Printing the Revolution, Michael Menchaca

Episode No. 497 features curator E. Carmen Ramos and artist Michael Menchaca.

Ramos has curated "¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now," which is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through August 8. (SAAM re-opens on Friday, May 14 with separate, timed-entry passes required for each of its buildings.) Ramos was assisted by Claudia Zapata. Menchaca is among the artists included in the exhibition.

"¡Printing the Revolution!" reveals how activist Chicano artists from the 1960s forward have engaged in printmaking practices that brought social activism to aesthetics and that helped instigate new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the U.S. The fantastic exhibition catalogue was published by Princeton University Press. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for $38 and up.

Links, including those promised on the program:

• Tomás Ybarra-Frausto's papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art.
• The exhibition's artists page.
• Enrique Chagoya, The Ghost of Liberty, 2004.

Menchaca is also included in "Estamos Bien - La Triennial 20/21," which is on view at El Museo del Barrio in New York through September 26. It was curated by Rodrigo Moura, Susanna V. Temkin and Elia Alba. Menchaca is also presently in residence at Artpace San Antonio.

Menchaca uses both print and new media to disrupt racist narratives that target Black and indigenous people by creating anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-capitalist scenes.  He has had solo exhibitions at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, the Lawndale Art Center in Houston, and the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. His recent group show credits include the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.