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Entre Tinta y Lucha
45 Years of Self Help Graphics & Art
January 31 – March 9, 2019
Exhibition opening January 31, 6-8pm

California State University, Bakersfield  – Todd Madigan Gallery
9001 Stockdale Highway
Bakersfield, CA  93311-1022

On January 31st, the Art & Art History Department will host a public opening reception for an art exhibit entitled Entre Tinta y Lucha: 45 Years of Self Help Graphics & Art at the Todd Madigan Gallery.

Delgadillo’s Print, Bolsa de Mercado, 2013 part of Entre La Tinta y la Lucha.

“CHICANO ART — During its 50 years of existence, Chicano art, always in transformation, has revolutionized itself into one of the main currents of the American creative canon. Based on four cultures-the pre-Columbian, the invading Hispanic, the Mexican and the American-Chicano art is inspired by these and develops from both its roots and the decades of oppression suffered by those who practice it and their families.

Since the violent confrontation in the streets during the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, Chicanos have progressed economically, socially and politically. Nonetheless, Chicanos and Latinos continue to be a marginalized group – foreigners – in their own home in the United States, and even in Mexico. This happens, even when the percentage of the Latino population in the main cities of the United States (such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago) has grown tremendously, both in size and in political power.

Born in the mid-1960s, along with the protests of the Vietnam War and the Black Power movement for civil rights, the Chicano movement challenged the categorization and mocking stereotypes widely spread among the Anglo-Saxon population, as well as the public schools, plagued with desertion and proclaimations that they were too inferior to achieve a middle class standard of living.

These problems became the central themes of the first Chicano artists. The expressionist and frank realism of their works appealed to an art audience that had grown weary of the successive tendencies of the system established in unrepresentative paintings.

With highly developed skills and great originality, these artists of dual origin, Mexican and American, directed the eyes towards the Latin American culture, not only highlighting the conflicts with the Anglo-Saxon society, but also boasting, celebrating and elevating the elements of the Latin American culture and tradition, that the Anglo-Saxon world marginalized.

Both the advances and the difficulties of the last five decades have helped to shape the evolution of Chicano and Latino art. These artists expanded their creative expression and demonstrated great dexterity to develop and represent their mythologies, methodologies and philosophies. They introduced an outstanding and original school in the history of art.” – Julian Bermudez