Cheech Marin's Chicano art at LACMA

WOW! I usually leave the art section to Paul but when I came across this article in the LA TIMES, I had to give my 2 cents! Having interviewed and been completely blown away by Gilbert "Magú" Luján, I must confesss, I have mixed feelings.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art originally turned down Cheech's offer to display his art collection (which features three of the four founding members of the famous Chicano Art collective Los Four.) That the museum turned down a Cheech's show should comes as no surprise since they have been turning down Chicano art for years. I'm not one to dwell on the past or complain that things aren't changing but the refusal of LACMA to acknowledge the artform belonging to a community as much if not more a part of the LA experience as the museum itself. Can somebody please explain to me what's up with that?

Thank goodness, Marin persisted and "Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections From the Cheech Marin Collection," shows through Nov. 2, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. (323) 857-6000 or www.lacma.org. on Sunday.

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(photo by Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times)

An Independent Film Festival in East Los Angeles

The photo above is of Prof. John Ramirez (Director of Reel Rasquache Film Festival), yours truly and Filmmaker Cristina Soto.

Once again, I had the great fortune of attending a filmmaking event that highlighted the diverse Latino culture. Last nights schedule included High Voltige and Muñeca from Puerto Rican filmmaker Christina Soto as well as Niña Quebrada/Broken Girl, a powerful thesis project from AFI students, Jen Kleiner & Diana Romero.

The Reel Rasquache Festival takes place on the Calstate LA campus. I had never been to the campus and found the Luckman Fine Arts complex intimate and impressive. It kind of reminded me of Lehman College in the Bronx an, unexpected gem in a forgotten borough…The Calstate campus is smackdab in the middle of EasLos and serves more than 22,000 students, 53% are Latino.

The Festival was designed as an East meets West project of sorts. They have successfully managed to involve the University’s neighboring communities and to bring a broad base of community members together with Latino independent video filmmaker and industry reps.