V.1.1 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 1065177
This exhibition at the Chicago State University Gallery is a selective but representative view of Hispanic-American Art in Chicago. The exhibit—on view between June 9 and July 16, 1980—presents a broad range of media, styles and techniques that reflect both the traditional values of the participating artists and the intellectual development of their ideas. Twenty artists are represented by paintings, drawings, graphics, photography, plastic forms and by statements which communicate to our students and the viewing public the diverse educational, artistic and cultural experiences which have produced the objects in our exhibit.
Works painted by muralists and artists whose media are small or scaled-down to fit the surroundings of the gallery are represented. Artists who choose to paint in the streets and those who must paint in the streets, due to the inaccessibility of more conventional showcases, are both included in our exhibition. Their art is expressed in many varied and unique forms; yet their aesthetics are all drawn from the vocabularies of contemporary art.
A university setting is a compatible environment for an exhibition of this kind. It provides, by its nature, an atmosphere for formalized study and the scrutiny of ideas. It is an environment where long held shibboleths can be observed, examined, and often dispelled. The nature and content of the Hispanic-American art—so often misconstrued as merely being recurring motifs displayed on neighborhood walls—is one of the concepts that this exhibit and catalog offer for examination. Another concept most conspicuously evident is that Hispanic-American Art flourishes in Chicago.