Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s pioneering collection of Latino art. It explores how Latino artists shaped the artistic movements of their day and recalibrated key themes in American art and culture.
Description
The exhibition presents works in all media by 72 leading modern and contemporary artists. Of the 92 artworks featured in the exhibition, 63 have been acquired by the museum since 2011, representing its deep and continuing commitment to collecting Latino art. Our America includes works by artists who participated in all the various artistic styles and movements, including abstract expressionism; activist, conceptual, and performance art; and classic American genres such as landscape, portraiture, and scenes of everyday life. Latino artists across the United States were galvanized by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. They created new images of their communities and examined bicultural experiences. Many critically probed American history and popular culture, revealing the possibilities and tensions of expansionism, migration, and settlement. Other Latino artists in the exhibition devoted themselves to experimentation, pushing the limits of their chosen medium. “Our America” presents a picture of an evolving national culture that challenges expectations of what is meant by “American” and “Latino.”
Artists featured in the exhibition reflect the rich diversity of Latino communities in the United States. Our America showcases artists of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican descent, as well as other Latin American groups with deep roots in the United States. By presenting works by artists of different generations and regions, the exhibition reveals recurring themes among artists working across the country.
The 72 artists featured in the exhibition are ADÁL, Manuel Acevedo, Elia Alba, Olga Albizu, Carlos Almaraz, Jesse Amado, Asco (Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón and Patssi Valdez), Luis Cruz Azaceta, Myrna Báez, Guillermo Bejarano, Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez, María Brito, Margarita Cabrera, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Melesio “Mel” Casas, Leonard Castellanos, Oscar R. Castillo, José Cervantes, Enrique Chagoya, Roberto Chavez, Carlos A. Cortéz, Marcos Dimas, Ricardo Favela, Christina Fernandez, Teresita Fernández, iliana emilia garcía, Rupert García, Scherezade García, Carmen Lomas Garza, Ignacio Gomez, Ken Gonzales-Day, Hector González, Luis C. “Louie the Foot” González, Muriel Hasbun, Ester Hernandez, Judithe Hernández, Carmen Herrera, Carlos Irizarry, Luis Jiménez, Miguel Luciano, Emanuel Martinez, María Martínez-Cañas, Antonio Martorell, Ana Mendieta, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Delilah Montoya, Malaquias Montoya, Abelardo Morell, Jesús Moroles, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Pepón Osorio, Amado M. Peña Jr., Chuck Ramirez, Paul Henry Ramirez, Sophie Rivera, Arturo Rodríguez, Freddy Rodríguez, Joseph Rodríguez, Frank Romero, Emilio Sánchez, Juan Sánchez, Jorge Soto Sánchez, Rafael Soriano, Ruben Trejo, Jesse Treviño, John M. Valadez, Alberto Valdés, and Xavier Viramontes.
The exhibition is organized by E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Visiting Information
October 24, 2013 – March 2, 2014
Open Daily, 11:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m
Free Admission
Tour Schedule
The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University
Miami, FL
April 2, 2014
–
June 24, 2014
Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, CA
September 21, 2014
–
January 11, 2015
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Salt Lake City, UT
February 6, 2015
–
June 28, 2015
Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts
Little Rock, AZ
October 16, 2015
–
January 17, 2016
Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, DE
March 5, 2016
–
May 29, 2016
Allentown Art Museum
Allentown, PA
June 24, 2016
–
October 2, 2016
Publications
Videos
Credit
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by Altria Group, the Honorable Aida M. Alvarez, Judah Best, The James F. Dicke Family Endowment, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Tania and Tom Evans, Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, The Michael A. and the Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Mennello Endowment, Henry R. Muñoz III, Wells Fargo, and Zions Bank. Additional significant support was provided by The Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Support for Treasures to Go, the Museum’s traveling exhibition program, comes from The C.F. Foundation, Atlanta, Georgia.
SAAM Stories
The civil rights era is resonant in many works featured in Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, which remains on view until March 2, 2014. Several artists in the exhibition came of age during the 1960s and 1970s when the movement thrived and had ripple effects in communities across the United States. Not only did activists and organizers like César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and Antonia Pantoja build on Dr. King's legacy and demand Latino equal rights in the arenas of labor and education, some Latino artists created works and organizations that challenged traditional racial hierarchies that undergirded American society.
SAAM Staff
Blog Editor
05/28/2014
With the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art on the road, I found myself missing an old favorite from the exhibit and permanent collection, Radiante, by Olga Albizu.
Howard Kaplan
Writer
Technology01/14/2014
There are just a few weeks left to see the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition features work by 72 leading modern and contemporary artists, several of whom can be heard in our audio podcast series along with scholars from across the Smithsonian.
Georgina
Curatorial assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson recaps Latino Art Now! Nuestra América: Expanding Perspectives in American Art, a conference held on November 7-9, 2013 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, on view at American Art until March 2, 2014, the program fostered dynamic exchanges along multiple axes of inquiry.
SAAM Staff
Blog Editor
Michelle Sullivan is a second-year graduate fellow in Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and spent this summer at the Lunder Conservation Center. She recently treated this untitled work by Jorge Soto Sánchez for the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, which will open on October 25, 2013.
Chris
In a video podcast, curator E. Carmen Ramos explains that the mid-twentieth century was an important period in Latino art. At this time, Latino artists were attending art schools in this country and were beginning to contest their marginalized position within American society.
Georgina
Dawn Planas, a graduate conservation student at Buffalo State College, and an intern in the Lunder Conservation Center's objects lab, recently assisted with a treatment of Pepón Osorio's El Chandelier. Planas gives us some insight into how she prepared the chandelier for the exhibition.
Dawn Planas
Artist and educator Muriel Hasbun is a member of the largest Latino community in the greater D.C. region. Hasbun grew up in El Salvador and settled here as a student in the 1980s. She is now department chair and associate professor of photography at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Hasbun's personal history and artistic development speaks to a larger Salvadoran experience of migration and endurance in the midst of adversity.
E. Carmen Ramos
Former Curator of Latinx Art
Florencia Bazzano-Nelson
How does it feel to leave your homeland and settle in a new country? In this blog post, curatorial assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson explores how one immigrant artist, iliana emilia garcía imagines her ongoing ties to her native county of birth.
Florencia Bazzano-Nelson
Image Not Available
07/10/2013
n this blog post Curatorial Assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson explores the rich links between Latino art and the Cuban poster movement, which captivated artists in the United States and abroad in the 1960s and 1970s. The works discussed below will be featured in the upcoming exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, opening October 25, 2013, along with other works that attest to the importance of graphics and international artistic models for Latino artists.
Georgina
Curator E. Carmen Ramos and curatorial assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson discuss Sophie Rivera's untitled photographic portraits that will be included in our upcoming exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, opening October 25, 2013.
Georgina
E. Carmen Ramos
Former Curator of Latinx Art
In this blog post Curatorial Assistant Florencia Bazzano-Nelson comments on John Valadez's Two Vendors, an intense and large-scale pastel that will be featured in the upcoming 2013 exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. Like other works in the exhibition, this work demonstrates the masterful ways in which Latino artists—many born and/or raised in large cities in California, New York and beyond—have drawn inspiration from America's urban streets.
Florencia Bazzano-Nelson
Florencia Bazzano-Nelson recently joined the Smithsonian American Art Museum. A scholar of Latin American and Latino art, Bazzano-Nelson is assisting in the preparation of the upcoming exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, opening October 25, 2013. In this blog post Bazzano-Nelson considers the paintings of Rafael Soriano, who like other Cuban American artists, actively explored the theme of exile.
Florencia Bazzano-Nelson
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, artists from around the world began making art by reworking existing films and using other moving image technologies like video. One pioneer of this new art form is Raphael Montañez-Ortiz. Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Montañez-Ortiz attended Pratt Institute in the 1960s. During this time he also studied Native American cultures, in part motivated by a desire to explore his own indigenous heritage.
Georgina
The exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art will open next fall on October 25, 2013. This may seem like a long time away, but E. Carmen Ramos, the museum's curator for Latino art, is already hard at work preparing for this exhibition, visiting artists and acquiring new artworks for the American Art Museum's collection.
Georgina
E. Carmen Ramos became the Smithsonian American Art Museum's curator of Latino art last fall. Now that she's had a chance to get settled, we caught up with her to ask about her interests and the rich holdings of Latino art in the museum's permanent collection.
Howard Kaplan
Writer
E. Carmen Ramos
Former Curator of Latinx Art
Podcast
Listen to “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art” on Apple Podcasts.
Online Gallery
Artists
born Mexico City, Mexico 1941-died Los Angeles, CA 1989
Born in Mexico City, Carlos Amaraz soon moved with his family to the United States, settling eventually in East Los Angeles. Almaraz was aware from an early age of a "bifurcation" in his surroundings.
born Los Angeles, CA 1949
Painter, born in 1949 in Los Angeles, California. Bojórquez draws his inspiration from his birthplace, where he grew up and still makes his home.
born Havana, Cuba 1947
Painter and installation artist, born in 1948 in Havana, Cuba. Brito came to the United States in 1960. She holds B.E. and M.F.A. degrees from the University of Miami and B.F.A. and M.S. degrees from Florida International University in Miami.
born Mexico City, Mexico 1953
Born in Mexico City, Enrique Chagoya was partly raised by an Indian nurse who helped him to respect the indigenous people of his country and their history.
born Milwaukee, WI 1923-died Chicago, IL 2005
Graphic artist, born in 1923 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Cortéz currently lives in Chicago, where he has been active with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) since the end of World War II.
born French Camp, CA 1941
Rupert García came from a family active in the creation and instruction of folk arts and traditions. After completing his service in the U.S. Air Force in Indochina, García attended the San Francisco School for the Arts on the G.I. Bill.
born Los Angeles, CA 1954
Gronk (Glugio Gronk Nicandro) is a Los Angeles-based performance artist and painter. He uses thick layers of intensely colored acrylic paint to create expansive, expressionistic images.
born El Paso, TX 1940-died Hondo, NM 2006
Born in Texas, lives in New Mexico. Sculptor, teacher whose large fiberglass figures capture the color and vigor of Hispanic-American women and men.
Charles Sullivan, ed American Beauties: Women in Art and Literature (New York: Henry N.
born Kingsville, TX 1948
Painter and printmaker. While attending Texas Arts and Industry University (Texas A&I) in Kingsville, Lomas Garza joined the Chicano movement. In addition to earning a B.S.
born Havana, Cuba 1960
When María Martínez-Cañas was three months old, her family emigrated from Cuba to Puerto Rico in the wake of Castro's political revolution.
born Denver, CO 1947
Painter and sculptor, born in 1947 in Denver, Colorado. Martínez attended Metropolitan State College and Juarez Lincoln University in Denver.
born Havana, Cuba 1948-died New York City 1985
Sculptor, performance and conceptual artist, born in Havana, Cuba. Mendieta came to the United States in 1961 and spent her adolescence in Iowa. The trauma of dislocation from her family and homeland is a recurrent theme in her work.
born Fort Worth, TX 1955
Delilah Montoya graduated from Metropolitan Technical College in Omaha in 1978 and went on to study photography at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she received her BA in 1984, her MA in 1990, and her MFA in 1994.
born Havana, Cuba 1948
Abelardo Morell was born in Havana. As a child he felt a sense of alienation and isolation in Cuba, feelings that remained when he moved as a teenager with his family to New York City.
born Corpus Christi, TX 1950-died Jarrell, TX 2015
Born in 1950 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Moroles grew up in Dallas and graduated with a B.F.A. from North Texas State University in 1978.
born Santurce, Puerto Rico 1955
Sculptor and installation artist, born in 1955 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1975, Osorio moved to the South Bronx in New York City, where he enrolled at Lehman College and earned a degree in sociology.
born New York City 1951
Photographer who captures people in the context of their culture and locale.
born East Los Angeles, CA 1941
Frank Romero grew up in the culturally mixed, middle-class Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights and was well into his career by the time he developed a consciousness of being a Latino artist.
born St. Paul, MN 1937-died Spokane, WA 2009
Ruben Trejo was born in a boxcar in the Burlington Railroad Yard in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father worked for the railroad and his mother and siblings worked the fields as migrant laborers.
born Monterrey, Mexico 1946-died San Antonio,TX 2023
Treviño's family moved from Mexico to San Antonio, Texas, in 1948. Treviño earned an A.A. from San Antonio Junior College, a B.A. in art from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, and an M.F.A.
born Los Angeles, CA 1951
Muralist and pastel artist, grew up in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights, Los Angeles.
born Los Angeles, CA 1951
As an artist growing up in East Los Angeles, Valdez was the only Chicana in the conceptual performance group Asco (Spanish for nausea).
born Richmond, CA 1943
Printmaker, born in 1943 in Richmond, California. Viramontes received a B.F.A. from San Francisco Art Institute and an M.A. from San Francisco State University.