We will release soon. Thank you.

Please join us on Sunday, January 29 from 2-4 pm for a discussion with artists Barbara Carrasco, Richard Duardo, Dolores Guerrero and John Valadez regarding the Highland Park arts collectives Concilio de Arte Popular, Corrazon Productions and Mechicano Art Center. Curator Sybil Venegas will moderate.

Resurrected Histories is supported by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities: www.calhum.org

Also on Sunday, January 29 from 2-4 pm, we will debut our Resurrected Histories documentary edited and produced by Abel Alejandre with footage by KCET Departures.

Sunday, January 29 from 2-4 pm

January 14 through February 5, 2012

Avenue 50 Studio, Inc.
a 501(c)(3) non-profit art gallery
131 North Avenue 50
Highland Park, CA 90042
323-258-1435

http://www.avenue50studio.com
Avenue 50 Studio is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the California Community Foundation; the Department of Cultural Affairs; the California Council for the Humanities; and The James Irvine Foundation

Our project was covered in the LA Times!!!!
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Page: AA3

Mobile Phone version link

Resurrected Histories is a project funded by California Council for the Humanities, documenting Highland Park’s Chicano arts organizations during the 70′s.

Resurrected Histories: Voices from the Chicano Arts Collectives of Highland Park

From the late 1960s to the early 1980s Highland Park in Northeast Los Angeles was home to the influential Chicana/o artists collectives Mechicano and Concilio de Arte Popular, which included among their members some of the most important Chicana/o artists of their time: Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Judithe Hernandez, Teddy Sandoval, Gilbert Magu Lujan, Leo Limon, Barbara Carrasco, and John Valadez. In stark contrast to the upscale galleries of West Los Angeles, where an individualistic conceptual art was taking root, Highland Park was becoming home to an art form that emphasized the themes of community, cultural pride, and economic struggle inherited from the great Mexican muralists of the previous generation. The work of these collectives on the East-side housing projects of Ramona Gardens and Estrada Courts and in numerous public spaces and institutions across the city ignited an explosion of Chicana/o muralism in L.A. in the 1970′s, turning L.A. into the mural capital of the country. Connected with the Chicana/o nationalist movement, these artists were working toward the visibility of the Mexican American experience and the problems of justice and equality faced by members of their community. In order to have maximum impact, the artists deliberately located their collectives in Highland Park, a predominantly Latino/a neighborhood, so as to engage and inform the people who stood to benefit the most. The work was not only a visual representation of the cultural and political life of a silenced group, but, in its size and visibility, a defiant occupation of urban space and an inexpensive form of mass communication as well. For a city and a school system devoid of authentic information about its Mexican cultural past, these tactics were vital for creating a sense of united cultural identity among a population that had been denied that right, and for communicating a vision of what the American democracy could ideally be. The very production of the murals envisioned and enacted democracy by involving multiple authors and community members. Moreover, since murals could not (easily) be moved to museums or added to personal art collections, their very existence was always subject to wider public debate, public funding, and the mood of society. In these ways, this work was a democratic and participatory art form like no other. But these organizations were also made up of highly accomplished individual artists with their own voices and styles, who nevertheless could not get represented or promoted by mainstream galleries. Their stories raise a number of questions about how artists contend with balancing personal visions and political obligations. Telling their story exposes a tension between two different ideas of democracy that is particularly resonant for artists from disenfranchised groups: on the one hand, the obligation to work toward visibility and equality within society, and, on the other, the unencumbered right to their own expression. Now fifty years later, the surviving members are in a critical place to look back and reflect upon what they had hoped to achieve, what they feel they did or did not accomplish, and what were the benefits and sacrifices of viewing themselves as cultural workers.

Today very few Highland Park residents know about the historical presence of these collectives in their neighborhood. Local public schools lack arts programs, there are no major cultural or art institutions in the area, and nearly 40% of families live below the poverty line. Just as the collectives of the late 60′s and 70′s worked to give people their history, we would like to do the same. Via video-recorded oral history interviews with the living members of these collectives, we propose to construct a multi-voiced history of the arts collectives of Highland Park which will be edited into a single film. We have planned the completion of the video to coincide with an exhibit featuring archival material about Concilio de Arte Popular, a separate project being curated in our gallery by Professor Sybil Venegas of East Los Angeles College. The interviews will be playing on a screen in the gallery in conjunction with the exhibit of the archival material. We seek to involve our community in this project in several ways. The questions posed to these artists will be collectively developed by our project staff, humanities consultants, consultant artist and informant, John Valadez, and by a select number of local high school students who have been involved in some of the public art programs of our partner institution, L.A. Commons. In doing so we want the film to be guided by the community’s own need for information about its history. When the video is shown publicly in our gallery, viewers will be asked to write their impressions and to answer a few questions which seek to uncover how current Highland Park residents view the role of public art and murals in particular. After this opening night, the video will also be uploaded to our website where it will be made permanently available. The webpage will have an interactive element that will enable viewers to continue making comments about the artists’ oral histories. Instead of a static, formal document, then, we wish for this film to be the center of an ongoing conversation.

We were excited when KCET initially approached Avenue 50 Studio and was interested in collaborating with us on our vision to bring some of Highland Park’s art history to life. This partnership allowed us to share resources with KCET.  They provided the filming for our documentary while we conducted the interviews of some of the members from the Chicano Arts Collective. In turn, we contributed towards their ongoing Departures online program for their neighborhood profile of Highland Park.   Our grant group helped to contribute to the Departures segment entitled, “Painting the Walls,” which has nine topics for your enjoyment! KCET’s Departures is an online interactive exploration of Los Angeles neighborhoods. Video clips, photos, and essays are available online for your enjoyment, education, and interest.

Our grant group helped to contribute to the “Departures” segment titled, “Painting the Walls,” which you will find available online in links to below:

PLAN DE AZTLAN

THE CHICANO MORATORIUM

CORAZON PRODUCTIONS

CENTRO DE ARTE PUBLICO

MECHICANO ART CENTER

CHISME ARTE

SHIFRA GOLDMAN

YO SOY CHICANA

RECLAIMING THE CITY