Viet Nam / Aztlan

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: Malaquias Montoya
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)
Copyright: © 1973, Malaquias Montoya
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Frank K. Ribelin Endowment
Mediums Description: offset lithograph on paper
Classifications: Graphic Arts
Print
Subjects: Chicanx
History — United States — Vietnam War
Figure group — male
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."

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Exhibitions

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.