Latino, Hispanic Culture, Arts and Entertianment at BF Cafe

(print title “Mingo and Fireboy”)

Should an artist approach their art with a corporate mentality? What drives an artist to create? What is the function of an artist?

These are just a few questions that Gilbert “Magu” Lujan contemplates as an artist and others in community meetings he calls Mental Menudo. We’ve heard Magu say that the answers may never be found but to ask such questions is what is important. Then again you might just get a joke for an answer from Magu. As you may see in the article below, Mr. Magu is an artist with vision and a life quest that might give us reason to question our life quest.

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I grew up in Southern Califas, essentially East Los Angeles and there received my early childhood imprinting during the forties. As a Chicano teenager in the fifties who chose the ethnic dress traditions of Khaki pants and Pendleton plaid shirts, personal Anglo buddies and the predominant gabacho population at El Monte Union High School summarily ostracized me. During these years we, like many other vatos being of Chicano culture, went to the historic El Monte Legion Stadium and saw many, now legendary, rhythm and blues performers. Being outside mainstream culture was a social reality.

I attended East Los Angeles College in the sixties where I became a student assistant in the Art department to follow Fine Art major without ever considering Art as a career possibility. Chicano Art was unknown then and not part of the Fine Art curriculum. However, I inadvertently found insights into Chicano Art and began to unfold a definition to direct my own aesthetic direction: the value of ethnic oriented art forms and their mythological heritage. This inspiration became a life long pursuit.

After my MFA in the early seventies it was sufficiently clear that there were no career opportunities in the Mainstream Art world for a Chicano artist, especially not for one who emphatically used the cultural art content of a politically under-represented labor class. And who also de-emphasized mainstream Euro-centric cultural training and sensibilities to decidedly pursue an ethnic orientation. But undaunted to the difficulties and with great naive efforts found my life’s calling and duty to my ethnic familia. Ultimately, my aesthetic was an amalgamation of various ethnic and cultural influences.

Then, unaware of its ultimate significance in 1973, I curated a “Los Four” show at the University of Califas, Irvine. With the expressed intent of showcasing the group to challenge the social status quo of Chicanada and to push for validation of our art forms to be considered in a more favorable light. This show’s importance was underscored as the first Chicano exhibit at a cultural palace, the Los Angeles County Museo de Arte.

In retrospect, my artwork was a tactical pursuit of a definition of the art forms I saw in East Los Angeles barrios. I pitched for aesthetic recognition of Chicano art forms found in gardens as domestic decorations, altars became installations, graffiti was translated as calligraphy and Low Riders as sculptural designs. The need to present positive ideas of our culture and build a conceptual version encompassing the various elements of our ethnic totality was my objective. It was meant to be an overall encompassing view and not a regional parochial one.

Chicanarte had to have a definition to include many aesthetic intents, sociopolitical concerns, and anthropological descriptions of our ethnicity. This definition was an effort to describe the ever-evolving and diverse origins into a contemporary assessment of this collective as a cultural matrix.

My aesthetic path began with a folk arts influenced grass roots attitude and was subsequently built from that initial artistic vision. Then research of Meso-America, helped to transform that perspective into a continuum from ancient to a contemporary context. Therefore, to build a concept based on this continuum addressing our social circumstance(s) through artistic resolutions and perceptions.

Anthropomorphic dog themes, custom carritos, graffiti expression and narrative installations espousing cultural icons have been my common motifs. Social commentary and fantasy were combined to hopefully create new, unique mythologies. Developing fresh cultural mythologies has been an undercurrent of my artistic responses to our society and racism.

The ‘Mental Menudo platicas’ were born of the realization that Chicano artists needed a forum to fulfill the need for positive interaction. These meetings satisfied the impulse to have a village, to share and interact for deeper psyche transactions. I saw intelligence among Raza artists that needed exercising to grow through discourse with other artists. These “platicas” were meant both as an adjunct or compliment to the solitary nature of art making and as a social conduit to balance this dual aspect of being an artist. Ritual “juntas” are ancient and we, as artists need that collective dance of the spirit.

In the future, I hope for better comprehension of the value of ethnicity and ones mythological heritage as a valid aesthetic direction for self-discovery and that the validation of our own cultural worth embracing our grandparents and “antepasados”.

The future actually reflects portions of our past experiences with new combinations and resolutions, which redefine us per each generation.

That is my quest.

Thanks to Becky Garcia for editing assistance

Magu

Visit magulandia.com

PM08/09

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