EastSide is 25 years old!

Revolutionary Roots is a powerful group exhibition celebrating the revolutionary artists who have been the backbone of EastSide Arts Alliance for the past 25 years. For over two and a half decades visual artists, poets, dancers, printmakers, musicians, writers, performers, weavers, mosaicists, and educators have gathered at EastSide to imagine and build a home for third world artists, a place where art and culture are weapons in our liberation struggles.

Our work for the past 25 years has been collective and rooted in resistance. The artwork in this exhibition is a testament to the power of art and culture to bring us together in solidarity to imagine and build better worlds today and for seven generations to come.

Since the 1960s, Chicanx artists have used graphic arts to educate and agitate, presenting a vast array of political and social themes designed to challenge the status quo. Their artworks are declarations of political advocacy, cross-cultural solidarity, and an effort to reclaim the past. Radical Histories: Chicanx Prints from the Smithsonian American Art Museum features 60 prints drawn from SAAM’s leading collection of Latinx art. It focuses on artists creating visual counter-histories—from ancient to contemporary times—that defy notions of American exceptionalism, heteronormativity, whiteness, and borders.

Radical Histories showcases Chicanx artists’ role in using political prints and posters to galvanize community support around issues of labor equality, exemplified by their pivotal role in the farm workers’ movements of California and Texas; to augment political actions and bring awareness to anti-war and pro-peace movements; and to grapple with the grim realities of immigration and violence in borderlands. The exhibition also explores commemorative portraiture as a genre that Chicanx printmakers utilize to resurrect and memorialize unknown and underrepresented artists and historical figures, providing long-overdue recognition of important societal contributions by individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

These artists’ vivid images use satire, politicized pop, and conceptualism while also embracing innovative DIY printmaking methods. Their works showcase how Chicanx printmakers have reimagined traditional formats such as Mexican codices and popular calendars to present new narratives. Highlighting the importance of language in Chicanx graphics, the exhibition also examines the interplay between text and image, exploring the use of poetry, graffiti, and historical quotations, among other literary devices, in the artists’ efforts to reconceive the story of America.

The presentation of Radical Histories exemplifies the Colby College Museum of Art’s goals to embrace the complexity of the American experience by acknowledging the wide range of hemispheric, diasporic, and immigrant experiences spanning the Americas. Several impressions of prints from the exhibition or by featured artists have recently been added to the collection as part of the museum’s Latinx collecting initiative.

Radical Histories: Chicanx Prints from the Smithsonian American Art Museum is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
The Colby College Museum of Art will be the debut venue for the exhibition before it travels to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.

In the 1960s, activist Chicano artists forged a remarkable history of printmaking that remains vital today. Many artists came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements and channeled the period’s social activism into assertive aesthetic statements that announced a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within these early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced innovative printmaking practices attuned to social justice.

More than reflecting the need for social change, the works in this exhibition project and revise notions of Chicanx identity, spur political activism and school viewers in new understandings of U.S. and international history. By employing diverse visual and artistic modes from satire, to portraiture, appropriation, conceptualism, and politicized pop, the artists in this exhibition build an enduring and inventive graphic tradition that has yet to be fully integrated into the history of U.S. printmaking.

This exhibition is the first to unite historic civil rights era prints alongside works by contemporary printmakers, including several that embrace expanded graphics that exist beyond the paper substrate. While the dominant mode of printmaking among Chicanx artists remains screen-printing, this exhibition features works in a wide range of techniques and presentation strategies, from installation art, to public interventions, augmented reality and shareable graphics that circulate in the digital realm. The exhibition also is the first to consider how Chicanx mentors, print centers and networks nurtured other artists, including several who drew inspiration from the example of Chicanx printmaking.

¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center, Michael Abrams and Sandra Stewart, The Honorable Aida Alvarez, Joanne and Richard Brodie Exhibitions Endowment, James F. Dicke Family Endowment, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Ford Foundation, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, HP, William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund, Robert and Arlene Kogod Family Foundation, Lannan Foundation, and Henry R. Muñoz, III and Kyle Ferari-Muñoz.

¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now has been made possible at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, by The Orozco Fund.

Durante los años sesenta, los artistas-activistas chicanos forjaron un notable camino en el ámbito del grabado, y la influencia de su trabajo se sigue sintiendo hasta el día de hoy. Muchos artistas iniciaron sus carreras en plena época de movimientos sociales, desde la militancia antiguerra hasta los movimientos por los derechos civiles, laborales, de las mujeres, y de la comunidad LGBTQ+. Canalizaron esa voluntad activista hacia pronunciamientos estéticos contundentes, anunciando con ellos una nueva conciencia política y cultural entre personas de ascendencia mexicana en los Estados Unidos. ¡Printing the Revolution! (¡Grabando la revolución!), una muestra organizada por el Smithsonian American Art Museum, explora el auge del arte gráfico chicano dentro de estos incipientes movimientos sociales, y examina cómo los artistas chicanxs desde entonces han impulsado innovaciones en las prácticas del grabado, con el foco puesto en la justicia social.

Más allá de reflejar la necesidad de cambio social, las obras en esta muestra proyectan y re-examinan nociones de identidad chicanx, estimulan el activismo político y plantean a los espectadores nuevas interpretaciones de la historia, tanto estadounidense como universal. Recurriendo a diversos modos de expresión artística y visual —desde la sátira, los retratos, la apropiación, el conceptualismo y el pop politizado— los artistas incluidos en esta exposición, en su conjunto, han construido una singular y perdurable tradición gráfica que no ha sido del todo integrada a la historia del grabado en los Estados Unidos.

Esta exposición es la primera en presentar históricos grabados de la lucha por los derechos civiles al lado de obras de artistas más contemporáneos, incluyendo a varios que abordan el oficio gráfico de manera más amplia, sin limitarse al sustrato del papel. Mientras el modo predominante de grabar entre los artistas chicanxs sigue siendo la impresión sobre soporte físico, esta muestra incluye obras hechas con una amplia gama de técnicas y estrategias de presentación, desde las instalaciones hasta las intervenciones públicas, la realidad augmentada y los gráficos compartibles que circulan en el universo digital. La exposición, además, es la primera en considerar cómo los maestros más veteranos, las redes profesionales, y los centros de actividad de grabación alimentaron a artistas de otros ámbitos, varios de los cuales se inspiraron en los ejemplos de sus colegas grabadores chicanxs.

In the 1960s, activist Chicano artists forged a remarkable history of printmaking that remains vital today. Many artists came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements and channeled the period’s social activism into assertive aesthetic statements that announced a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within these early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced innovative printmaking practices attuned to social justice. 

More than reflecting the need for social change, the works in this exhibition project and revise notions of Chicanx identity, spur political activism and school viewers in new understandings of U.S. and international history. By employing diverse visual and artistic modes from satire, to portraiture, appropriation, conceptualism, and politicized pop, the artists in this exhibition build an enduring and inventive graphic tradition that has yet to be fully integrated into the history of U.S. printmaking. 

This exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from The Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center, Michael Abrams and Sandra Stewart, The Honorable Aida Alvarez, Joanne and Richard Brodie Exhibitions Endowment, James F. Dicke Family
Endowment, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Ford Foundation, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, HP, William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund, Robert and Arlene Kogod Family Foundation, Lannan Foundation, and Henry R. Muñoz, III and Kyle Ferari-Muñoz.

Partial funding for the exhibition is provided by the Martin Andersen-Gracia Andersen Foundation.

Enero Zapatista is organized autonomously by a group of individuals, organizations, and spaces. The aim is to gather and form connections through Zapatismo and the Zapatista struggle, across calendars and geographies.To meet and build with folks working towards Zapatista autonomy locally. From art, education, food, to land struggles, come for awesome political discussions and cultural celebrations!

Enero Zapatista Closing Ceremony

Date: Saturday, February 1

Time: 5:00 – 10:00 pm

Location: Eastside Arts Alliance, 2277 International Blvd, Oakland

Celebrate the culmination of Enero Zapatista

5:00 pm: Childcare Circle—Children’s reading and music activities inspired by Zapatista practices. Childcare provided by Enero Zapatista members.

6:30 pm: Panel Discussion—Autonomías Rebeldes / Rebellious Autonomies. Local organizers and artists discuss building rebellious autonomy in the Bay Area.

7:30 – 10:00 pm: Live musical performances!

Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics finds aesthetic connections among 60 artists working in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The exhibition and its catalogue are among the first to examine nearly a quarter century of production by Black artists. The project debuts new acquisitions for LACMA and expands the Pan-African exhibition canon, historically focused on the Black Atlantic, by showcasing artists working along the Pacific Rim. Nearly 70 works of painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, and time-based media are organized into four themes: speech and silence, movement and transformation, imagination, and representation. Contemporary poets contributed original work to the catalogue, extending the historical use of poetry in Pan-African discourse. Diaspora’s general definition as a displacement from origins excludes all the creativity the term entails. People reinvent their heritage through artistic expressions, transforming diaspora from regional movement into a wellspring of imagination. Through an analysis of Black artists’ aesthetic choices, Imagining Black Diasporas reveals their insights about existence.

Arielle Bobb-Willis, New Jersey, 2019, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

De moda showcases dynamic representations of contemporary fashion and traditional regalia of Chicano, Latino, and Indigenous communities. Featuring works from the Gilberto Cárdenas and Dolores Garcia collection, artists explore how clothing and style reflect cultural affirmation, historical reclamation, political protest, and ceremonial practice.

The themes in this exhibition explore the urban cool of the pachuco and their stylish legacies throughout Chicano art. Latino and Chicano portraits honor the Western wear of Northern Mexico, as with musical entertainers such as the late Tejano musician Selena Quintanilla. Mexican and Mexican American musicians blend regional Mexican styles with American pop while challenging and queering fashion. Artists document political protest and social unrest, turning uniforms, like the beret, into revolutionary symbols. The exhibit also displays photographs highlighting traditional costumes and regalia that empower previously enslaved Indigenous communities, such as New Mexico’s Genízaros, to continue their ancestral ceremonies. De moda features artist reflections on the impact of fashion and cultural regalia as an expression and role in social transformation.

Curated by Claudia Zapata, Associate Curator, Latino Art, Blanton Museum of Art.

Main Gallery
September 3 – December 5, 2024

Before You Now focuses on the enduring theme of the artist’s self-portrait, as seen in a selection of works from LACMA’s collections of photographs, prints, drawings, videos, and installation art. Primarily featuring contemporary makers, the exhibition is an introduction to seeing American artists as they see themselves—or as they want to be seen by their public. They are shown contemplating their physicality in realistic fashion, highlighting their persona through symbolic tropes, or utilizing humor or conceptual methods to enlighten, exaggerate, or camouflage their reflective selves. Over 50 artists—including Laura Aguilar, Kwame Brathwaite, Kalli Arte Collective, Roger Shimomura, Cindy Sherman, Rodrigo Valenzuela, and June Wayne—display an ongoing fascination with, or return to, the self-portrait. Before You Now aims to broaden the topic to include many whose practice leans into an autobiographical narrative, and explores artists who are adding to and redefining our culture by expanding on ideas of identity.

Gráfica América, Portfolio is organized by the Museum of Latin American Art, Curated by Gabriela Martínez, and Rogelio Gutiérrez

Participating Artists: Antonio Alcaraz Mira, Alan Altamirano, Andres Arizaga Cordero, Carlos Barberena, Jesus Barraza, Yamilys Brito Jorge, Isabel Cauas, Melanie Cervantes, Liz Cohen, Pepe Coronado, Jorge Crespo Berdicio, Miriam Del Saz, Fernando De Leon, Ana Maria Devis, Sandra C. Fernandez, Gabriela Gonzalez Leal, Octavio Irving Hernandez Jiménez, Poli Marichal, Jacob Meders, Norma Morales, Tono Nunez, Lorena Pradal, Jonathan Rebolloso, Rocio Rendon, Coral Revueltas Valle, Julio Cesar Rodriguez Jaimes, Humberto Saenz, Herson Sapone, Dewey Tafoya, Humberto Valdez, Sergio Valencia Salazar, Alejandro Villalbazo

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 11:00am – 2:00pm and by appointment.

Exhibition is free and open to the public.

Yreina D. Cervántez. Mujer de Mucha Enagua, PA’ TI XICANA, 1999. Screenprint on paper; 17 7/8 x 26 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Samuel and Blanche Koffler Acquisition Fund, 2020.40.1. © 1999, Yreina D. Cervántez

In the 1960s, activist Chicano artists forged a remarkable history of printmaking that remains vital today. Many artists came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements and channeled the period’s social activism into assertive aesthetic statements that announced a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within these early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced innovative printmaking practices attuned to social justice.

More than reflecting the need for social change, the works in this exhibition project and revise notions of Chicanx identity, spur political activism and school viewers in new understandings of U.S. and international history. By employing diverse visual and artistic modes from satire, to portraiture, appropriation, conceptualism, and politicized pop, the artists in this exhibition build an enduring and inventive graphic tradition that has yet to be fully integrated into the history of U.S. printmaking.

This exhibition is the first to unite historic civil rights era prints alongside works by contemporary printmakers, including several that embrace expanded graphics that exist beyond the paper substrate. While the dominant mode of printmaking among Chicanx artists remains screen-printing, this exhibition features works in a wide range of techniques and presentation strategies, from installation art, to public interventions, augmented reality and shareable graphics that circulate in the digital realm. The exhibition also is the first to consider how Chicanx mentors, print centers and networks nurtured other artists, including several who drew inspiration from the example of Chicanx printmaking