Saturday was a red-letter day for the history of art in Southern California. On June 18, the Riverside Art Museum opened itsin a handsomely renovated, 61,000-square-foot former library building in the city center. No other museum presents a substantive permanent exhibition focused on any critically important facet of the region’s bountiful postwar art history, which is the basis on which Los Angeles has become a global cultural capital over the last generation.
Not Feminist art, pioneered at outposts like CalArts and the Woman’s Building and quickly plugged into equal rights agendas being pursued by artists of all genders internationally. The ground floor hosts galleries for a permanent collection that currently stands at more than 550 works, primarily paintings and drawings. Among the artists are such well-established figures as Carlos Almaraz, Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro, Frank Romero, John M. Valadez and Patssi Valdez.
Brothers Einar and Jamex De La Torre merge an Olmec head with a lunar landing vehicle in their exhibition “Collidoscope.” A transition between rooms begins with Almaraz’s florid 1982 “Sunset Crash,” an iconic image of flaming automobiles falling through the sky like asteroids after careening off a stacked freeway overpass, like the one in downtown Los Angeles that separates the city’s historically Latino-centered Eastside from its more Anglo Westside. History paintings born of frankly violent oppression unfurl, followed by galleries for portraits , operatic Surrealism and graffiti-inflected dreams.
'Cheech Marin' is a National 'TREASURE' , !!!!! . (Along with CO Comedian , Tommy Chong, !!) . 🤣🙏✌️