Opening celebration for PST: LA/LA exhibition Aztlán to Magulandia: The Journey of Chicano Artist Gilbert “Magu” Luján at UCI

Risa Luján, Mardi Luján, Naiche Luján, and Hal Glicksman in the UAG.
 

MEDIA ADVISORY

Opening celebration for PST: LA/LA exhibition Aztlán to Magulandia:
The Journey of Chicano Artist Gilbert “Magu” Luján
at UCI

EVENT:
Celebration for the opening of Aztlán to Magulandia: The Journey of Chicano Artist Gilbert “Magu” Luján exhibition, part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Initiative. Guests will be able to view the exhibitions in the CAC Gallery and UAG Gallery as well as enjoy live entertainment and activities for all ages. Actor and art aficionado, Cheech Marin, will make an appearance and say a few words about his friend Magu.

WHEN/WHERE:
2:00 – 5:00 p.m. Saturday, October 7, 2017. Mesa Parking Structure, 4000 Mesa Rd., Irvine, CA 92697 (grid D-3 on campus map: https://communications.uci.edu/documents/pdf/UCI_16_map_campus.pdf).

INFORMATION:
FREE and open to the public. Media planning to attend should contact Jaime DeJong at 949-824-2189 or jdejong@uci.edu. Parking is complimentary for media who RSVP in advance.

HIGHLIGHTS:
2 p.m. Event commences. Celebrity Cheech Marin will be on site.
2:30 p.m. Short program honoring the artist Gilbert “Magu” Luján featuring Dean Stephen Barker, Cheech Marin, and Magu’s son, Naiche Luján.
3:00 p.m. Book signing with writer and co-curator Hal Glickman.
Musician Martin Espino will perform (www.martinespino.com).
11 Lowrider cars on display throughout the Arts campus.
Kid’s activity table featuring social media coloring contest.
Light refreshments will be served.

BACKGROUND:
As part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Initiative, the University Art Galleries (UAG) at UC Irvine presents the first survey of one of the most iconic figures of the Chicano art movement, Gilbert “Magu” Luján (1940–2011). One of the founding members of the Chicano artists collective Los Four, Luján is known for his coloration and visual explorations of Chicano culture and community that drew upon and brought to life various historic and contemporary visual sources with startling results: Pyramid-mounted low riders driven by anthropomorphic dogs traversing a newly defined and mythologized L.A. He was part of a small group of dedicated artists and intellectuals who set about defining a Chicano identity and culture as part of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The UAG’s retrospective focuses on creativity and invention in Luján's work in a myriad of sketches and drawings, paintings, and sculptures. Luján combined two world-making concepts, Aztlán, the mythic northern ancestral home of the indigenous Mexican Aztecs that became a charged symbol of Chicano activism; and Magulandia, the term Luján coined for the space in which he lived and produced his work, and for his work as a whole. Together, Aztlán and Magulandia represented both physical spaces and the complex cultural, geographic, and conceptual relationships that exist between Los Angeles and Mexico and served as dual landscapes for Luján’s artistic philosophy and cultural creativity. This exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of The Getty Foundation as part of the Getty Museum's Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles/Latin America (LA/LA) exhibition which launched in the September of 2017.

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Exhibition and Event Page.