What our art critic thinks of Cheech Marin's show at LACMA

So Cheech Marin lends some of his collection of paintings to a LACMA exhibit about Chicano art in L.A. and Christopher Knight, our art critic, says the museum really shouldn't have bothered:

I'm no fan of public art museums exhibiting private collections. The negatives so far outweigh the positives that such shows hurt, rather than help, a museum's mission.

The latest example is "Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections From the Cheech Marin Collection," which opened recently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The clumsy title is the least of its problems.

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Most tellingly, the show doesn't even have a curator. Someone on LACMA's staff was, of course, responsible for overseeing the exhibition, but it's the only outside show -- meaning not drawn from LACMA's permanent collection -- listed on the museum's website that doesn't have a living, breathing human being's name attached, except the private collector's. No curator claims it.

Ouch. Read the rest of the Christopher's essay about how and why the LACMA exhibit falls short right here.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Reed Saxon / Associated Press

Comments

[Oscar]

I think Christopher Knight hit the nail on the head asking why there was not curatorial oversight.

Why didn't LACMA dignify a show about Chicano painters with the full academic rigor that it should command?

The fact is Chicano art has always been deemed on the verge of what institutions like LACMA want to incorporate into their scope of art.

The show, should have been much larger, it should have had several pieces of scholarship attached to it and a new catalog.

[Ric George]

LA should be thanking Mr. Marin for sharing his works of art with the Los Angeles community. By the way C Knight, is not the Broad exhibit a private collection? Patsy Valdez, George Yepes, and the other artists included in the exhibit are Artists. How about talking about the great works included in the the exhibit, instead of the politics behind or concerning the exhibit. This show could be ground breaking for Los Angeles a platform to nurture and develop a whole new generation of artists. It should not be a platform for C Knights cynical views.