Art and culture were on display as September’s Downtown First Friday Art Walk recognized the upcoming National Hispanic Heritage Month with notable exhibitions of Latino Art.
The Phoenix Art Museum’s Modern Mexican Painting from the Andres Blaisten Collection and the showcasing of famed painter Juan Chawuk, from Chiapas, Mexico, at the Arizona Latino Art and Culture Center are a couple of the Latino art showcasing that were on display last Friday.
The Arizona Latino Art and Culture Center is an art gallery that promotes and celebrates Latinos in Arizona through art and education.
“What ALACC is doing is helping launch the arts revolution in Phoenix, and as a direct result how people feel, think and spend their money,” said Marcelino Quiñonez, First Friday program coordinator and ASU graduate.
Friday was ALACC’s official kickoff to the Celebración Artistica de las Americas Festival.
Celebración Artistica de las Americas Festival, is a two-month Valley-wide celebration that through performances, festivals, exhibits, food and music cultivates and promotes the Latino cultural heritage.
The featured artist Juan Chawuk is a painter, sculptor and photographer and installation artist. He was named the best painter in Chiapas in 2009 by the state of Chiapas.
“The Latino heritage is derived from a sense of family, unity, respect and culture,” Spanish-speaker Juan Chawuk said. “Our culture is diverse and it surges through day to day practice.”
Chawuk believes the connection we share as human beings should supersede all borders that bound us.
“There is a countless number of different plants and vegetation and they all produce oxygen and that oxygen has no borders,” Chawuk said.
Chawuk’s art is themed around the synonymous relationship between nature and humans.
“In the dialogue that is the Earth and planets we are all one big family and if we see ourselves in that sense there are no borders there should only be respect and unity,” Chawuk said.
“It’s important that on a local level we have a center like ALACC, because it inspires people to become involved in the nurturing of heritage and in turn creates a mecca for culture,” Quiñonez said.
The Phoenix Art Museum is also involving itself in the celebration of Latino cultural heritage.
“Modern Mexican Painting,” the featured exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum, is showcasing styles ranging from avant-garde experimentation and surrealism to self-portraits and urbanism.
Some artists that have work on display include Diego Rivera, Carlos Orozco Romero, Manuel Rodriguez Lozano and Emilio Baz Viaud.
Along with showcasing art, the Phoenix Art Museum has put together a series of programs ranging from a screening of a biopic about the life of Frida Kahlo to a lecture about famed Mexican architect Luis Barragan by Jose Bernardi of ASU’s Design School.
“Hispanic Murals embrace the Hispanic heritage so well, one muralist that sticks out to me is Lalo Cota,” urban and metropolitan studies freshman Connor Descheemaker said.
“The bright colors that are inherent to the Hispanic art draw in the viewer and engage them in the art,” Descheemaker said.
Reach the reporter at ealopez7@asu.edu
