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Out of Line:Chicano/Latino Drawings
4/21/2000 - 6/4/2000 | An exhibition of works on paper featuring cartoons, tattoo designs, pinto & fine art drawings that reveal the intersection of lowrider aesthetics, street culture and gallery art inspired by Mexican and border pop culture. Participating Artists: Lalo Alcaraz, Ronnie Burk, Mr. Cartoon, Enrique Chagoya, Sandra Chang, Doze, Felipe Erhenberg, Paco Excel, Ruben Franco, Adrian García, Javier Hernández, Ester Hernández, Evangelina Griego, Rhode Montijo, Carmen Murillo, Refugio Posadas, Juan Puente, Victor Spider, Rafael Navarro, Esteban Oriol, José Antonio Suárez, Artemio Rodríguez, Leon Ferrari, and Daniel Marquez Ponce. Curated by Carolina Ponce de Leon
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Out of Line: Chicano/Latino Drawings & Works on Paper
by Carolina Ponce de León
Out of Line: Chicano/Latino Drawings & Works on Paper was initially inspired by Los Cartoonists, an exhibit organized by the legendary space Self-Help Graphics (Los Angeles) in October of '99. When we saw the material, we decided to capture a portion of their show and extend it to include—with equal respect—drawing-based artworks created in different contexts and for different purposes: from woodcuts and etchings, to conceptual art, paños (a highly sophisticated form of prison art), underground comix, tattoo designs and drawings etched on the human body. The selected works range from lowrider aesthetics to gallery art inspired by Mexican and border pop culture, and from existential introspection to satirical commentary. Established artists and so-called “underground” artists are connected both through medium and iconography.
The inclusion of tattoo art —as a vital expression of Chicano culture— began to expose a series of affinities between “fine” art and “street” art; both extremes inspired by each other; two sides of the same coin in our Chicano/Latino communities. Certain images, such as calaveras, luchadores, Aztec warriors and Catholic symbols for example, reappear consistently, though they are adapted to reference individual meanings and specific contexts.
Other coincidences between the mainstream and the so-called "marginal" sources involve the craft itself. One example is the ritualistic nature of drawing that can be seen in the obsessive, time consuming renderings of the personal cosmologies created by pintos —inmates—as well as in the minute, equally obsessive etchings of South American artists. Time in a US jail, and time in a country at war like Colombia seems to be infinite. Curiously, the bold lines often found in tattoo designs and woodcuts trace a dark historical line which links them to the sixteenth century woodcuts that the Spanish crown utilized to "evangelize" indigenous communities in the Americas.
The artworks included in this eclectic exhibit do not recognize artificial boundaries between the so-called “low” and “high” art worlds. They also don't recognize geo-political borders. They have been created by artists living in Califas (San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Monterrey, etc.) as well as in Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Medellín, Colombia. Yet, despite coming from apparently distant worlds, these drawings seem to belong to the same aesthetic and symbolic universe. With this selection, Out of Line attempts to bring to light some of the ideas that interconnect these distant worlds by approaching drawing not just as a technique, but as a compelling signature of cultural expression and resistance.
We are grateful to the artists and Self Help Graphics for their generosity in making this exhibition possible. Welcome to the new Galería de la Raza, an interdisciplinary laboratory committed to honoring Galería's 30-year history and at the same time, to creating a space of experimentation for our new generations and the many communities that constitute contemporary California.
Participating Artists
Lalo Alcaraz, Ronnie Burk, Mr. Cartoon, Enrique Chagoya, Sandra Chang, Doze, Felipe Erhenberg, Paco Excel, Ruben Franco, Adrian García, Javier Hernández, Ester Hernández, Felipe Erhenberg, Evangelina Griego, Rhode Montijo, Carmen Murillo, Refugio Posadas, Juan Puente, Victor Spider, Rafael Navarro, Esteban Oriol, José Antonio Suárez, Artemio Rodríguez, Leon Ferrari, and Daniel Marquez Ponce.
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