¡Printing the Revolution! In Conversation with E. Carmen Ramos and Claudia Zapata
Description:
Presented by E. Carmen Ramos, chief curatorial and conservation officer at the National Gallery of Art, and Claudia Zapata, curatorial assistant at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Taína Caragol, the Portrait Gallery’s curator of painting and sculpture & Latinx art and history, moderated the Q & A. In the 1960s, Chicano activist artists forged a remarkable history of printmaking rooted in cultural expression and social justice movements that remains vital today. The exhibition “¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now” presents, for the first time, historical civil rights-era prints by Chicano artists alongside works by graphic artists active from the 1980s to today. It considers how artists innovatively use graphic arts to build community, engage the public around ongoing social justice concerns, and wrestle with shifting notions of the term “Chicano.” Chicanx artists and their collaborators often tackled history through portraiture, recognizing that the lives and deeds of those who have fought for political, civil, and human rights are rarely acknowledged in U.S. history classes. Many of these portraits rely on historic photographs and quote their sitters or recount their achievements. Employed in this way, portraiture shifted attention away from privilege, self-aggrandizement, and vanity toward activism, sacrifice, and social transformation. This program is part of the Greenberg Steinhauser Forum in American Portraiture and is hosted by PORTAL, the Portrait Gallery’s Scholarly Center.
