RIVERSIDE, Calif. (May 23, 2023)—The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced Riverside Art Museum of Riverside, California today as one of eight recipients of the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities. Over the past 29 years, the award has celebrated institutions that are making a difference for individuals, families, and communities.

“IMLS is delighted to announce the eight worthy recipients of the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, including Riverside Art Museum,” said IMLS Director Crosby Kemper. “Riverside Art Museum integrates art into the lives of people in a way that engages, inspires, and builds community through thought-provoking exhibits and art classes that instill a lifelong love of the arts. The museum values art education as well as exhibitions and collections and aims to uplift untold stories.”

Originally formed in the early 1950s by a loosely knit group of artists, RAM is a nonprofit museum with two locations: the Riverside Art Museum, housed in a National Historic 1929 building designed by Hearst Castle and AIA Gold Medal-winning architect Julia Morgan, and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (The Cheech), which opened June 18, 2022. The 60-plus-year-old cultural arts institution strives to be a distinguished, yet accessible institution that serves as a cultural, collaborative, and educational focal point for its diverse community.

Selected from 30 finalists, the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service winners represent institutions that provide dynamic programming and services that exceed expected levels of service. Through their community outreach, these institutions bring about change that touches the lives of individuals and helps communities thrive.       

“This award is a tribute to how inspiring transformation can occur when a group of people come together with the goal to uplift and celebrate the human experience through art,” said Drew Oberjuerge, Executive Director, Riverside Art Museum. “Our Trustees and staff have prioritized community voices and community collaboration, which resulted in the establishment of The Cheech and the ongoing innovation of our organization and programs.”

Congressman Mark Takano, Representative for California’s 39^th Congressional District nominated the Riverside Art Museum to receive this award. “I am thrilled to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the Riverside Art Museum on receiving the esteemed 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service,” he said. “This well-deserved recognition is a testament to their groundbreaking work establishing The Cheech and in showcasing Chicano art and culture, bridging gaps in representation, and fostering inclusivity within our community. The Riverside Art Museum has truly set a new standard of excellence, and we celebrate their dedication to preserving and celebrating the vibrant heritage of the Inland Empire. This award is a proud moment for the 39th Congressional District and a shining example of the transformative power of art.”

Central to the unique public-private partnership with Riverside Art Museum and the City of Riverside is Cheech Marin. “Riverside Art Museum’s decades-long work in the community, its educational mission, and the broad support of Chicano art within and beyond the Inland Empire is why I decided to gift my collection and work together with the museum to create a national center. This IMLS award is a wonderful acknowledgment to the RAM trustees, staff and supporters as well as the City of Riverside and the State of California.”

The award will be presented at a ceremony this summer in Washington, DC. For a complete list of 2023 recipients and to learn more about the National Medal winners, visit the IMLS website.

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES (IMLS): IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook  and Twitter.

ABOUT RIVERSIDE ART MUSEUM (RAM): RAM is one museum with two locations in Riverside, California; a city proclaimed as the “City of Arts & Innovation.” Since 1967, the Riverside Art Museum (3425 Mission Inn Avenue) has been housed in a 1929 building designed by Hearst Castle and AIA Gold Medal-winning architect Julia Morgan, registered on the National Register of Historic Places ,and designated a Historic Landmark by the City of Riverside. Open since June 18, 2022, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture aka “The Cheech” (3581 Mission Inn Avenue) resides in a renovated mid-century building that originally opened as the City of Riverside, California’s public library in 1964. At both, RAM integrates art into the lives of people in a way that engages, inspires, and builds community by providing high-quality exhibits and art education programs that instill a lifelong love of the arts. To learn more, visit www.riversideartmuseum.org. Follow The Cheech on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

RAM ADMISSION & PUBLIC HOURS: Admission is valid for The Cheech and Riverside Art Museum (RAM). Purchase tickets at the door or reserve online at https://riversideartmuseum.org/get-tickets. Tickets are $15.95 general; $10.95 seniors, students and educators (ID required); and free admission for museum members, children under 12, and active-duty military personnel with accompanying family members. Free admission is available during October through May on the first Sundays (1-5pm) and throughout the year on the first Thursdays (6-9pm). RAM and The Cheech are open Tuesday–Sunday 10am to 5pm (closed Monday until further notice). For updates, visit www.riversideartmuseum.org or call (951) 684-7111 for more information.

Chelle Barbour blends Afro-surrealism and afro-futurism to elevate the agency of the Black female character in her collages. Her series of collage portraits is on view at the Riverside Art Museum as part of “Colliding Visions: Contemporary California Collage” from May 18 to October 15, 2023. Learn more about Barbour’s process and how she reconstructs the “Black female character.

Want to learn more? Find more SoCal arts and culture at https://bit.ly/3AKKAbV

Renown photojournalist and curator Luis C. Garza joins Dan Guerrero on the next Happy Hour of streamed conversations. Garza has a distinguished career dating back to the early days of the Chicano movement in Los Angeles documenting that tumultuous time for “La Raza” magazine. He later captured Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in an iconic photograph during an historic meeting in Budapest during a World Peace Conference, a meeting that proved transformational for the Bronx-born Chicano. This plática is not to be missed. https://causeconnect.net/portfolio_pa…

Luis C. Garza – Photojournalist and Curator known for his work recording tumultuous social events of the 1960s and 1970s in Los Angeles and NYC.

https://www.hellomynameisdana.com/1967255/12408875

Photographer Luis C. Garza images have rarely been exhibited to the public. His works documented his East Los Angeles community during the early 1970s, his South Bronx neighborhood during the 1960s, and his 1971 travels to Budapest, Hungary for the World Peace Conference where he met Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Luis Garza was a dedicated artist and visionary who helped advance Chicano culture and activism in the 1960s and 70s through his compassionate photos. Born in 1943 in the South Bronx, he moved to Los Angeles in 1965, searching for a lifestyle more amenable to his Mexican-American heritage.

Read the entire article on artillery

June Edmonds is a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts…June is a Los Angeles based artist whose works have been describe as Vibrant, Energetic and highlights the untold experience of Black Americans.

https://podcasts.apple.com/bh/podcast/june-edmonds-american-painter-teaching-artist-and/id1631698945?i=1000583472094

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture is First Stop for Nationally Touring Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective                             

Riverside, CA (June 9, 2022) – The Riverside Art Museum is partnering with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino on a seven-month-long exhibition that explores over 30 years of artistic production by internationally acclaimed artist duo Einar and Jamex de la Torre.

Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective premieres at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, affectionately known as The Cheech, on the center’s grand opening on June 18, 2022, and will run through January 22, 2023. Guest curated by Selene Preciado, the exhibition features more than 70 mixed-media works, including blown-glass sculptures and installation art, plus some of the artists’ latest lenticulars with imagery that changes as the viewer moves from side to side.

This exhibition was made possible by a partnership between the Riverside Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino. When Collidoscope wraps up in Riverside early next year, it will embark on a national tour managed by CauseConnect. Confirmed venues to date include the Corning Museum of Glass, Crocker Art Museum, and the Art Museum of South Texas.

María Esther Fernández, who is The Cheech’s artistic director, said the de la Torre brothers are a natural fit for the center: “We are thrilled to showcase the de la Torre brothers’ innovative work and how it has come together under Selene Preciado’s thoughtful curatorial vision.” The de la Torre brothers are no strangers to The Cheech. In fact, they are the artists behind the center’s first commissioned art installation: a 26-foot-tall lenticular that stretches from the ground floor to the second story.

Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, and now living both in San Diego and Baja California, the brothers have navigated life on both sides of the border since they were young and have inherited their own unique vision of the Latinx experience and American culture. Their work is visually complex and infused with humorous elements exploring art, history, and material culture. Working with glass, resin, lenticular prints and found objects, the brothers create work inspired by Mexican folk art, popular culture, religious imagery, consumer culture, and mythology. Many elements of the exhibition, including the title and curatorial framework, try to echo the creative process of the artists, serving as an allegory of their intellectual pursuits, their technical use of materials and media, and their use of wordplay and poetic riddles.

“The title of the exhibition mirrors the artists’ use of wordplay, alluding to the kaleidoscope-like quality of their works and the collision of imagery, themes, and references that comprise their artistic language,” said guest curator Selene Preciado. “The artists use critique layered with humor as a tool to unpack the tensions and contradictions of our postcolonial transcultural identity.”

Einar de la Torre said he and his brother don’t exactly consider themselves glass artists but treat glass as one component in their three-dimensional collages. The result, he said, speaks volumes about the Latino experience in America.

“The complexities of the immigrant experience and contradicting bicultural identities, as well as our current life and practice on both sides of the border, really propel our narrative and aesthetics,” he said. “We are truly honored to showcase our work at this historically significant center for Chicano art.”

Historic indeed. The Cheech is one of the nation’s first permanent spaces dedicated to showcasing Chicano art and culture. Visitors to The Cheech will have an opportunity to view paintings, drawings, sculptures and other works by some of the most respected Chicano artists in the world, people like Carlos Almaraz, Margaret Garcia, Wayne Alaniz Healy, Judithe Hernández, Frank Romero, and Patssi Valdez. The work is gifted from Marin, a third-generation Mexican-American comedian, filmmaker, actor, and art advocate who has spent the past four decades collecting Chicano art, including work by the de la Torre brothers.

Although the physical space for the National Museum of the American Latino is still in development, Smithsonian staff are working on virtual exhibitions and programs to assist in planning and fundraising. They are opening a preview exhibition in the museum’s Molina Family Latino Gallery—located in the National Museum of American History. This first exhibition kicks off June 18—the same day as the grand opening of The Cheech—with ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States, which tells US history from the perspectives of the diverse Latinas and Latinos who lived it.

The openings of The Cheech and the Molina Family Latino Gallery are indicative of a larger movement to commemorate the culture and contributions of Latinos.

Eduardo Díaz, deputy director of the National Museum of the American Latino, said there is plenty to be excited about as two centers dedicated to Latino culture and education open on opposite ends of the nation, helping ensure that the Latino story is presented as an integral and important part of the American story.

“Collaborating with The Cheech allows us to extend the presence of the National Museum of the American Latino beyond the DC Beltway,” Díaz said. “And where better than California’s Inland Empire to emphasize the museum’s true national impact and importance?”

Tickets for opening day of June 18 are sold out, but admission for other dates to the Riverside Art Museum and The Cheech can be purchased at www.riversideartmuseum.org.

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About RAM and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture: RAM is one museum with two locations: the Riverside Art Museum and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, slated to open June 18, 2022, in downtown Riverside, the “City of Arts & Innovation”. RAM integrates art into the lives of people in a way that engages, inspires, and builds community by providing high quality exhibitions and art education programs that instill a lifelong love of the arts. RAM’s desire to further engage and serve the community was the impetus to create The Cheech, a public-private partnership between RAM, the City of Riverside, and comedian Cheech Marin—one of the world’s foremost collectors of Chicano art. Marin’s gift of approximately 500 works by Chicana/o/x artists— including the likes of Carlos Almaraz, Judithe Hernández, Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Sandy Rodriguez, Frank Romero, and Patssi Valdez—to RAM’s permanent collection makes the collection a repository for one of the largest holdings of Chicana/o/x art by a non-ethnic specific contemporary art museum. The Cheech is dedicated to showcasing Chicana/o/x art and honoring and exploring its continued social, cultural, and political impact through a comprehensive exhibitions program of the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions organized at the center, as well as nationally touring exhibitions that align with the center’s vision. The Cheech will work collaboratively with community partners to present thought-provoking educational programming that explores the complexity of Chicana/o/x culture not only through the visual arts, but in both music and film as well, recognizing that this art is evolving and expanding its definitions and parameters in response to current social conditions and in conversation with global artistic movements. For information about The Cheech, visit www.thecheechcenter.org. Find The Cheech on Facebook (www.facebook.com/thecheechcenter), Twitter (@thecheechcenter), and Instagram (@thecheechcenter).

About Cheech Marin: Cheech Marin is recognized today as a preeminent Chicano art advocate. In the mid-1980s, he began developing what is now arguably the finest private collection of Chicano art. In addition to artwork loans to numerous institutions, this notable collection has been featured in over a dozen exhibitions produced and shown at more than 50 museums in the U.S. and Europe to date, including the Smithsonian, LACMA, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Comprised of mostly paintings, followed by drawings, prints, and mixed-media artworks, sculptures and photography, his collection is the foundation of The Cheech. His goal for The Cheech for it to be THE premier center of Chicano art … locally connected, regionally based, nationally relevant, and internationally renowned. 

About the National Museum of the American Latino: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino advances the representation, understanding and appreciation of Latino history and culture in the United States. The museum provides financial resources and collaborates with other museums to expand scholarly research, public programs, digital content, collections and more. The museum’s Molina Family Latino Gallery will be the Smithsonian’s first gallery dedicated to the Latino experience. The legislation creating the National Museum of the American Latino at the Smithsonian passed Dec. 27, 2020. Connect with the museum at latino.si.edu, and follow @USLatinoMuseum on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

About the de la Torre Brothers: Collaborating artists and brothers Einar and Jamex de la Torre were born in Guadalajara, México (1963 and 1960, respectively) where they grew up until their family moved to California in 1972. They both studied at California State University at Long Beach and taught at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Currently, the brothers live and work on both sides of the border (Ensenada, Baja California, México and San Diego, California). Since the mid-1990s, the brothers have collaborated in earnest and worked together to develop their signature style of mixed-media work with blown-glass sculpture and lenticular printing. Their pieces represent a multifaceted view of life that reflects a complex and humorous aesthetic that could be seen as baroque. Influences range from religious iconography to German expressionism while also paying homage to Mexican vernacular arts and pre-Columbian art. To date they have had 18 solo museum exhibitions in six different countries, completed eight major public art projects and have participated in four biennales. Their work is represented in numerous public and private collections, including the Cheech Marin Collection and they are recipients of the USA Fellowship Award, the San Diego Art Prize, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, among other honors. The de la Torre brothers are represented by Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Seattle, Washington. To learn more, visit www.delatorrebrothers.art.

About Selene Preciado: A Los Angeles-based independent curator, Selene Preciado has worked at the Getty Foundation since 2015. Preciado’s research interests include contemporary art and post-1960s conceptualist vanguards such as feminist art and performance art, with a special focus on Latin American art and its diaspora in the United States. Past curatorial projects include “Ser todo es ser parte/To be Whole is to be Part,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2020); “Customizing Language,” the inaugural exhibition of the Emerging Curators Program at LACE, co-curated with Idurre Alonso (2016); “José Montoya’s Abundant Harvest: Works on Paper/Works on Life,” Fowler Museum at UCLA, co-curated with Richard Montoya (2016); “In Search of an Exit (or Eight Characters in a Parlor),” Heritage Square Museum, co-curated with the USC MA Class of 2015 (2015); “MIXTAPE” (2013); and “Anywhere Better than this Place” (2012) at MOLAA. Prior to her current post, she worked as a curatorial research assistant at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), in 2013–2015. She worked at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) from 2009 to 2013 as an assistant curator. From 2005 to 2008, she worked as an exhibitions assistant at Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT), as a curatorial assistant at the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA), and an exhibition coordinator for inSite_05. Preciado obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Art from the University of California, San Diego, and holds a Master of Arts in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California. Her master’s thesis examined the first years of production of feminist Mexican artist Mónica Mayer.

Cheech Collects

(Photo: Margaret Garcia, Down Figueroa St., Part of the Cheech Marin Collection)

One of the nation’s first permanent spaces dedicated to showcasing Chicano art and culture opens this June, with visitors treated to the centre’s first exhibition which weaves a story of Cheech Marin’s 40-year journey as an art collector. The exhibition features works by some of the most respected Chicana/o artists in the world, many of whom are considered pioneers, trailblazers, and even rule-breakers. It includes beautiful and complex works – some on view for the first time – designed to raise visibility for social justice issues, and help shape our popular, political, and cultural consciousness.

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside / 18 June 2022 – 18 June 2023

Cheech Marin is more than just a comedian and actor. He’s an art collector and he has his own museum opening soon right here in southern California. We talk to him about it. 

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The Riverside Art Museum and San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art are both expanding to feature more Chicano and Latin American works.

Cheech Marin can’t help but crack wise about his decades-old habit of acquiring art. “Unfortunately, it’s a mania,” he says. “It’s an addiction: My name is Cheech, and I’m an art collector.”

Improbable as it may sound, Marin, half of the iconic duo Cheech & Chong, who spun stoner shtick into comedy gold in the 1970s and ’80s, is widely considered the world’s preeminent collector of Chicano art. Thanks to his gift of roughly 500 pieces from this trove, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture—or “the Cheech”—will open its doors in Riverside, Calif., in June.

Recently, museums have pledged to diversify their holdings and programming. The Riverside Art Museum’s offer to devote an entire new branch to Marin’s cache arrived at just the right time. “I had come to the point where I started to say, ‘What am I going to do with this collection?’ ” he recalls. “There’s no more room under the bed, and the garage is full. Then this thing dropped out of the sky.”

Read the full article on Robb Report’s website.

Renowned Chicano rock group Los Lobos will headline a May 7 benefit concert for the new Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, known as “The Cheech.”

Delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chicano art museum’s grand opening in downtown Riverside is now set for June 18, officials said. It was originally to open May 8 in the renovated former library build.

Read the full article at PressEnterprise.com

Pioneering female architect Julia Morgan, best known for Hearst Castle, was born 150 years ago this month. She designed more than 700 buildings in California but just one in the Inland Empire: Riverside’s grand YWCA.

Thankfully, the 1929 building is still around, home to the Riverside Art Museum. In fact, it’s been in the hands of RAM and its predecessor, the Riverside Art Center, far longer than i …

Read the full article on PressEnterprise.

The Riverside Art Museum will present an exhibit of 27 paintings and 18 drawings to help lead to the 2022 opening of The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Arts & Culture of Riverside Art Museum.

The exhibition, called “Are You with Me?” by artist Sonya Fe, will be in the Art Alliance Gallery and is part of The Cheech@RAM series of shows leading to the new museum’s May opening.

Read the full article on Press Enterprise

The Riverside Art Museum has received a $50,000 grant for its Artist-in-Residence Program, a community-revitalization initiative led by artist and Riverside native Juan Navarro.

The museum is among 20 nonprofit groups in the nation to benefit from this year’s U.S. Bank Foundation Market Impact Fund award. The foundation’s contributions totaling $1 million aim to support those creating community.

Read the full article at Press Enterprise

“Typewriter Muse: Inspiration in Analog” includes machines on display and a special Saturday, July 10, presentation on writing

A new Riverside Art Museum exhibit celebrates the nostalgic clickety-clack of typewriters and their role in writing.

Read the full article on Press Enterprise

The Riverside Art Museum (RAM) is committed to confronting anti-Blackness and systemic racism. As we prepare to reopen the museum, we are taking a deep look at how our mission-driven work can contribute to creating a more just and equitable world; building community through the arts is a pledge we make in our mission statement. 

We have heard from community members, artists, trustees, volunteers, and staff about ways we can further this work. We are steadfast to accomplish the following:

• Reconvene our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access Task Force comprised of museum trustees, staff, and community members to hear from Black, Latino, People of Color, and other underrepresented artists, community leaders, and organizations we have worked with in the past to ask for and listen to their insights and expertise to help create actionable next steps; in recent years, this task force outlined initiatives such as our Visual Voice exhibition as part of the Association of African American Museums Conference in Riverside;
• Explore with the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California a year-long partnership to elevate the conversation about structural racism through collaborative exhibitions and programs, including working with curator Lisa Henry to bring Sheila Pree Bright’s #1960 Now exhibition to RAM in Fall 2020;
• Dive deep during our board-staff Strategic Planning and Values workshops to discuss changes that need to be made across the organization from staff and board diversity to how exhibitions are conceptualized and scheduled, to how we further equitable art education initiatives, to who we listen to regarding programming so more people in our community have a place to share their stories and experiences; and to
• Expedite the timeline for recruiting a subject-matter expert curator for The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture to help guide us in these initiatives.

On Saturday, July 4, 2020, we fully open to the public with free admission thanks to a donation from a local private foundation. This foundation in particular wants the community to see our two current exhibitions, which opened February 1, 2020, but were cut short by our mandated closure:

• Sandra Rowe | Mother Wit: For nearly fifty years, Sandra Rowe’s work has been impossible to categorize. With her unflinching views of relationships, race, and gender, she pokes and prods, asking questions that are difficult to answer and which often go unspoken aloud. Figures are often stripped of gender and race yet, somehow, more deeply embody the core of the human experience. Rowe’s long overdue retrospective, Mother Wit, explores the full range and depth of Rowe’s artistic expression.
• Brenna Youngblood | Lavender Rainbow: Riverside native Brenna Youngblood’s work explores issues of African American identity and representation and often references historically significant moments and organizations in African American history. Youngblood has been the recipient of the 2015 Seattle Art Museum Gwendolyn Knight/Jacob Lawrence Prize, the 2014 The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Englewood, FL, and the 2012 Los Angeles County Museum of Art Young Talent Award/AHAN Award.    

The Riverside Art Museum staff and board have an obligation and duty as stewards of a public-serving organization, as well as deep-seated personal reasons, to not only want to tackle anti-Blackness, structural racism, and issues around diversity, inclusion, access, and equity, but are firmly committed to doing the necessary hard, uncomfortable work to see it through.

Michelle Ouellette

RAM Board President

Drew Oberjuerge

RAM Executive Director