Accion Chicano; Los Four; Cinco De Mayo

I don't know if it's true or not, but I think it's true. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not, but it's true or not. Today, we host a film produced and directed by Jim Tartan on Los For, the first Chicano artists ever to exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Today, we host a film produced and directed by Jim Tartan on Los For, the first Chicano artists ever to exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Later, our barrier report takes a look at super graphics, art walls in East Los Angeles. Frank Romero's house near downtown Los Angeles is an informal meeting place for many local Chicano artists.

Frank Romero's house near downtown Los Angeles is an informal meeting place for many local Chicano artists. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively.

As a result of much dialogue, four of the artists decided to form a coalition to work and exhibit collectively. Are you happy Mexican, that's what I'm going to go through. We're together, we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together in a coalition to allow us to set up a blindness and solve We're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're together because we're each Charles and I have been a close association as an artist, for about 12 years and Charles and I have been a close association, as an artist, for about 12 years. Charles and I have been a close association, as an artist, for 12 years and Charles but Gilbert and Gilbert brought Veto and Ed cut in. You know, and what's come out of it is this iconography and all these symbols and these ideas. When four individuals have to compromise to do a painting as a group, we reached out because of the ideas in the air almost and said, well, let's do it in spray cans, which is this thing that we took from the body of experience. Can you paint these over?

No, I'm not going to paint these over. Well, look. Something's going to show the whole thing. You get an array of these little things you see when you paint them. That means... Is that all? That's all. Let's take these. Put them this way. No, I'm this way. What do you think? In February 1974, those four were invited to present their work in the first Chicano exhibit ever held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Let's see what we can do. Let's see what we can do.

Oh, we're going to crash. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, we have our... All we need is not enough to do. We have to do... We need to stop through this. C-P-A-D... Yes, sir. Well, I see it's got a bone on it, and the lines are weird. All right, start the hammer. Use your own finger, too. That thumb is catching my sand. Okay, I got it. This is an old Mexican color.

It's a Aztec. It's very popular. You see it in pottery and, of course, turquoise. But you still see it in cars. Pop, you know, aqua. Like Prifa, it says La Virgen de Guadalupe. Prifa, por vida. In other words, she rules forever. It's the idea. But the words I'm using are galo, or Chicano slang. You know, I grew up in Navarro, and I want to reflect that. You know, because that's who I am, and that's what art schools told us to do, and that's what I'm going to do. And I come from a certain kind of background, property, okay? There's many visual and real components of property that have to do with broken down bed springs and rusted this and trash here, okay? I want to change that, okay? I don't think that's the only image to represent Chicano, but I think that is a legitimate one. And I'm saying that we have to manifest a lot of the things

as we see them, not how other people want to interpret them. If you slow down the drips, so you have to be quick and it's fast. For that reason, you can get things up very quickly. It really helps, though, and really requires that you have a certain kind of austerity with a spray can. And that's something that, in many instances, people under ray graffiti, they don't really recognize the calligraphy involved. At a certain point with painting, once I get the general idea down, the rest is technical. It's simply working over a figure and working over a figure to get what you want. If painting cannot bring about social change, then I will change from a painter to something else.

And I don't know what that is. I'm not interested in painting. I'm interested in human beings first, and I will subjectate my art to any necessity that can serve a large group of people. It's going back to the people and not just to my own subjectivity. Looking forward to the hands, and with the wonderful gloss around there. Such a mier erste form. Pretty blank. Well, you know, that's a great idea. Why does it look higher on the left? Can you check it, sir? One of my prime interests is collecting folk art in East Los Angeles. And I go out and drive just places I grew up around.

And park the car, walk the streets, talk to people, and I'm basically involved in the kind of things people that have no art training to do. They decorate their gardens. And what I find in East Los Angeles is distinct Chicano style. And I could only relate that to my own life experience the way I live. It's loose. And what I'm saying is that these things had a strong influence on me as an individual and as an artist. And I'm just now learning to reflect that input. Perfect. Perfect. I think you should leave the little paper. Yeah. This one goes flush with the right. Flush right? Right. Flush right. Up there. I'll teach you what I'm there. Okay. Where's the best of this video? Go ahead.

Go ahead. Okay. I see. Oh. Anybody know where the yellow nails are? You know, you guys should give Paul Sully. Give Bethel a hand. And then you've got to find that one plastic piece for your gosa. You have one thing still on the floor. One of my clearest memories is lying down on my stomach and making drawings with crayons and pencils and things like that. I was an artist. And when I grew up, I was going to be an artist. I met, he met the scientist, Luana.

And he said, hey, man. You know, you're Chicano. And I said, yeah. And he said, come and see what we're doing. What he was trying to do was say, look to your own experience. Well, there were indigenous forms to look at. Well, how do I incorporate those into my work? And how could I imbue the kind of thing that I was doing with the kind of thing that he was endeavoring to make me aware of? And it was that point where my work began to take form so that it began to relate more to myself rather than to something that was being programmed. That's a great color in the back. What did you do print a brown underneath's lac? Purple, brown. It's hard to read. Does it make your eyes jump around? Good. I'll leave it like that. It would be like a neon sign. Is that in Spanish or what do you want? No, just in Spanish.

Oh my God, I think labels for it. And yours got to be on white paper. That one got to be on brown paper. But we've already made a list of them. But that's for another kind of business. Yeah, he's also done with them. Okay. Amor passado. And you know, it's to ask a question. Okay. You have to double it then. Wait for your trial. Number one. Two is the... The UFW Neo sketch. Ben Ceremos. Okay. New events Ceremos means. We shall overcome. But this is a long title. How can we shorten that? Caracombe, huh? Batalropon. Batalropon is the dance. We'll jump. We'll win more time. Why?

And make our hearts one more sound. I've got a new string... And that is why I sing. All my truth is to you.

I'll share, I'm gonna take a trip on that old Marxist ship, and go sailing through concepts. The air in the world, I'll go and take a trip on that old Marxist ship. No, it's a country. Going far beyond the sky. What a haircut, Oscar. And when that ship comes in, I'll leave this world as soon. And go sailing through the sky. Let's be honest with each other. And this will be a memorial. It's just so much trouble to change it to this world. It's got this idea that would be nice, so I'm gonna take a look. He's trying to be helpful. All right, five seconds. Cecil Burgers on his special curator for this exhibit on Los Fords. Cecil, how did the museum become interested in the Los Fords art? Quite some time now, and Mrs. Jane Limiston, curator of modern art,

have been looking at a great deal of Chicano work, and works of other minority groups, such as Black women's movements, and that sort of little art kind of system. And in the sense that we're dealing with the kind of things that people like to do, and he's still like, you know, they like to customize your cars, and they're very much, he has human shrine, which is very interesting, in terms of, in every house, in every house in East LA, you have something like this. And he's sort of making an art for art, you know, where people take little toys, icons, the favorite things, and so forth. There's always an area like this. Specifically, I'm trying to reflect Chicano lifestyle, indicate that we have some pride, expand the awareness of what our culture means. Where is that? I will here. And these are just some of my own drawings.

I find these especially interesting here, and that they start to get three-dimensional, and I just let it happen. They remind me very much of the teamwork in Mexico, or the happy hour thing. I love these things, and they're really getting rich and complex, in the sense where they become very personal. It devils the hearts, the nobodies. I think they all manifest who we really are on a visual, and visual terms. And they're not always evil. They're more whimsical, some of them are funny. Some of them are... They're all usually very human, I think. In Mexico, there's a way between us. We have to take out the architectural forms of our knowledge, and in English, look to your own experience. We've printed the invitations in two languages. We were trying to get people to never been to the museum to come and see it. That shot's going to work. Alaina Canavia interview.

In viewing this exhibit, it feels to me that perhaps here is some hope that by going back to their cultural origins right here in Los Angeles, these artists may infuse some elements of vitality that I feel have been missing in order lately. Do you see this as a political exhibition? Oh, certainly. Charles loves to talk about the political aspects of all of this. But we're all involved. Charles works for Cesar Chavez in terms of trying to, you know, better things for the farm workers. And we're all involved. We'll even find the farm worker, and let me find... The best vehicle to describe the Chicano culture is the tortilla. Nobody argues about the tortilla. If we could all understand that we are of the tortilla clan, then we would have that kind of unity, that solidarity, and consciousness, that we all hope for. Right. Now this will just be a five shot. That's right.

Beyond two. But two on the line. Cute. Well, gentlemen, we have spoken individually with each one of you. But I have a few questions. To continue with the idea of success, and I want to add, success means self-determination. Do you find anything particularly easy as distracting, particularly attractive, particularly shocking? Well, art just doesn't shock me anymore. I'm inured. I've looked at too much of it. But certainly one can't help but notice Charles Almarez, large, mural-sized political cartoon, as he puts it. It's one of the most patently political works I've seen in that culture palace, you know, indoors. And since, you know, the great days of the Mexican muralists. Let's see. But the reception that we have had at the museum has really been fantastic.

I don't know whether I should be surprised. You're just glad that people can see that Chicano culture can contribute to the mainstream society. I really believe that we have a lot of things that we could share with people. This show is really, you know, like it sort of exploded. It was supposed to be a teeny tiny show that no one would notice in the back room. And it's just become the, you know, the major news in L.A. art in the last few years. For a woman who was married, she said that she would be married. She said that she would be married.

And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. And she said that she would be married. and in the good. And it happens to us. Yeah. But, we're talking about a whole movement. And a lot of people, were talking about In LA, you know, a hundred of the kind of artists that are busy working in the streets of East Los Angeles and in New York. I believe that I'm not so important as what we're trying to say and I really believe

that. People are beginning to listen to the fact that Chicano art is real and it does have merit by being a cholo and writing graffiti is not a sin, it's not a social crime. The pyramid in the accounting museum was designed by me but it also belongs to everybody because everybody got involved in putting it up. The pyramid is what I'm trying to say, anonymous people's art is what it's at. The pyramid is what I'm trying to say, anonymous people's art is not a sin, it's not a social crime.

The pyramid is what I'm trying to say, anonymous people's art is not a sin, it's not a social crime. The pyramid is what I'm trying to say, anonymous people's art is not a social crime. The pyramid is what I'm trying to say, anonymous people's art is not a social crime. The pyramid is what I'm trying to say, anonymous people's art is not a social crime. Blackass or graffiti remain a quick medium of youth expression in the barrios. But community efforts are helping convert the strong artistic energy of a young into exciting murals and other conventional art forms. This mural project was started by me and community-concerned people and beautifying the strata courts.

Originally the way it started we just came out and pulled a Huckleberry fin or a Tom Sawyer started painting the walls and kids came over here and started painting. Through the weeks going by there was more and more people concerned of what we was doing. So I asked a couple of artist friends of mine to do murals with me or to volunteer their time on beautifying East Los Angeles or one big part of East Los Angeles. It came from three murals to 20 murals to 81 murals total now. The whole theme now here is the kids this is called Give Me Life. This involves here that the kids ran around the world as us to our living now. The flower in the background is the people waiting for us or people waiting to live still. I have schools that are interested now in doing murals. I have retired gentleman is going to be doing one.

A retired lady. I have also another other lady that's worked with Alfato Secados in Mexico. I have professional artists, kids that live here in the projects that are doing some. I teach about maybe 10 muralists here. The whole atmosphere as far as putting in the murals. The people here are or I feel that the people here have feelings for the murals and are taking pride in their community. There is a possibly a five foot wall going all the way around the Estrada Courts that were full of blackouts. During the summer we hired 135 kids under the NYC program. Throughout the whole small walls we started at one corner, went all the way around the whole entire courts, sort of given it a frame or a sense of unity thing. And which is just a frame for the big walls, which we have like I said 81 walls, huge walls.

This is also going to be one of the biggest conflicts of murals that I know of in the world. This particular piece was painted for my brother John who was jumped by a group of guys about a year ago and he was almost killed at the time that the jumping took place and it was in this alley and so I chose this wall because there was like writings that sort of geared my thoughts to that time that he was jumped and I put this piece together with blood and cracked heads and my grandmother keeps praying for the activities that happen and well for us and everything.

And that the person up on top sort of just squeezing out of everything supposed to be my brother sort of distorted there with sores and just suffering from from everything that's around here. Like to me a big wall is almost the same as something small. It's just that it's just big you know I just deal with it the same way as I would a small panel. Back in the

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