Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center 2010


 

Fierce Beauty: A Forty Year Retrospective Exhibition
Boat House Gallery
Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center for Arts and Education
Curated by Betty Ann Brown
Los Angeles, CA
May 15-July 31, 2010

 


 

The retrospective exhibition was curated by Betty Ann Brown, Latin American Art History from the University of New Mexico, and Professor, Cal State University Northridge (CSUN) Art History Department and included forty works of art including drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, and installations dated from 1969-2009.

Schedule of Events included:
• Lecture with Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, Chicano/a Studies Loyola Marymount University
• Artist Interview with Donna Granata, Founder, Focus on the Masters, Ventura, California
• Essayist Panel with curator Betty Ann Brown, Suzanne Bellah, Armando Durón, Peter Frank, Anna Meliksetian, William Moreno, Gloria F. Orenstein, and Sybil Venegas

 


 

Linda Vallejo “Fierce Beauty” A Forty Year Retrospective, catalog interview by William “Bill” Moreno

Linda Vallejo “Fierce Beauty” A Forty Year Retrospective, catalog essay by Betty Ann Brown, Art Historian, Critic and Curator

Notes From the Living Room Couch, foreword by Armando Durón, Art Critic and Collector

Electric Ladyland: Linda Vallejo’s Digital Vision, catalog essay by Peter Frank, Art Critic for The Huffington Post and Senior Curator at Riverside Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA, January, 2010

The Earth is a Heavenly Body: The Mythopoetic Universe of Linda Vallejo, catalog essay by Gloria Orenstein, professor of Comparison Literature and Gender Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

The Electrics, essay by Gloria Orenstein, professor of Comparison Literature and Gender Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

The Electric Oaks, speech for Galerie Anais on Linda Vallejo’s Electric Oaks, by Gloria Orenstein, prof. Comp. Lit. and Gender Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, June 17, 2010

Walking the Road: The Art and Artistry of Linda Vallejo, by Sybil Venegas, Art Historian, Writer and Educator

Linda Vallejo at Gallery Anais, ArtSceneCal review by Nancy Kay Turner

 


 

Essayist Biographies

Betty Ann Brown is an art historian, critic, and curator. She received a doctorate in Latin American art history from the University of New Mexico and currently works as a professor of art history at California State University, Northridge. Brown has organized numerous exhibitions that focus on Chicano, feminist, and Los Angeles artists, and has written extensively about contemporary art and culture. Her most recent book, Hero, Madman, Criminal, Victim, examines the stereotyped representations of artists in the mass media.

Armando Durón calls himself an “art metiche” because he has been committed to Chicano art in Los Angeles for almost thirty years. He is past president of the boards of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) and Self Help Graphics, past member of the board of the Latino Theatre Company, and a founder of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. An avid collector of Chicano art, he has organized numerous exhibitions and written several articles on Chicano art.

Suzanne Bellah is director and curator of the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, CA, where she has emphasized arts education and building an inclusive permanent collection. She has organized over 160 exhibits featuring artists such as Colin Campbell Cooper, Theodore N. Lukis, Peter Adams, Bobbie Moline-Kramer, Kevin Short, and Rick Stich.

Peter Frank is art critic for the Huffington Post and Senior Curator at the Riverside Art Museum. He has served as art critic for the LA Weekly, Village Voice, and SoHo Weekly News, edited THEmagazine Los Angeles and Visions art quartetly, organized numerous exhibitions, and taught in and around both his native New York and Los Angeles, where he now lives.

Ann Landi holds degrees in art history from Princeton and Columbia University. She has been a contributing editor of ARTnews for the last 16 years and writes regularly on culture for The Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of the four-volume Schirmer Encyclopedia of Art.

Anna Meliksetian received her Masters degree in the History of Art from California State University Northridge in 2003. Since then, she has written about contemporary art for several Southern California publications. In Fall 2009, she opened Galerie Anais in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA, with he business partner Shomais Ghassemi.

William “Bill” Moreno has served as the Director of the Claremont Museum of Art in Claremont, CA; as Director of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, CA; and as the director of the Aguirre Gallery. He has served on on the City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowships and NALAC Fund for the Arts panels among others. He is a member of the Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Director’s Forum, New York and is Board Vice President of the California Association of Museums.

Gloria Orenstein is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at The University of Southern California. She writes on Surrealism, Ecofeminism, women and the arts, shamanism and Jewish women artists. Her books include The Theater of the Marvelous: Surrealism and the Contemporary Stage and The Reflowering of the Goddess. She is also co-editor of Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism, a collection of essays that grew out of a conference she organized at USC in 1987.

Sybil Venegas is an art historian, writer and educator. Currently on the faculty of the department of Chicano Studies at East Los Angeles College, she teaches courses in Mexican and Chicano art, Religion in Mesoamerica, and Mexican and Chicano history. Venegas has written extensively on Chicana art and culture.

 


 

Fierce Beauty: A Forty Year RetrospectivePress release Exhibition invitation Visual Art Source review Arroyo Seco Journal review Purchase catalog Plaza de la Raza website