Oscar Castillo Photography Show. Latino Book Fest.

Michael Sedano


Oscar Castillo is posing for a photographer’s lens. “Look right here into the lens,” the photog calls. Oscar can’t resist. He pulls up his own digital and fires off a frame. It’s the latest in a career of moments in chicano culture Castillo’s captured. And it’s a lesson in photography every photographer should practice: carry your camera everywhere and be liberally decisive with your shutter.

The lesson is highly explanatory for why a hundred heated bodies fill the sultry sotano gallery of the Latino Museum of History, Art & Culture housed at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. They’ve come to witness themselves and honor Oscar Castillo in a major retrospective exhibit, El Movimiento: Chicano Identity and Beyond Through the Lens of Oscar Castillo, curated by Gregorio Luke.

Castillo’s photographic work documents critical moments in United States history and Chicano culture. From Castillo's files, Luke assembles a wide selection. From the 1960s farmworker movimiento continuing into the 1970s as the urban movimiento hit the streets. From the earliest big-time gallery show of Chicano paintings to musician and folk portraits—many in color—illustrating the quiescent post-movimiento era.

Images of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta engender mute respect. These require no comment. “Hey, that’s my prima!” a visitor calls out, pointing to an anti-Vietnam war photo. “I’m right behind that guy with the sign,” exclaims another voice. “Hey, I’m holding the sign!” Well-executed photographs bring thrilling moments of recognition like these, or, moments of serious reflection looking into the eyes of a giant.

When the frame is properly exposed. And there’s another lesson about photography coming forth as a subtext for visitors: as well as exercise a keen eye and decisive finger, know your equipment and be in the right place at the right time. As evidenced by the walls of The Latino Museum, that is Oscar Castillo’s story.


The ritual speeches begin with The Latino Museum officials taking the floor. When Jaime Rodriguez, aide to a California State Senator, takes the floor to make a Sentate Presentation recognizing Oscar's work, Oscar quickly moves to bring his wife, Alice, to share the stage with him. It is a touching moment of well-deserved recognition for Alice Castillo. Being in the right place at the right time also means being away from home a lot, or locked away in the darkroom.


Castillo’s foto of Los Four--Gilbert Magu Lujan, Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Beto de la Rocha-- documents the first Chicano artists to make the walls of the previously all-Westside all-New York Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Tonight, Magu and Beto happily pose in front of the image of their younger selves. Almaraz died long ago. Romero is probably painting in his Frogtown studio. We missed him.

Ni modo. A cross-section of Los Angeles has assembled, including a who’s who of artists. Patssi Valdez. Barbara Carrasco. Mario Trillo. Guillermo Bejarano. Ron Arias. Chuy Treviño. Joe Rodriguez from the old Mechicano Art Center. Armando Baeza. Sergio Hernandez and Diane. Several of these, along with numerous visitors, begin to join the artists for a yesterday-today portrait.

Beto’s son Zack comes in. Then Magu’s son Naiche joins the fun. Oscar makes his way over for one of those one-in-a-lifetime shots of photographer, subjects, and notable foto.

Even Beto's son comes in for foto fun. Zack, a popular musician, enjoys a moment with a happy visitor. I should have practiced my piano more diligently, I think.

I failed to get her name and email, so if anyone recognizes the woman above, please advise her to email me for a souvenir print.


Dozens of people carry cameras, from Chuy Treviño’s professional video camera to point-and-shoot digital devices. Time, place, eye and finger have as much to do with a great image as top notch technology, but there’s a lot to be said for top notch technology. Fortunately, Castillo used a twin-lens reflex 2.25” film camera before switching to the precision optics of a 35mm Nikon. Large, and high quality negatives allow the Latino Museum to create the generous prints hanging the gallery this evening. Extraordinary images require archival reproduction; do that and a print will survive 100 years with proper conservation. Which has me thinking I need to get a copy of Oscar’s shot of me. A century from now my great great grandkidlet will point to a 3-D holograph and say, “that’s a genuine Castillo and that’s my bis- bis-abuelo Michael. Have you ever seen a camera before?”

El Movimiento: Chicano Identity and Beyond Through the Lens of Oscar Castillo, is currently at The Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture 
514 S. Spring Street 
Los Angeles, California 90013

News from the Latino Book Festival at Cal State Los Angeles (Press Release)

Click here for a PDF of the Saturday and Sunday events schedule for this outstanding literary and family festival. Click the link to the organization's website at the bottom of the press release for a message from festival founder and Zoot Suit's El Pachuco Edward James Olmos.

History in the Making: The 12^th Annual

Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival will feature 70 Latino Authors

Los Angeles, September 2009—The upcoming Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival, to be held at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) on the weekend of October 10-11, will feature an outstanding lineup of 70 Latino authors, including Victor Villaseñor, Pat Mora, Luis J. Rodríguez, Josefina López, Helena María Viramontes, Reyna Grande, María Amparo Escandón, Graciela Limón, Gustavo Arellano, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Rigoberto González, Daniel Olivas, Ana Nogales, Marisela Norte, Montserrat Fontes, Margo Candela, Patricia Santana, Ligiah Villalobos, Julio Martínez, Héctor Tobar, Rubén Martínez, Eliud Martínez, Eduardo Santiago, Lucha Corpi, Evelina Fernández and Mary Castillo, among many others.

Special events taking place at this year’s festival include 24 sessions, such as Chicas, Chicanas & Latinas, a panel featuring some of the most promising Latina authors in the country, Latino LA: The City of Angels through Fiction, Poetry and Journalism; Barrio Stories; Chicano/Latino Thought & Art; Border Stories, Writing Books For Children, two Mariachi sessions, an editors/agents panel, and a screenwriters panel featuring up-and-coming Latina screenwriters such as Ligiah Villalobos (Under the Same Moon) and Josefina López (Real Women Have Curves). In addition, Helena María Viramontes will do a one hour creative writing workshop on the novel; Victor Villaseñor, Pat Mora, and filmmaker Robert Young will each do individual presentations. There will also be 12 Spanish workshops held throughout the day.

This year the festival will have a children’s area and stage dedicated to renowned Latina author Pat Mora’s literacy initiative “Día de Los Niños/Día de los Libros,” which she founded in 1996 to promote literacy and celebrate books among Spanish-speaking communities. The children’s stage will feature several children’s book authors and celebrities for story-time, including a 20 minute reading by Ms. Mora. In addition, The Los Angeles Theater Academy (LATA), founded by Alejandra Flores, is proud to present a play called "A Turtle Story" created by the Solano Elementary School students based on a legend from the Tongva (Gabrielino) Tribe. LATA students who participated in their after school and weekend program will also perform two songs from Crí-Crí (Francisco Gabilondo Soler). The Main Stage will feature Folklórico dance performances, singers, plays, poetry jams, and much more.

Edward James Olmos, actor and community activist, is the Co-Producer of the Latino Book & Family Festival, a weekend event that promotes literacy, culture and education in a fun environment for the whole family. Launched in 1997 in Los Angeles and organized by the non-profit organization Latino Literacy Now, the LBFF has provided people of all ages and backgrounds the opportunity to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the multicultural communities of the United States. “We are proud to be presenting so many wonderful authors at this year’s Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival,” said Olmos. “In our twelve year history of putting on some 45 Festivals around the country, this is the largest gathering of authors we’ve ever had. Truly, something for everyone.”

New in this year’s festival include:

• More Chicana/Latino authors – five times as many!
• A stronger partnership with California State University, Los Angeles – more support, more volunteers, more attendees!
• Support from other organizations such as Raise Literacy Campaign, Latina Leadership Network, RCOE Early Reading First
• More quality vendors/exhibitors

This year the Festival will be promoted by a strong list of media partners headed up by Telemundo and La Opinión. CVS Pharmacy will once again provide health screenings for all attendees. New sponsor Amway Global will have beauty and nutritional experts on hand for consultations (and to hand out samples).

To exhibit at this year’s festival, sponsor, volunteer or donate raffle prizes or children’s books, visit the festival’s website at www.LBFF.us For more information call 760-434-4484.

That's the middle Tuesday of the year's ninth month, a September Tuesday like any other September Tuesday, except You Are Here. Thank you for visiting La Bloga.

mvs

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Chicanartists Update

Michael Sedano

La Bloga was invited to a “Mental Menudo” recently, at the home of noted Chicano artist Magu. The tertulia’s subject ranged across such topics as art history, rhetoric and aesthetics in the praxis of Chicanarte, and quotidian issues revolving around marketing and selling.

As with literature, artists struggle with perception and identity, whether to be recognized as “artist” or “Chicana artist” “Chicano artist” or perhaps “Xicana Xicano”. The difference may or may not affect sales per se, but in who buys art. Magu recounted an incident when an Anglo collector wrote a check for several thousand dollars to buy some splashes of color laid on canvas by an MFA student the collector thought might one day become important. Then he asks Magu, “What do you have for about fifty dollars?”

Such are consequences of being shoehorned into a niche market. Readers, collectors see the work as limited appeal, specialized, hence worthy of small sales.

Finding a market becomes the persistent challenge of niche art. In Los Angeles, for example, eastside galleries come and go. Historic Self Help Graphics and Art imploded in recent years and exists only as a struggling shoestring calaca of its former self. But it's still there, thankfully.

Eagle Rock's Carlotta’s Passion recently closed after the owner lost several hundred thousand dollars, leaving Avenue 50 Studio as the sole major eastside venue for Chicanarte. Downtown LA is similar, with new spots opening up like the 2d Street Cigar Bar & Gallery. Over on the west side of town, Patricia Correia's is among the rare dealers presenting Chicana Chicano work.

What do young people know of their arte? Ask a high school kid if she knows who Gronk is? Patssi Valdez? Frank Romero? Carlos Almaraz? Magu? Chances are the kid will respond, "huh?" or worse, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Such ignorance and apathy are not universal. People care about their art, when they know it. For instance, the crowd who showed up on Whittier Boulevard recently for the unveiling of the Latino Walk of Fame star for Antonio Aguilar. When the singer’s widow, actress Flor Sylvestre accompanied by Antonio, Jr. arrived, eager fans of all ages thronged around them, proud to be in their presence, then stood line for an hour for a chance to get an autograph and shake the singer’s hand. Such excitement grows from one part awareness, one part commitment to cultural continuity, exemplified in a remark one spectator shared, “¿Todavia esta tan bonita, verdad?”

Preservation and continuity exist as dual objectives of any culture. That, however, may not concern artists whose focus is on the making. Magu and Polaroid emulsion artist Mario Trillo, co-host of the Mental Menudo, both express small concern with “letting go” of a work once sold, or given away. (Unlike many writers who sweat blood over an editor’s emendation or alteration of a single word). Trillo observed sometimes he's completely satisfied to create an image for his exclusive enjoyment and if it never finds an audience, so it goes.

In Chicanarte, preservation and documentation are dual obstacles to providing succeeding generations with a record of their culture’s art. For example, Magu curated the first Chicano art show when he mounted an exhibit in 1964, in association with East Los Angeles College. The college produced no catalog or other lasting record. Similarly, the Autry Museum of the American West mounted a major show in 1998 whose beauty haunts the memory of Mental Menudist and experimental physicist Manuel Urrutia, who decries the wealthy institution’s failure to produce a catalog of such an awesome show.

In southern California, fortunately, two institutions have taken up their cultural responsibility to preserve and document Chicana and Chicano art, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA. At UCLA, the 38 year old Chicano Studies Research Center recently announced it would retrieve one of America’s earliest Chicano murals—perhaps the first Chicano mural—from its basement and hang it.

At the same time, UCLA has created A Ver, a program of documenting important contemporary artists, with the first publication Max Benavidez’ Gronk. Magu, who announced his retirement from arts activism at the Mental Menudo, will be the focus of an upcoming title, as well. Magu, who founded the seminal Chicano art collective Los Four comprised of Carlos Almaraz, Roberto de la Rocha, and Frank Romero, has earned the spotlight. A Ver looks to become as important a cultural resource as Los Four or ASCO have become in the history of Chicanarte.

Not on UCLA’s list yet is another activist-artist, East LA’s Carlos Callejo. Last Christmas season La Bloga spotlighted Callejo’s offer of his archives to any interested institution. Actually, he offered them to me, but I cannot take possession of something with the historical and cultural value of Callejo’s material. This material should be in public hands, not some private collector’s hoard.

Callejo recently relocated from El Paso to East Los. Currently developing a “freedom” series, Callejo’s work demonstrates the skill and aesthetic that characterizes the finest art and also the best exemplars of Chicano art. His bird's-eye perspective of a fellow pulling gente riding inner tubes and dressed in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes will be a show stopper. (Click the image for a larger view).

Callejo's archives remain available to UCLA or UCSB, or another institution willing to accept its responsibility to cultural and historical preservation.

As the Mental Menudo drew to a reluctant close, someone asked Magu when he started Los Four. “Give us a date, Magu.” October 1973.

October. The beginning of a school year. This year, UCLA announced A Ver and the rescue of that first mural. October 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of the emergence of Los Four. Wouldn’t that anniversary be an ideal way for UCLA’s CSRC to open its academic year while achieving a beautiful syncretism between CSRC, A Ver, the community, and the university's mission?

Imagine what a first-class institution like CSRC can do. Mount a massive exhibit linking the precursors to Los Four and the ensuing movement that has grown from that 1973 spark.

Do it up right; an academic conference, published proceedings, a gallery catalog. After all, isn’t this the function of a university, cultural preservation and continuity? Tempus fugit, carpe diem, academicos.

Have a great feast day this week, and thanks for reading La Bloga!

mvs

Saturday, November 24, La Bloga welcomes a new monthly guest columnist, playwright Tomás Gonzales whose first contribution will be his one-act The Reunion. Please join us on Saturday to welcome Tomás.