Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This is an essay by independent scholar Max Benavídez in which he considers the impact of what he calls the “internal exile and displacement,” and decades of social marginalization on the self-identification of many Chicanos. He explores the [...]

In this document, independent scholar Max Benavidez sets out to establish a working definition of post-Chicano art. He suggests that early on there were two commonly held views of Chicano identity articulated in visual production: one that glorified [...]

In this document, art historian and professor Margarita Nieto discusses the 1989 exhibition, Los Angeles Latino Artists, in which fifteen Los Angeles-based Latino artists reflect on the experience of the city in their production. She suggests that [...]

In this text, art historian and activist Victor Alejandro Sorell ponders on arguments for designating Chicano people a nation: the history of the twelfth-century Aztec homeland Aztlán, —located in the U.S. Southwest,— included; the seizure of [...]

In this essay, Rita Gonzalez discusses the artwork of two Los Angeles artists, Salomon Huerta and Victor Estrada, within the context of U.S. West Coast artists and Chicano art. Gonzalez proposes that while these two artists are in dialogue with “ [...]

In this document, Los Angeles artist John Valadez describes the challenging and complex experience of being a contemporary Chicano artist. He stresses the inherently dual and/or fragmented identity with which all Chicanos must come to terms by virtue [...]

Amalia Mesa-Bains’s essay focuses on the works included in the Body/Culture: Chicano Figuration exhibition and explores the way in which the specific historical and cultural experiences of Chicanos have influenced their renditions of the human body [...]

In this text, Amalia Mesa-Bains introduces an exhibition of Chicano art with an account of Chicano cultural history, and a description of how the works of art in the show relate to several themes. She organizes her account of Chicano cultural history [...]