The Cheech Celebrates Art and Starts a Second Year

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Cheech Marin was there. But that’s not a surprise, given that the art celebration in mid-June was both to open three new exhibitions and commemorate a super successful first year at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum in downtown Riverside.

Last year’s opening show was stunning, and this year offered a new bevy of treasures to mark the anniversary. And what an anniversary it is: the museum far surprassed predicted attendance by 30%, and provided a much needed home for Chicano art in Southern California.

The museum was developed as a public-private partnership between the City of Riverside, Riverside Art Museum, and Marin. As such the museum also received Marin’s prolific collection of major artworks – over 500 stellar works in all.

In helping to establish The Cheech, the Riverside Art Museum received the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries due to the significant contribution The Cheech made to the region. Marin is justifiably proud and pleased at both the response to the museum, and the exhibitions held there. The gloriously airy, modern space is equipped with comfortable, open galleries that showcase the work, and provide the room for large scale pieces and wall art alike.

Present at the celebration – which included make your own tacos, craft brews, ceviche, and Mexican pastries for desert – Marin stated his purpose. “Riverside Art Museum’s work in the community, its educational mission, and its broad support of Chicano art is why I decided to gift my collection and work with them to create a national center.” He cited the impact the museum has had on the community, and the ways in which the museum is providing the space to show Chicano art and educate viewers about it.

As honestly enormous of a cultural success as the museum is, it’s also a bastion of innovative, beautiful, and often profound art, revealing and passionately exploring political and social issues while presenting wall art and sculptural works that not only defy expectations but go beyond them.

The anniverary introduced three new exhibitions. On the first floor, there’s a new grouping of Marin’s personally collected works in Cheech Collects, an exhibition that included a few beauties viewed last year, but a lot of new pieces as well. The art is steeped in images of Southern California and family life, as well as in the social struggles, work, community, and protest that are a part of the rich Chicano community. Curated by Maria Esther Fernandez, Marin’s collection sings with color and light, and features many works by the always impressive Frank Romero, among 40 other artists. Romero’s “City of Night” is a vision of emerald green freeways.

Throughout the collection we see images such as Carlos Almaraz’ splendid “Mystery in the Park” diptych, and Eloy Torrez’  appropriate and beautifuly rendered “It’s a Brown World After All.” These works will be on display through next May.

In the upstairs galleries, Xican-a.o.x. Body intimately explores and celebrates the ways in which Chicanx artists have placed their physical and emotional bodies within these works, establishing their presence and also indicating a necessary willingness for protest and resistance. This exhibition was created by The American Federation of Arts, and features over 125 works ranging from photography to to sculptures – the visual grabber perhaps being a hot pink low rider, Justin Favela’s “Gypsy Rose Pinata (II) is a visual confection, an enormous and vibrant sculpture.  

Narsiso Martinez’ truly stunning “Magic Harvest,” is a dimensional, sculptural painting of a migrant worker created on boxes of the produce gathered, and is wonderful from all angles, bringing the depicted worker both physically and emotionally present and fully realized.  Linda Vallejo’s heartbreaking colored pencil and photographic “23.9% of Sex Trafficking Vicimes in the US were Latino in 2010” is both sharp in color and message. These works will be on view through early January of 2024.

Last but definitely not least, there are works of emerging and local artists curated by Cosmé Cordova. Among them are Man One, Andrew J. Castillo, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Richie Velazquez, Martin Sanchez, Denise Silva, and Jacqueline Valenzuela. This one requires you to use a bit of alacrity in visiting The Cheech – it will close October 1st. Among the many fresh and riveting works, a massive geometrically abstract work from Carlos Beltran Arechiga, “Border Field State Park,” is a particular favorite, as woven as a tapestry, as complex as memory. Arechiga also has a smaller “Self Portrait” in the mix.

Yes, the 91E is a slog from LA to Riverside, but you’ll find a true oasis of art, culture, and meaning at The Cheech, and all you Los Angelenos owe it to yourself to make a visit.

The Cheech is located at 3581 Mission Avenue in Riverside.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

Diving Into the Surreal and Otherworldly Photography of Tim Walker

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Luminous and whimsical, Tim Walker’s photography offers an immersive journey at The Getty’s latest exhibit. Wonderful Things,  Walker’s Renaissance-themed photography collection, features the playful and vibrant shots the photographic artist is known for, both surreal and otherworldly. His cultural legacy and unique vision shapes a tour de force show,  not dissimilar to The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time multimedia exhibit, which presented original Latin American and Latino art from the WeHo Artes program.

Born in 1970 in Guildford, Surrey, Walker spent a bucolic childhood in rural Dorset, where he and his brother were free to run wild among the valleys and rivers. Having the freedom to explore natural wonders inspired him, and his first photographic images were taken by stealing his brother’s instant camera, using film with developing chemicals already embedded. Later, he’d borrow his father’s camera to snap shots of the countryside around the family’s home. Initially intimidated by the technical components of photography, Walker took a three-year photography course at Exeter College of Art, which led him into the world of fashion photography.

Walker started his career as an assistant to Richard Avedon, learning the art of storytelling from the photographic fashion icon.  This knowledge led to a break-out commission with Vogue in 1995, and other high-concept fashion shots for major magazines. Overtime, he shaped the surreal photography style all his own, one distinguished by his fantastical dreamscapes and his childhood-derived penchant for using medium-format film cameras—particularly the Pentax 6×7—when shooting. Using common film formats like 35mm and instant film cartridges, his work has a unique coloring allowing viewers to see his subjects as they would in the real world. Contrasted with the sets and props Walker constructs for each shoot, his photos are uniquely-colored, ethereal escapes that shape another world, one emulating the daydreaming common in children but so often lost among adults.

All of this led to the collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition begun in 2016, featuring his past work in the fashion industry and new work in conjunction with the museum. Walker spent a year exploring the museum archives to find what excited him.

An illustrated manuscript made for the Duchess of Brittany in the 1470s and a dress from Alexander McQueen’s Horn of Plenty were among his selections, shaping new photographic projects for nine photoshoots, the creations of a white room retrospective of his past images, and opulent room sets by Shona Heath to display new images along with the objects that inspired them.  Wonderful Things had arrived.

Walker’s 2023 Wonderful Things at the Getty is a revamped version of his previous Victoria and Albert Museum project. On display are previous works, and a replication of his process, drawing inspiration from museum objects. This iteration also includes another series of photographs, this time prompted by two paintings from The Getty. This lustrous photo exhibition runs May 2 to August 20, and serves as a terrific exploration of Walker’s magical worlds, one that encourages contemplation and some – very much needed in today’s world – daydreaming revelations.

  • Collaborative post, edited by Genie Davis; photos provided by The Getty

Unforgettable: Jonas Kulikauskas at Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery

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Powerful, poignant, and riveting, Jonas Kulikauskas’ I Often Forget, takes viewers through a heartbreaking and profound photographic exploration of the passage of time and of human relationships to it.

As curated by gallery director Mika Cho at Cal State LA’s Ronald H. Silverman, the work here absorbs and compels the viewer to enter an unfolding world both past and present, rendering those viewing it both accountable and stricken.

Together, Kulikauskas and Cho have assembled a deeply felt exhibition of both a photographic depiction of what was once the Vilnius Ghetto and a series of statements culled from the World War II-era that match their present-day settings, now modernized and/or hidden.

Along with the photographs and written history, there is a beautiful, fragile installation with white stones on the floor representing the loss of Jewish lives during the Holocaust, with a gauzy curtain obscuring a haunting image of the woods where some Vilnius Jewish ghetto inhabitants were hauled off and summarily executed. In another part of the gallery, a slide show unfolds, revealing many of the exhibition’s images projected in a subdued, hushed alcove.

Some photographs are displayed laid out on the trays of sifters used as construction implements, another reminder of how today’s modern city is built on the bones of the past. Others are presented in folders on white pedestals and in files hung on the walls around the gallery space, allowing multiple viewers to study the photographs and the stories that accompany them.

In approach, this is a photographic exploration of the present layered upon the untold grief of the past. Kulikauskas used an 8×10” camera equipped with a World War II-period lens to capture life today in the former ghetto. Inspired by his Lithuanian heritage, the artist used his participation in the Fulbright Program and the additional support of the Puffin Foundation to travel to Lithuania, taking photographs and researching the traumatic history of the community.

His work is especially pertinent today with the disquieting rise of antisemitism and the horror of Holocaust deniers. He undertook his journey in 2021, and has, with the help of archeologist Dr. Jon Seligman, historian Dr. Saulius Sužiedelis, the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History, and the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery, created a masterful exhibition worthy of reflection.

The passion of the artist’s commitment to his project can be felt in the bones of viewers, as he tells the brave, terrifying, and devastating researched stories of what happened when Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital and once called the “Jerusalem of the North,” was desecrated by the Nazi regime, its people effectively annihilated. Nearly a third of all residents were Jewish; 90% perished during the Holocaust.

This dark history has been largely hidden since that time. It has been literally built over physically in Vilnius, and few speak of that time. Even Kulikauskas’ parents did not speak of it, although they fled from Lithuania to Southern California, still speaking Lithuanian at home. The artist and his siblings attending a Lithuanian Catholic School on weekends, learning Lithuanian history and folk music but nothing about the massacre of the Jewish people in Vilnius.

While the Nazis were discussed, the Holocaust itself was not, something Kulikauskas, and now his son, who also attended the same cultural enrichment school, found deeply disturbing. This masterful exhibition is in great part a response to that lack of information.

In 2021, as a Fullbright scholar arriving in Vilnius to study the remaining Jewish Litvak community, Kulikauskas walked the streets of the ghetto. His guidebook, so to speak, was the historical diaries and testimonies about the life over 40,000 Lithuanian Jews led when trapped in the ghetto. Most were murdered by 1943.

Without Kulikauskas’ efforts, many of their words and experiences were well on their way to becoming lost. His photographs, despite their historic look, depict the present that has been busily swallowing these stories whole, subsumed behind shops and cafes and buildings now renovated into charming residences and tourist draws.

But in Kulikauskas’ work, the buried history of the Litvaks has been resurrected. And it is a stunning one. On September 6, 1941, the German and Lithuanian police began the roundup of the Jews of Vilnius into two quarters, separated by Vokiečių Street. A month later, the Nazis and Nazi collaborators had massacred most of the residents in the smaller of the two areas. According to Herman Kruk, who chronicled this period, 29,000 Jews were forced into the Vilna Ghetto which has previously housed just under 4,000 residents.

Ghetto inmates were forced to work for the Reich, and their lives were those of bare subsistence, while still fighting to preserve a meaningful life in the face of constant terror. Despite it all, they maintained a theater and a well-circulated library, while still taking part in both passive and active resistance to the Nazi regime. But before the war’s end, most were killed by their captors.

Kulikauskas’ work has not only exhumed their nearly forgotten memories, through it he has also offered a chance to memorialize their courage, their suffering, their hopes and dreams. It is no small feat, and I Often Forget not only provides an extraordinary exploration of this horrifying time in Lithuanian history, but does so with beautifully rendered images, deeply moving quotes and references, and with an eye on the future. He has preserved a grim, utterly horrible time and elevated the sacrifices, struggles, and meaning behind so many precious, lost lives.

Above, curator and gallery director Mika Cho

Both artistically and emotionally resonant, this is an exhibition that aches with longing, sorrow, and dread, and simply must be experienced.

The show ran at CSULA May 30 – July 7, 2023. Kulikauskas intends to travel the exhibition to other venues, and indeed, it deserves to be seen, felt, and experienced widely. There is a closing artist’s talk on Friday July 7th. If you can make it, please go.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis and provided by CSULA

Sages Marks a Grand Return for MOAH

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The word Sages connotes great experience and wisdom. A sage herself, Betty Brown beautifully curated this exhibition along with MOAH’s Robert Benitez.  As the main reopening exhibition for the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster after its year-long closure, the 19-artist show makes a perfect tour de force of beautifully created “wise” art. Along with their consummate skill as art creators, the artists featured in the exhibition have taught and mentored others, influencing and nurturing a new generation of emerging artists. In short, their commitment to community dovetails that of MOAH’s own.

All Southern Californians, the artists exhibiting include: Judy Baca, Bruce Everett, Suvan Geer, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Connie Jenkins, Ulysses Jenkins, Sant Khalsa, Suzanne Lacy, Andrée Mahoney, Jim Morphesis, Catherine Ruane, Ruth Weisberg, John M. White, Kay Yee, and Hiroko Yoshimoto. Additionally, presenting artist solo exhibitions include Joanne Julian, Alexander Kritselis, Gerri McMillin, and Tom McMillin.

The works are laid out graciously and with space around them, allowing each artist’s work or group of works, to breathe and be seen and savored.

From the triumphant runner in Judy Baca’s big mural “Hitting the Wall,” which jubilantly greets visitors to the museum from both gallery levels, to the exquisite span of delicate leaves in Catherine Ruane’s glorious graphite “Witness Tree,” and Bruce Everett’s dazzlingly detailed quintessentially California landscape, there is a wide mix of work and artistic wonder here. Sant Khalsa’s light-filled sculptural work is mysterious, recalling an orb from another dimension or plucked from the sea. Ruth Weisberg creates a figurative, fascinating narrative that pulls the viewer into the unfolding of its story. Ulysses Jenkins’ video work shapes a vibrating musical call to action. Andree Mahoney’s work is pure Zen bliss.  John M. White’s lustrous work spills abstract flora and fauna.

Each piece is honestly a perfect artwork, a portal to the precision and profundity of excellence in art, work that excites and enligtens.

Along with the compelling group show, museum visitors can enjoy four small solo shows of Sages artists, including Joanne Julian’s work in “Starry Skies,” which gives viewers a sense of magic and wonder in varied landscapes that ache with longing. Gerri McMillin’s delicate hanging sculptural work in “Mystery Beneath” evokes Moroccan nights and the work of celestial looms. Tom McMillin’s clay wall sculptures in “The Way of Clay” is as brown and beckoning as earth. Alexander Kritsilis “Travels in Blocks of Time, Spooky Actions at a Distance,” taken from his series Descendent Dialogues is excitingly immersive in its storytelling.

Besides presenting the continuing living legacies of these artists, MOAH also honors departed art sages with Sages in Memoriam.  Serving as an elegy to these masters, this is also a varied and lovely mix of work by artists Craig Antrim, Bob Bassler, Hans Burkhardt, Carole Caroompas, Bee Colman, Dave Elder, Rachel Rosenthal, June Wayne, Roland Reiss, and Charles W. White on display in a smaller downstairs gallery.

Joining the three fine separate groupings of works curated by Brown, the museum also features strong solo work in Marsia Alexander-Clarke: Llamando, a gorgeous, vibrant, and dream-like video work that reflects both nature and aspects of cultural transition; and the reclamation of embroidered work far beyond domestic craft applications in Orly Cogan’s rich Threads of Entanglement. Cogan uses vintage fabric as a backdrop for highly of-the-moment art.

Combined, the museum’s reopening exhibitions reflect the inclusive, varied exhibitions that are MOAH, and mark a terrific welcome-back for the museum. Brown’s compassionate quest for and support of the best in at is sage indeed. The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, and these opening exhibitions are up until August 20th. Make the drive!

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis and provided by MOAH