking forward to learning more about “Los Angeles’ role in the Mexican avant-garde.” I probably should’ve just mentioned “MEX/LA” by name. (There are at least three other Pacific Standard Time shows focused on “Chicano” art.) But as it turns out, neither of us got it quite right.

“MEX/LA” is not a show of art by Chicanos, and it is not a show about the Mexican avant-garde, although it includes works that fit both of those descriptions. Rather, it is a show about what the curators—artist Rubén Ortiz-Torres and scholar Jesse Lerner—call “Mexicanidad,” or “Mexican-ness.” To that end, it explores both the work of Mexican artists who made art in L.A. (not all of whom would identify as Chicano) and that of artists (Chicanos and others) who lived in Los Angeles and were influenced by Mexican culture or tried to interpret it for U.S. audiences.

As you can see, it’s a complex topic, but that is in large part the point of the show. Stretching the time frame of Pacific Standard Time (1945-1980) back to 1930 and forward to 1985, it begins with the Mexican muralists, in particular David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, who both created iconic, influential works in Southern California in the 1930s. A particularly nice sequence pairs Orozco’s drawings for his “Prometheus” mural at Pomona College with studies by Italian-born artist Rico Lebrun for his “Genesis” mural, also at Pomona. Although Lebrun’s work was created in the 1960s and is far more abstract, the influence of Orozco’s twisting, muscular forms is clear.

The show also touches on the emergence of “Mexican” aesthetics in architecture, design, and popular culture, including a “Day of the Dead” video by Ray and Charles Eames, a suite of beautifully rounded chairs by British-born designer and artist Po Shun Leong, and cartoons and individual cells from Disney animations.

Theater review: 'Real Women Have Curves' at Casa 0101

Women usually take their clothes off onstage for someone else: a doctor, a lover. But the sisters are doing it for themselves in "Real Women Have Curves," Josefina López’s boisterous celebration of Latina life force, now in revival at the elegant new Casa 0101 Theater space in Boyle Heights. When summer heat forces a roomful of chicks to strip to their underwear, flesh suddenly becomes political: Baby got back, and she’s proud to show it off. 

Set in 1987, the play follows the tribulations and joys of five women working in a small garment factory, sewing cocktail dresses they can neither afford nor fit into. Owner Estela (Miriam Peniche) struggles to manage her mouthy staff, including her mother (Jonée B. Shady), ever-dieting Rosali (Noemi Gonzalez), skeptic Pancha (Martica de Cardenas), and our narrator, budding writer Ana (Margie Gutierrez Lara), in search of an identity and a way out of the barrio.  

The production suffers from uneven casting, and director Corky Dominguez sometimes lets his cast spill over into a sitcom. But there’s an infectious energy on Marco de Leon’s factory floor set as the women spat, gossip and dodge the ever-present La Migra (immigration police). And be sure to stay for the curtain call. If only “Project Runway” had this much attitude.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“Real Women Have Curves” Casa 0101, 2102 1st Street, Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays. Spanish language matinee 3 p.m. Oct. 22. Ends Oct. 23. $12-$20. (323) 263-7684, tickets@casa0101.org or www.CASA0101.org. Running time 2 hours.

Photo: Jonée B. Shady, left, Noemi Gonzalez, Miriam Peniche (standing), Margie Gutierrez Lara, Martica de Cardenas. Credit: Shane Sato

 

MacArthur 'genius' grants go to cellist, architect, jazz musician

 

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday announced new MacArthur fellows for 2011. The arts honorees include architect Jeanne Gang of Chicago, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, jazz musician Dafnis Prieto and choral conductor and composer Francisco Nunez, all of New York.

Each of the so-called "genius" fellows receives $500,000 in "no-strings-attached support over the next five years," according to the foundation. The money comes "without stipulations or reporting requirements," and is intended to give the fellows a wide berth for creative freedom.

Weilerstein, 29, is a cello virtuoso was performing in Jerusalem when she received the news about being made a MacArthur Fellow:  “This is an incredible and unexpected honor and completely overwhelming.  My first response was an expression of total shock and amazement and I still cannot believe it.”

Weilerstein manages her heavy touring schedule while being a diabetic. The foundation noted that she combines "technical precision with impassioned musicianship in performances of both traditional and contemporary music and expanding the cello repertoire through collaborations with leading composers."

When she played Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto at Disney Hall earlier this year with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Times music critic Mark Swed wrote: "[I]n the intense Weilerstein, the players met their match. She tore into the concerto with a ferocity that all but left the orchestra stunned."

Gang, 47, is an architect whose most notable work is the Aqua skyscraper in Chicago. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne wrote in 2010 that "the building, with its undulating concrete-and-glass skin, does suggest a fresh direction for skyscraper design."

The foundation described Gang's work as "integrating conventional materials, bold yet functional designs, and ecologically friendly technology in a wide range of striking structures."

Prieto, 37, is a Latin jazz percussionist with a number of compositions and recordings to his credit, including "Taking the Soul for a Walk" and "Absolute Quintet." The foundation wrote that Prieto infuses "Latin jazz with bold new energy and sound, dazzling technical abilities, and rhythmically adventurous compositions."

Nunez, 46, is involved with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and was cited for "shaping the future of choral singing for children by expanding access from inner-city to elite schools, redefining the artistic and expressive boundaries of the youth choir."

Past genius fellows in artistic fields include visual artist Jorge Pardo, violinist Leila Josefowicz, playwright Lynn Nottage and theatrical lighting designer Jennifer Tipton.

The full list of 2011 fellows is on the MacArthur website. This year's recipients in health-related fields include specialists in viruses, parasites and stem cells.

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-- David Ng

Photo: Alisa Weilerstein in February. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

 

New York-based Ms. Weilerstein, 29, was performing in Jerusalem when she received the news about being made a MacArthur Fellow:  “This is an incredible and unexpected honor and completely overwhelming.  My first response was an expression of total shock and amazement and I still cannot believe it.”

Shifra Goldman, key advocate for Latino art, dead at 85

Shifra Goldman, an art historian who from the 1960s forward was an outspoken advocate of Latino art and artists, has died. The daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease leading up to her death on Sunday at 85.

“To say that Tamayo is not as good as Picasso, that’s Eurocentrism,” the longtime Santa Ana College professor told The Times in 1994, when she curated a survey show on 20th Century Mexican art at the Bowers Museum. “We have to combat the stereotypical notions that all art south of the Rio Grande is somehow exotic or folkloric, colorful and strident.”

In 1995, the University of Chicago Press published a collection of 20 years of Goldman’s essays, “Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States.”

A full obituary will appear soon.

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A wider sense of history: the pioneering work of Shifra Goldman

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Getting at heart of Mexican art

-- Mike Boehm

Photo: Shifra Goldman in 1995. Credit: Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times

A permanent Asco mural is slated for City Terrace

The 1970s Chicano art group Asco, which is the subject of a fine retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is known for its wry take on the 20th century tradition of Mexican murals. Asco's distinctive versions were at once celebratory and critical of the genre, committed to the public posture of mural art but skeptical of its institutionalized status.

They were also mostly temporal performances acted out by Asco's members, rather than fixed wall paintings meant for permanent display. Somewhere between street theater and living tableaux, these "Pop-conceptual murals" survive today as photo-documents of events that took place more than 30 years ago.

Which is not to say that making wall paintings was alien to all members of the group. Willie Herrón III, one of Asco's four primary artists, painted one of the most noteworthy -- 1972's "The Wall That Crack'd Open," a pictorial cry of anguish painted in response to a near-deadly assault on his brother. Now, in conjunction with LACMA's show, the Getty Foundation and the Culver City nonprofit space LAXART are co-sponsoring a new Herrón mural. Called "Asco: East of No West," it's scheduled for completion in late October.

The twist: This fixed and painted mural is based on Harry Gamboa Jr.'s photograph of "Walking Mural," an Asco street performance. Asco fabricated props, donned elaborate costumes and, on the busy afternoon of Christmas Eve 1972, paraded for bemused onlookers along Whittier Boulevard in East L.A.

Art review: 'Asco: Elite of the Obscure, 1972-1987' at LACMA

In 1973, the Chicano art-collective called Asco came up with an inventive project that played off the ambiguities of an increasingly media-dominated culture. Called "No Movies," the works consist of public relations photographs and promotional stills related to movies starring themselves -- albeit movies that do not actually exist.

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where a thorough and absorbing retrospective of Asco's work opened on Sunday, one No Movie photograph looks like a scene clipped from working-class Italian Neo-Realist or French New Wave cinema. "First Supper (After a Major Riot)" shows four people -- artists Patssi Valdez, Willie Herrón III, Gronk and occasional Asco contributor Humberto Sandoval -- some wearing masks and all elaborately costumed, partaking of a meal at a table set up on a traffic island beneath a Whittier Blvd. street-sign in East L.A.

A big, baby Jesus-like doll is laid at their feet, a Baroque mirror leaning against the table. Day of the Dead skulls abound, while a stark painting of a headless, spread-eagle figure is propped behind them.

The title's "major riot" was the 1970 Chicano Moratorium in nearby Laguna Park, an anti-Vietnam War and pro-social justice rally that turned into a notorious police-led melee. Asco's "first supper" is a kind of secular resurrection -- a determined return to the street as a scene of political activity, years after such action was suppressed.

The No Movie photograph, shot by Harry Gamboa Jr., Asco's fourth member, poses a trenchant question: What does cultural invisibility mean? The invocation of Hollywood as L.A.'s representative culture industry, plus the absence of an actual movie linked to the photographic image, creates a resounding void that echoes with aching irony. Akin to wondering whether a sound is made in the forest if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, Asco simultaneously asserts and erases its artistic voice. 

Stuart Ashman appointed head of Museum of Latin American Art

The Museum of Latin American Art said that it has appointed Stuart Ashman as its new president and chief executive officer. His tenure is set to begin on Sept. 6.

Ashman assumes the museum's top post following the abrupt departure of Richard P. Townsend in January. Townsend had served as president of the museum for a little less than two years before announcing his resignation. Prior to Townsend, the position had been vacant for more than a year.

The museum received an endowment of $25 million in 2009 from the estate of its late founder, Dr. Robert Gumbiner.

Ashman has served as director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico. He was also founding director of the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in Santa Fe. Ashman served as cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs for more than seven years.

In the past year, Ashman served as an advisor for the U.S. Peace Corps, working on arts-related programs in a number of Latin American countries.

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John Valadez mural says 'Welcome to Long Beach'

Gregorio Luke to talk about controversial murals

MoLAA gets $25-million endowment

-- David Ng

Photo: Stuart Ashman. Credit: Doug Svetnicka

John Valadez mural says 'Welcome to Long Beach'

This post has been corrected. Please see note at the end. 

John Valadez acknowledges that his new mural in downtown Long Beach sends a very different message about urban living than some of the provocative paintings he made earlier in his career.

Back in the 1990s, an L.A. Times writer described Valadez as the author of "a body of work that reflects on racial conflict, sexual ambiguity and existential uncertainty."

Well, that was then. Valadez's latest mural, which adorns the new Gallery 421, an assertively upscale 291-unit apartment complex on West Broadway just north of Ocean Boulevard, is aglow with nostalgia and goodwill. It depicts a cheerfully idealized version of downtown Long Beach filled with a happy, rainbow-colored crowd and a radiant beauty queen waving under ochre-streaked skies, where both a blimp and the Spruce Goose cavort.

At the top of the two-panel mural, a flock of pelicans, rendered on laser-cut aluminum extensions, soar outward toward the viewer, approximately 6 to 18 inches from the wall, creating a 3-D effect. The mural's southward-facing panel depicts the now-vanished Rainbow Pier, a popular fishing and rendezvous spot in bygone days, which Valadez's fanciful re-creation populates with flapper-era strollers.

Monster Mash: Grammy Awards lawsuit; Lauren Ambrose in 'Funny Girl'

Fighting back: Four Latin jazz musicians are suing the organizers of the Grammy Awards for eliminating their genre as an award category. (BBC News)

Leading lady:  Lauren Ambrose has been cast as Fanny Brice in the Broadway-bound revival of "Funny Girl," scheduled to open Feb. 1 at the Ahmanson Theatre. (Los Angeles Times)

Safety study: A task force is to consider improvements at the Downtown L.A. Art Walk after a vehicle struck and killed a baby. (NBC LA)

Reaching for the sky: Chicago architects have designed a Saudi Arabia skyscraper that would be the world's tallest building. (Chicago Tribune)

Bye-bye baby: "Baby It's You," the Broadway musical that debuted at the Pasadena Playhouse, is scheduled to close Sept. 4. (Broadway.com)

Heading to court: Supporters of the Southwest Museum are suing the city of L.A., fearing the site's extinction. (Los Angeles Times)

Raking it in: Sotheby's has reported second-quarter earnings that rose 48 percent over the same period last year. (Bloomberg)    

Once more unto the breach: The troubled Classical Theatre of Harlem is staking its future on this summer's production of "Henry V." (New York Times)

Dancing about hockey: A choreographer has created a dance piece inspired by the recent Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver. (Vancouver Sun)

Sign of the  times: The Australian Broadcasting Corp. has axed its arts programming. (The Australian)

Passing: Agnes Varis, a philanthropist who supported jazz and opera, has died at 81. (New York Times)

Also in the L.A. Times: Richard Neutra's Kronish House in Beverly Hills has been spared the wrecking ball, at least for now.

-- David Ng

Photo: A Grammy Award trophy. Credit: CBS

 

Culture Clash publishes 'Oh, Wild West!' trilogy

Culture Clash, the seriously irreverent L.A.-based Chicano/Latino performance troupe, has tailored site-specific stage works for cities across the United States. But California has always been home base for the trio of Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza, who started clowning around in the Bay Area in the 1980s and later migrated to Los Angeles.

Now Theatre Communications Group press has published the troupe's magnum opus of stagecraft dealing with the Golden State, "Oh, Wild West! -- The California Plays," a $16.95 paperback, illustrated with photos.

For many L.A. theatergoers, two of the included works are fondly etched in memory, thanks to their world premiere productions at the Mark Taper Forum, which commissioned them. "Chavez Ravine" (2003), dramatizes and parodies the power plays that led to the destruction of a historic Chicano neighborhood and, eventually, the building of Dodger Stadium. "Water & Power" (2006) is a film noir-ish cautionary tale about -- among other things -- race, L.A. and the unintended consequences that can result from unholy alliances between businessmen and politicos.

The third work in the trilogy, "Zorro in Hell!" which reenvision's California's early-adolescent phase through the masked eyes of the sword-wielding hero, premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2006.

The new collection includes an essay about "Zorro" by Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone and an interview of Montoya about "Chavez Ravine" by John Glore, associate artistic director of South Coast Repertory.

And there's a preface by Montoya, the trio's principal writer, pondering pop-culture images of the Wild West, from James Fenimore Cooper to the Beats and Russell Means. "The grim pioneer is at the door again," Montoya writes, "and he looks a lot like Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- we need a barroom fight; we need to laugh."

He can say that again.

RELATED:

'Water & Power' plugs into L.A. greed

Culture Clash's 'Hell' is an enlightening place

Culture Clash: Staying irreverent yet relevant after 25 years

 -- Reed Johnson

 Photo: Culture Clash's Ric Salinas, left, Richard Montoya and Herbert Siguenza onstage. Credit: Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times