Chicano Art Research Paper

Chicano art possesses a true aesthetic, mirroring a diverse and ever-changing Chicago reality. Today's Chicano art is multipurpose and multifaceted, social and psychological, American in character and universal in spirit. Chicago is considered as people's art movement, outside of museums and hierarchy, so it continues to establish radical or protest art. Since most Chicano artist continue to be rejected for the creative works due to cultural bias therefore, Chicano art does not appear in museums, alternatively motivating the tension between artists and art authority. Chicano art can be expressed as the experiences Chicanos went through by deciphering codes in images, signs, and symbols. Although Chicano artists continue to address social justice

However, the majority population in Southwestern cities remain disenfranchised and exploited due to America's ongoing cultural wars. Anyway, Chicano art speaks of the liberation of Chicanos from their political predicament of mistaken identity. Moreover, artists’ efforts have helped shape history's false accusations in mainstream media as well as in official documents such as land grants, the census, and military service records to gain Chicanos’ right for a proper identity in American culture. In the 1960's and 1970's, “Chicano” was mostly associated with political activism with an identity and attitude that was important in historical and cultural ties with Mexico while unifying diverse elements in the Chicano people. During this time, Chicano identity was affected by nativism, or neo-indigenism, self-determination, nationalism, and activism, and its effects were left in high schools, colleges, factories, and

Thus, visual text in Chicano art is a significant expression that often incorporates signs and symbols from ancient past and contemporary times to portray the history, heritage, memories and visions of Chicano society. Vargas asserts, “Chicano artists were perceived as important activists in official manifestos like El Plan Espiritual de Azatlán, which promoted nationalism, seeing art as the key to organization that transcends all religious, political, class, and economic factions or boundaries” (p. 12). Subsequently, a personal expression of the Chicano experience might have social or emotional impact without engaging in the polemics that accompany political art. For instance, Michigan artist and art teacher José Narezo had voiced his view in art; “I believe that art needs to be pure in the sense that it comes from the emotions within.” For Narezo, Chicano art represented a universal consciousness or humanistic attitude rather than a certain image, style or political allegiance. Personal expression in Chicano art is complex in style and iconography, that serves for the nature and condition of Chicano artists who reflect their own hopes, fears, social concerns, and