Week 4 !Printing the Revolution! Exhibit Preview

The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is currently holding an exhibition dedicated to Chicano/a/x art and artists recognizing Chicanx art as American Art. The exhibition is titled "!Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now". It is important to note that the language around the use of Chicano has changed to Chicanx, but some works are referred to as Chicana/o to stay relevant to the history. This preview event was hosted by the curators Dr. E Carmon Ramos and doctoral student Claudia Zapata, which is significant because they also identify as Latinx.

I would like to focus the rest of my blog on the panel discussion portion with artist Zeke Peña. What drew me to Zeke's work is his incorporation of technology, augmented reality, and digital printmaking. This is especially important considering how many young artists are utilizing digital art as a means of production in the social media world. Especially with the Covid pandemic, now more than ever, digital art is the site of art consumption for the majority of the world. As Zeke mentioned in the panel, he is inspired by the youth to continue exploring digital art and explore other areas of politics and social consciousness. I think younger folx have these conversations about identity and social justice at a much younger age than before. While this is an amazing phenomenon, artwork production is especially important in representing these conversations or ideas. I might argue that this is a great advantage for Chicanx artists because their audience is expanding to teenagers and adults alike.

Another aspect of Zeke's work that caught my attention was the representation of brown/ darker skin tones in animated or AR works. There is an on-going conversation about the lack of representation of black and brown folx in popular media like cartoons, motion pictures, etc. For Zeke to portray a very Chicano looking man and animate; it is so amazing because it proves that Latinx can have these representations and look good in them.