by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
GO WEST FOR ART: Three California museums opened landmark exhibitions of works by Latin American and U.S. Latino artists this month.
At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The prince of merengue en SF the exhibition Frida Kahlo commemorates the centennial of the birth of the Mexican painter. The show, which continues through Sept. 28, contains several fundamental pieces from the painter’s work, as well as photographs and historical documents.
In Long B each, the Museum of Latin American Art opened parallel exhibitions by two Cuban painters with as many similarities as distinguishing qualities.
The exhibition Wilfredo Lam in North America presents 65 of the most important paintings, gouaches and drawings by the Afro-Chinese artist, the most celebrated artist of the Caribbean, considered a master among mid-20th century modern artists. Organized by the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee with works culled from private and public collections, it is the first major Lam show in the United States in 30 years.
At the Long Beach museum, the Lam show is exhibited in con junction with Carlos Luna: El Gran Mambo, a show centered on a commissioned work by the contemporary Cuban artist that partially chronicles his 13 years of life in Puebla, Mexico. Sponsored by the Cisneros Capital Group, the traveling exhibition was first presented at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington D.C.
Besides sharing multi-racial Cuban heritage, Lam and Luna explore similar issues of race and create iconography based on Afro-Cuban religious traditions. Both shows can be seen through Aug. 31.
Finally, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened Los Angeles/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection. It is the latest version of Chicano Visions, a traveling show of works amassed by the comic actor that has concluded a five-year national tour. The new show focuses only on Los Angeles based artists, including some from the museum’s own collection.
On view through Nov. 2, it is being shown concurrently with the Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement, which focuses on a new generation of Mexican-American painters influenced by Chicano pioneers. It contains some 123 works in various media and can be seen through Sept. 1.
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