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Giving Tuesday – Donate today!
December 3 @ 8:00 AM – 11:30 PM
Give today! Donate to the Riverside Art Museum and The Cheech to uplift diverse artistic and cultural voices!
Donations will be matched up to $5,000 through 11:59pm December 3rd – Giving Tuesday! Your support today will make possible exhibitions, programs, and events for all ages that uphold artistic expression and increase empathy and understanding.
This past year so far, we have welcomed 92,300 people from across the region, state and nation, to The Cheech and the Riverside Art Museum at the historic Julia Morgan building (we are on track to reach 100,000 by year’s end!). These participants viewed exhibitions, took guided tours, learned through art classes, or participated in one of our free Arts Walk or Summer Sundays events. In addition, our arts education team brought our Art-to-Go program to 30,000 K-8 students throughout the Inland Empire.
And the Art Alliance’s Riverside Art Market welcomed 3,000 visitors and 100 artisan vendors. Between both sites, twenty-one exhibitions have featured 871 objects by 232 artists with the goal of amplifying local, Chicana/o/x, and marginalized voices and upholding artistic expression that increases empathy and understanding.
The first $5,000 in donations received now through December 3rd will be matched dollar for dollar by a donation from Deena Imamura and Adam Guzkowski, RAM Trustee, essentially doubling your impact!
From our Executive Director, Drew Oberjuerge
In 2024, RAM worked to fulfill our mission to “uplift diverse artistic and cultural voices, cultivate inclusive exhibitions, collections, and educational programming, engage in transformative conversations, and foster strong community connections.” So far in 2024 we have welcomed 92,300 people from across the region, state and nation to The Cheech and the Riverside Art Museum at the historic Julia Morgan building—putting us on track to reach 100,000 by year’s end. These participants viewed exhibitions, took guided tours, learned through art classes, or participated in one of our free Artswalk or Summer Sundays events. In addition, our arts education team brought our Art-to-Go program to 30,000 K-8 students throughout the Inland Empire, and the Art Alliance’s Riverside Art Market welcomed 3,000 visitors and 100 artisan vendors.
Between both sites, twenty-one exhibitions have featured 871 objects by 232 artists. With these exhibitions our goal is to amplify local, Chicana/o/x, and marginalized voices and uphold artistic expression that increases empathy and understanding. The critically-acclaimed exhibition Judithe Hernandez: Beyond Myself, Somewhere, I wait for My Arrival, curated by The Cheech Artistic Director Maria Esther Fernandez, features an accompanying catalogue which—we are excited to announce—will be in La Tiendita in early December. (Pre-orders are available). Publishing these exhibition catalogues including Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers RetroPerspective is key to continuing to establish Chicano Art in the American Art canon, ensuring that scholars and students across the nation have access to scholarly articles that uplift the contributions of these artists.
Exhibitions originating at The Cheech continue to tour nation-wide. Collidoscope in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino closes at the Corning Museum of Glass this early January and will open at the Crocker Art Museum this February, then at the Mint Museum in June. Stay tuned for the announcement of two more venues. Additionally, Judithe Hernandez: Beyond Myself, Somewhere, I wait for My Arrival will open at the El Paso Museum of Art this winter.
Earlier in the year we were proud to exhibit the work of Riverside-raised, New York-based Rico Gatson curated by Lisa Henry. Another exhibition, Sacred Spaces: The Work and Collection of Charles Bibbs, presented the work of prolific Riverside-based artist Charles Bibbs, whose work is collected across the nation. We are proud to be part of LACMA’s Art Bridges program, debuting their Before You Now exhibition in April. And this year we focused on our historic Julia Morgan building with an exhibition about the history of the building—which featured newly commissioned photography by Sofia Valiente as well as preservation plans.
Accessibility to our sites is critically important to us, and we are grateful to the Art Bridges Foundation for being a part of their Access for All initiatives. This allowed us to provide free
access to visitors on Sundays from June 2, 2024 to September 1, 2024. Almost 10,000 people participated in this free admission program! We are fortunate to be part of this program for two more years, so stay tuned for more info.
A new sculpture, Meet Me at The Cheech by artist Ignacio Gomez, ensures Cheech Marin will meet the public at The Cheech for years to come. With open arms, the sculpture of Cheech warmly welcomes visitors to see Chicano art, Cheech having championed its inclusion in museums for decades. Cheech says, “This statue is not just a reflection of my work, but of the incredible power of Chicano art to tell stories, challenge narratives, and bring us together.”
We continue to receive media attention with nearly 200 media stories. Notably, PBS Artbound’s documentary The Cheech gives insight into Cheech’s journey to “bring Chicano art to the mainstream art world.” A forthcoming Craft in America documentary on collectors, again through PBS, screens this December. Catch a preview here!
Your support will help make possible the following exhibitions plus many more:
· Joel Sternfeld: On This Site at Riverside Art Museum, January 25, 2025–July 6, 2025.On This Site presents a timely and critical examination of landscape photography as a medium for exploring complex societal issues moving beyond aesthetic representation to engage with place as repositories of memory, sites of traumatic history, and witnesses to American violence. The exhibition is curated by Lisa Henry.
· Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory at The Cheech, March 1, 2025–August 3, 2025. This exhibition is the first major retrospective to explore the historically significant work and career of Amalia Mesa-Bains, a pioneering Chicana artist, curator, and theorist. The exhibition is co-curated by María Esther Fernández, Artistic Director, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, and Laura E. Pérez, PhD, Professor of Chicanx, Latinx and Ethnic Studies and Chair of the Latinx Research Center, UC Berkeley.
· 2025 Members Show at the Riverside Art Museum, April 12, 2025–October 5, 2025. The exhibition will showcase outstanding examples of contemporary drawing, printmaking, collage and 2D works on paper created between 2020 and 2024. We are particularly interested in artworks that explore themes, imagery or perspectives connected to the Inland Empire—its cities, landscapes, communities and, if applicable, the experiences of those living and working here. The exhibition is co-curated by Lisa Henry and Denise Kraemer.
Thank you for supporting us in our journey. Individual giving remains the critical backbone of philanthropy. By choosing us, you choose a world where free expression is valued, and artists critically engage in pressing issues impacting us.
