University of New Mexico professors Irene Vásquez, Ph.D., and Ray Hernández-Durán, Ph.D., have curated an exhibition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center that highlights the work of six New Mexican artists connected to the Chicano Movement. The exhibit, titled Voces Del Pueblo: Artists of the Levantamiento Chicano in New Mexico, is the result of a seven-year project and features Ignacio “Nacho” Jaramillo, Juanita J. Lavadie, Francisco LeFebre, Noel Márquez, Roberta Márquez, and Adelita M. Medina.
Vásquez, who chairs the Chicana & Chicano Studies department at UNM and directs the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, explained that the idea for this project began during efforts to advocate for their graduate program in 2018. “Our faculty wanted to highlight the vibrant context for the development of Chicana and Chicano Studies and the far-reaching impact of the Chicana and Chicano Movement on education, the arts, politics, and civic advocacy,” Vásquez said.
As part of public education efforts around a 50th anniversary commemoration of Chicana & Chicano Studies’ founding, Vásquez met with activists and artists from the movement to gather input. Francisco LeFebre suggested creating an exhibit focused on long-standing New Mexican artists. This led them to collaborate with Hernández-Durán from UNM’s Art History department.
“I realized so little had been done to focus on Nuevomexicana/o artists,” Vásquez said. “The academic research on art demonstrated that the Chicana/o Movement opened new avenues of political advocacy, artistic expression, and collaboration with a national network of artists. Although New Mexican artists had been some of the most prolific, their work and influence have been understudied.”
Hernández-Durán also found a lack of existing scholarship on early 1970s New Mexican Chicano artists during his research. This shaped his approach to documenting their contributions more permanently.
“We have an opportunity to do something with a long-lasting impact. If we just do a show in a gallery, it will eventually be taken down and forgotten,” Hernández-Durán said. “We needed to have a show at a museum, we should have a catalog with scholarly essays, which would be the first scholarship on the subject. That’s why it took seven years, because you can’t just go online or go to the library. We had to drive out to these artists homes.”
The six featured artists were students of Pedro Rodriguez at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), who was NMHU’s first director of its Chicano Studies program. Rodriguez sent them to Mexico for art studies before they returned home to create artwork in New Mexico.
“This upset the university administrators, and Pedro was fired less than two years after he was hired. When he got fired, he almost became a martyr, and it ignited a movement,” Hernández-Durán said. “So that became the concept for the show—these three men and three women who were his students in in the early 1970’s.”
Hernández-Durán traveled across New Mexico meeting these artists and selecting works for inclusion—many addressing topics not typically shown in other museums.
“One of the things I love about the National Hispanic Cultural Center is that they feature artists from our community that other museums would never look at,” Hernández-Durán said.
The exhibition presents paintings, printmaking pieces, collages, photographs, drawings, sculptures and textiles by these six artists.
Before completion of this project painter Noel Márquez passed away; Vásquez and Hernández-Durán dedicated both exhibition and catalog to him. His painting Nuerstras Raices (Our Roots) greets visitors as one enters.
To document this work further with professional photography for a catalog publication—the first scholarly collection focused solely on these local artists—Vásquez and Hernández-Durán secured $30,000 from Albuquerque city council after requesting an initial $15,000 grant.
“Everyone we talked to was so excited because people understand this has never been done,” Hernández-Durán said.
“Our artists from our communities have never really been given a platform like this before.”
-Ray Hernández-Durán
For this catalog—expected out in December through UNM Press—Hernández-Durán contributed two essays while Vásquez co-authored another with her doctoral student; additional essays come from guest writers.
In addition to publishing this documentation as scholarship through UNM Press—a move expected later this year—they are also working with Zimmerman Library’s Center for Southwest Research at UNM to build an archive preserving clippings and documents related to these artists’ careers.
“This is what I envisioned. I want to leave something that makes an impression, that begins a conversation and provides resources for future researchers who’ll come in after us and continue studying New Mexican artists,” Hernández-Durán said.
Eight more events will accompany this exhibition—including music performances gallery tours featuring participating artists themselves—and an artmaking workshop; final reception is scheduled for February 8th next year.
