Then and Now

“Contemporary art, for the longest time, was very sterile,” says Patty Ortiz, former director of Denver’s Museo de las Américas and current director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio. “It was doing things in very monumental, formal ways. It kind of lost its context.”

Chicano artists, Ortiz insists, never connected to that. “Chicano artists have always felt the urge or the responsibility to reflect on what’s going on in the political and social environment, and they like to mix the romantic with the more analytical, so what you see is the love and the hate of what they grew up with.”

The Power of Then – the Museo’s fall exhibition, opening today and running through the New Year — which Ortiz curated, highlights the work of contemporary artists from San Antonio, Denver and Los Angeles, work that examines the memories associated with and historical context of popular cultural artifacts that may have lost their meaning in today’s transcultural reality.

“The artists in this exhibition don’t censor,” explains Ortiz, “and so sometimes it’s very blunt. There are scenes showing blood, sex, gore — all of that stuff. But it’s always done in a humorous way. So while they like to be kind of mean about it, it’s also funny.”

Get your kicks and a bit of context at today’s opening reception, from 7 to 9 p.m.; admission is $5 (free for members, who can get a preview between 6 and 7). Find the Museo at 861 Santa Fe Drive and more information at www.museo.org or 303-571-4401.
Sept. 10-Jan. 11, 2009