Viet Nam / Aztlan

Media - 2015.29.3 - SAAM-2015.29.3_1 - 124823
Copied Malaquias Montoya, Viet Nam / Aztlan, 1973, offset lithograph on paper, sheet: 26 × 19 in. (66.0 × 48.3 cm) image: 22 1⁄2 × 17 1⁄4 in. (57.2 × 43.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Frank K. Ribelin Endowment, 2015.29.3, © 1973, Malaquias Montoya

Artwork Details

Title
Viet Nam / Aztlan
Artist
Date
1973
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet: 26 × 19 in. (66.0 × 48.3 cm) image: 22 1⁄2 × 17 1⁄4 in. (57.2 × 43.8 cm)
Markings
lower right in ink: © CHICANO VIETNAM PROJECT / P.O. Box 331 / Berkley, Calif. 94701 / MALAQUIS MONTOYA on back lower right in pencil: Vietnam / Aztlan / (2)
Copyright
© 1973, Malaquias Montoya
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the Frank K. Ribelin Endowment
Mediums Description
offset lithograph on paper
Classifications
Keywords
  • Figure group — male
  • History — United States — Vietnam War
  • Chicano
Object Number
2015.29.3
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2015.29.3

Artwork Description

Montoya's activist artmaking began in the context of the California farm workers' movement but soon referenced the full cultural and political dimensions of the fight for Chicano civil rights. His iconic Viet Nam/Aztlan reveals the links among the antiwar, anticolonial, and civil rights movements. Its design equates Vietnam with Aztlán, the mythic Chicano homeland said to be located in the southwestern United States, identifying Chicanos as a conquered and occupied people. In the middle, a Vietnamese soldier and a Chicano man merge together. At bottom, beneath yellow and brown clenched fists, is the Spanish word Fuera, meaning "get out."

Exhibitions

Martha Rosler, Red Strip Kitchen
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965 – 1975
March 15, 2019–August 18, 2019
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 makes vivid an era in which artists endeavored to respond to the turbulent times and openly questioned issues central to American civic life.