Smithsonian American Art Museum
¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now
November 20, 2020 – August 8, 2021
In the 1960s, activist Chicano artists forged a remarkable history of printmaking that remains vital today. Many artists came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist, and LGBTQ+ movements and channeled the period’s social activism into assertive aesthetic statements that announced a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within these early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced innovative printmaking practices attuned to social justice.
Leonard Castellanos, RIFA, from Méchicano 1977 Calendario, 1976, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum
