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American Quarterly 55.1 (2003) 89-102



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Museo Without Walls

Michael Soto
Trinity University

[Figures]
Chicano Now: American Expressions at Museo Americano, San Antonio, Texas, Dec. 15, 2001 to April 15, 2002; at the Smithsonian Institution Arts and Industries Building, Washington, D.C., Sept. 27, 2002 to Jan. 5, 2003; at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Feb. 1, 2003 to May 18, 2003. http://www.chicano-art-life.com/index.html.

In the Museo Americano's exhibit brochure, actor/comedian Cheech Marin—the guiding personality behind Chicano Now: American Expressions and its companion visual art exhibit, Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge—describes the effort as "a collaboration among performers, graphic artists, designers, writers, musicians, and scholars. Chicano Now is a rip-roaring party, and everyone's invited." 1 Marin's three-decades-long career has seen him dramatically transform his public persona from stoner icon in the comedy team Cheech and Chong to the decidedly more sober role of TV sleuth on "Nash Bridges." Along the way, Marin wrote, directed, or performed in dozens of films, television shows, and albums; more significantly for Chicano Now, he has emerged as the world's foremost collector of Chicana and Chicano visual art. As he describes in a recent interview, Marin discovered Chicano art at the Latino Theatre Lab in Los Angeles, where a number of visual artists could be found working on [End Page 89] sets and milling about with actors. 2 The Chicano Now exhibit, presented by Target department stores and sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and DaimlerChrysler, draws from Marin's own personal collection of memorabilia, and it includes the work of several of his close friends and associates. The exhibit brochure goes so far as to list among its credits, "Cheech Marin, Visionary." The brochure more conventionally credits producer BBH, Inc., content developer Peter Radetsky, and associate exhibit developer Joseph Gonzalez. 3 Originally slated for a premiere at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Chicano Now premiered instead at Museo Americano, the newly minted affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. Museo Americano is a privately funded institution; the SBC Foundation provided the lead gift, a grant of $2 million over four years. (As a Smithsonian Institution affiliate, Museo Americano will have periodic access to the Smithsonian's notoriously slim holdings in Latino cultural history.) Sam Gorena, Interim Director of Museo Americano, identifies two primary reasons that Chicano Now premiered there. First, "the Museo is the only Latino museum in the country that's focusing on art, culture, and history," he told me in a recent telephone interview. Second, the exhibit producer, BBH, wanted to debut the show in its home city, San Antonio. 4

The Museo Americano's temporary exhibition space (its permanent facilities at the historic Alameda Complex will not open until early 2004) resides in an abandoned art deco building that was formerly home to the Kress Department Store (fig. 1), less than two blocks from San Antonio's best known landmark, the Alamo. Each day, thousands of Alamo tourists stroll from "the cradle of Texas liberty," across Alamo Plaza, and past the Ripley's Believe It or Not and Plaza Theater of Wax on their way to the generously air-conditioned Buckhorn Saloon and Museum. There, they might pause for a cold one and a chance to tour the Hall of Horns, the Hall of Feathers, the Hall of Fins, and the Texas Wax Museum. My guess is that very few Alamo tourists made it across the street to the Chicano Now exhibit, but many busloads of children were driven to the location, where they joined those adults who also decided to drop by. During the exhibit's four-month stay in San Antonio, a total of 5,755 persons took in Chicano Now, including some 1,886 students on fifty-six organized tours, according to Laura S. Augilar, outreach coordinator for Museo Americano. 5 During each of my three weekday visits, Chicano Now was abuzz with student activity. Two weekend visits were somewhat [End Page 90] [Begin Page 92] less crowded, and visitors at these times primarily consisted of...

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