FREE ADMISSION – Uncaged Perspectives Opening Reception

Postponed: new dates TBA

No cost

Please join us for the opening reception of The Other Side of Memory.

No cost

The Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement Between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic

A Cultura con Llantas Event

Please join us for a discussion on the “Chicano Birth Certificate”. Dr. Carlos E. Cortés, Professor Emeritus of History at University of California, Riverside, will talk about the meaning and importance of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Protocol of Queretaro, and the annexation of Texas.

About Dr. Carlos E. Cortés

Dr. Carlos E. Cortés is a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Riverside. Since 1990 he has served on the summer faculty of the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education, while he is also on the faculties of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication and the Federal Executive Institute and has served as a Smithsonian Institution public lecturer.

A consultant to many government agencies, school systems, universities, mass media, private businesses, and other organizations, Cortés has lectured widely throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia on the implications of diversity for education, government, business, and media. 

Cortés has served as Scholar-in-Residence with Univision Communications and as Creative/Cultural Advisor for Nickelodeon’s Peabody-Award-winning children’s television series, “Dora the Explorer,” and its sequels, “Go, Diego, Go!” and “Dora and Friends: Into the City.” For his Nickelodeon contributions, he received the 2009 NAACP Image Award.

He also travels the country performing his one-person autobiographical play, A Conversation with Alana: One Boy’s Multicultural Rite of Passage. His recent books include The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity, The Making—and Remaking—of a Multiculturalist, and his memoir, Rose Hill: An Intermarriage Before Its Time. He also edited the four-volume Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia.

Cortés has received numerous honors, including honorary doctorates and awards. While at the University of California, Riverside, he received the campus’ Distinguished Teaching Award, Faculty Public Service Award, and Emeritus Professor of the Year Award. In 2016, the City of Riverside, California, established the annual Carlos E. Cortés Award for community service that fosters inclusivity and diversity.

We have reached capacity; RSVPs are now closed. First 65 to RSVP for Chicano Art Then and Now will be guaranteed seating; all RSVPs after that will be standing room only.

Latinx Issue Release Party

Thursday, March 5, 6 p.m.–9 p.m., as part of Artswalk @ RAM, No cost

Come celebrate the release of Curious Magazine’s Latinx issue. There will be a showcase of I.E. and L.A. artists and their work on our rooftop, with live music performances by Little Sister, Kiki Diago, Chips, and Barranco. Consumption Collab will be doing a Clothing Swap & Photo Op. Bring three items, take three. $3 to participate.

The Latinx issue features Pável Acevedo, Ray Napoles, Paloma Montoya, William Camargo, Michelle Muñoz, John Taveras, Sismanov Barron, Cindy Ramirez, Laurie Gonzalez, Karen Castillo, Brenda Angel, deaddogbone, Genessis Martinez, Edgar Perez Peña, Joseph Escobar, Abraham Ramirez, Gloria A, Adam Perez, Eliana Urrego, Andrea Gordillo, Sofia Diaz, Edith Jimenez, Consumption Collab, Denise Cortes, Alexis Cortez, Rosemary L’Esprit, Ivan Salinas, Omar Solorio, Michael Palmer-Cervantes, Kassandra Carrettini, Amparo Cortez Chi, Lydiane Batista, Lauren Verdugo, Jesus Romero, and more.

Latinx Identity Zine Workshop and Talk with Curious Publishing Editor-In-Chief Rebecca Ustrell

Saturday, March 7, 10:30 a.m.–noon, All Ages, RSVPs are now closed; materials included, but we encourage you to bring your own printed poems and black & white images

What is a zine? We’ll discuss the origins of the small-circulation magazines called “zines” and how to create small volumes of your own artwork, ideas, and poetry that incorporate themes of Latinx identity. Learn the basics of zine-making construction and layout using the saddle-stitch binding method.

Chicano Art Then and Now

Saturday, March 7, 1 p.m.–2 p.m., RSVPs are now closed.

In celebration of The Cheech, the first Chicano art museum in the nation, scheduled to open in Riverside in 2021, join The Arts Area for a discussion on the Chicano art movement, then and now. A panel of Chicanx artists and scholars will consider how the themes and functions of Chicano Art have evolved within this artistic community since the 1960s. What does the movement and art express for the new Chicanx generation today and what is its role in shaping new perceptions of Chicanx identity?

Jennifer Nájera
Erika Hirugami  
William Camargo
Pável Acevedo
Jessica Carrillo

*** 

These programs are a part of The Cheech @ RAM series of exhibitions and programming leading to the opening of The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry of the Riverside Art Museum in 2021. To see more programs like this at The Cheech, please consider a donation by texting CHEECH to 44321. 

Doors open at 5 p.m. for book sales. Talk begins at 6 p.m.

Click here to RSVP.

The Art Alliance of the Riverside Art Museum is pleased to invite the public to join them at their March meeting at the museum for a special community event, Justice in Plain Sight: Dan Bernstein in Conversation with Jim Ward and Mel Opotowsky, moderated by John Bender.

Bernstein’s book, Justice in Plain Sight, is the story of a hometown newspaper in Riverside, California, that set out to do its job: tell readers about shocking crimes in their own backyard. But when judges slammed the courtroom door on the public, including the press, it became impossible to tell the whole story. Pinning its hopes on business lawyer Jim Ward, whom Press-Enterprise editor Tim Hays had come to know and trust, the newspaper took two cases to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s. Hays was convinced that the public—including the press—needed to have these rights and needed to bear witness to justice because healing in the aftermath of a horrible crime could not occur without community catharsis. 

The newspaper won both cases and established First Amendment rights that significantly broadened public access to the judicial system, including the right for the public to witness jury selection and preliminary hearings.

Justice in Plain Sight is a unique story that, for the first time, details two improbable journeys to the Supreme Court in which the stakes were as high as they could possibly be (and still are): the public’s trust in its own government.

This event is free and open to the public. However, seating is limited. Please RSVP so we can have an accurate head count. Thank you!

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. Books will be available for purchase. The talk will begin at 6 p.m.

Performed with Wendy Maruyama’s E. O. 9066 Tag Project

Swirling in silk, telling true tales that triumph over despair, the Riverside Art Museum’s performing artists-in-residence, America’s first Asian Storyteller Brenda Wong Aoki and Emmy Award-winning musician/composer Mark Izu present, The People of the Tags.

The events and circumstances that led to the Japanese prison camps in the 1940s are strikingly similar to what’s happening today. Every incarcerated man, woman, and child was forced to wear a tag with a name and a number. Made of replicas of these tags, Wendy Maruyama’s hanging sculptures bear silent witness.

Brenda’s stories will give dramatic testimony to the real people behind these tags. Stories she has gathered in her 42 years as a teller in the hinterlands of America; acts of bravery and human decency that can teach us strategies for navigating the turbulence of today.

In the polyglot of cultures that is America today, our children marry each other. These beautiful rainbow children unknowingly inherit unresolved trauma. Our descendants are all children of the tags. But if you know your past, together we can change our future.

Please bring photos of people and loved ones who were incarcerated in the Japanese prison camps. By telling their story in a public forum, we can transform their shame into honor. If you are a person from the tags, show up! We will honor YOU!

“Mark Izu’s music is a great gift to the jazz tradition, to its ongoing transformation and revitalization into energetic and unpredictable new directions.”

– Downbeat Magazine

“Aoki encompasses the comic and the tragic with fine, quick, delicate gestures, using everything from her expressive hands and face to her long sweeping black hair . . . making relevant and magical even the most faraway tales.”

 – Los Angeles Times, Critic’s Choice

Since 1976 Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu have, together and separately, created multi-disciplinary work that has received national and international acclaim. They founded First Voice in 1997 with a mission to create, present, and contribute the stories and music of people living between worlds. Critical to this mission is “personal experience” or “voice” – essential to the authentic representation of the people of the United States. 

The two prominent Asian-American artists were founding faculty at the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford. First Voice was founded in 1997 to provide an organizational structure for their collaborations, which center on the creation of contemporary American art by working in and adapting non-Western theatrical, musical, and spoken word traditions. First Voice looks for symbols, parables, and shared intent between people that can be woven together to create universal understanding. 

Aoki and Izu’s work has garnered: Emmy Awards: Dramalogue Awards; Critic Circle Awards; Indie Awards; Goldies; Certificates of Merit from the California State Legislature, Mayor of San Francisco, and Board of Supervisors; and commissions from U.S. Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Japanese Department of Cultural Affairs, the Asian Arts Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Japan Friendship, Meet-the-Composer, the Gerbode Foundation, the Dramatist Guild, and the American Association of Authors, Composers, and Publishers (ASCAP).

Throughout the organization’s history, First Voice has produced, presented, toured, published, and recorded original work that incorporates Asian theatre and music (particularly Japanese Nohgaku and Gagaku) and musical and spoken word traditions into indigenous American art forms like jazz and contemporary performance art. This original work includes: symphonic works, plays, storytelling, jazz ensemble, chamber music, large-scale pageant performances with traditional and contemporary dancers, solo monodramas and live performance to silent film. First Voice collaborates not only across disciplines, but also across cultures. Full-length main-stage performances usually revolve around issues of place, home, family and survival. Collaborations include artists from Japan: Aunt Lily’s Flowerbook (2017), MU, (2013), Legend of Morning Glory (2008); Hong Kong: Kuan-Yin: Our Lady of Compassion (2002); Hawaiian treasure Keola Beamer: Ghost Festival I (2001); Basque musician: Kepa Junpera (2010); Karuk Tribal elders Julian Lang and Lyn Risling: Hibakusha (1995); musicians and storytellers from the Cherokee nation: Fire in Heaven (2003); Afro-Peruvian, Mayan, Indian, and Korean dancers: Return of the Sun (2009); classical conductor Kent Nagano, Opera Lyon, and the Berkeley Symphony: Mermaid (1997); and African-American civil rights poet & actor John O’Neal: Ballad of the Bones (1999). The work is premiered in Aoki and Izu’s home base in San Francisco and then presented internationally. www.firstvoice.org

To learn more about the residency,  visit: https://riversideartmuseum.org/events/specialevents/riverside-love-stories-artist-residence-project/

For more information on RAM’s Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066 exhibition, visit: https://riversideartmuseum.org/exhibits/wendy-maruyama-eo-9066/

Sponsored by:

• Exhibition sponsored by Bob Harris & Susan Rothermund, Burgess Moving & Storage, with special thanks to the Japanese American National Museum and the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.

• Exhibit-related programming for Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066 was made possible with support from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program at the California State Library.

A Story Gathering Workshop

The events and circumstances that led to the incarceration of close to 120,000 Japanese Americans in the 1940s are strikingly similar to what’s happening now. RAM Artists-in-Residence Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu seek to engage with the Riverside community to fill out that narrative, expand on unsung heroes and acts of courage, and discover strategies for living that can be used today.

This workshop is an intergenerational workshop culminating in a roundtable sharing of personal stories and artifacts. Participants, please bring small precious objects that have sustained you during your life. Come prepared to explain how you got them and why they’ve helped you.

The purpose of this workshop is to gather personal stories. Stories about or that resonate with the Japanese American incarceration during WWII; stories of kismet and kindness that go beyond skin color.

Some of these stories may be used to add to the impact of Wendy Maruyama’s The Tag Project and the E09066 historical narrative in the culminating site-specific performance by Aoki and composer Mark Izu on Saturday, March 17, at 1 p.m.

Instructor

Brenda Wong Aoki is trained in Noh and Kyogen, contemporary dance and voice. She continues to entrance audiences throughout the world with her intense, lyrical Japanese ghost legends and heart-warming personal stories. A playwright and performing artist, Brenda has been honored with Hollywood Dramalogue Awards, Critic Circle Awards, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, commissions from U. S. Congress, the State of California, and the City of San Francisco. Her recordings have garnered Indie awards for Best Spoken Word. She is a founding faculty member of Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts. Her grandfather was a founder of the nation’s first Japantown in 1897 in San Francisco. Brenda was raised in Long Beach and in the early 1970s played glockenspiel at football games in the Poly High School marching band. http://www.brendawongaoki.com/

For more information on Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu, visit: http://www.firstvoice.org

To learn more about the residency,  visit: https://riversideartmuseum.org/events/specialevents/riverside-love-stories-artist-residence-project/

For more information on RAM’s Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066 exhibition, visit: https://riversideartmuseum.org/exhibits/wendy-maruyama-eo-9066/

Sponsored by:

• Exhibition sponsored by Bob Harris & Susan Rothermund, Burgess Moving & Storage, with special thanks to the Japanese American National Museum and the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.
• Exhibit-related programming for Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066 was made possible with support from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program at the California State Library.

Bring the WHOLE family to celebrate all things GREEN on the second floor! Enjoy:

• Ton of art activities (make & takes, plus a giant collaborative mural to help paint) for the kids
• Learn about famous green artwork and artists
• Discover the (poisonous!) history of green pigment
• A fun selfie booth
• Wear your greenest outfit/costume for a chance to win prizes
• Storyteller Angela Lloyd will perform stories from Kazakhstan, Korea, and an eclectic mix of songs, all with a green theme! Story time begins at 3 p.m.

We’ll also have some snacks and drinks available for purchase.

It will be $10/wristband. Wristbands allow for participation in the art activities and story time on the second floor. No refunds. Proceeds benefit exhibitions, education, and programming at the Riverside Art Museum.

Click here to purchase tickets.

Learn more about the history of green pigment below:

The Riverside Art Museum Invites YOU to join Artist/Entertainer Gregory Adamson and Coyote Oaks Vineyards on a FANTASTIC VOYAGE!

It’s pARTy time! On a boat! Join artist/entertainer Gregory Adamson and owner/winemaker of Coyote Oaks Vineyards Karen Sherman on a 7-day cruise leaving from Seattle and visiting Astoria, San Francisco, and Victoria BC,while learning about wine and taking part in high-energy art “experiences” on land and sea where even novice painters will take home art pieces they’ll proudly show off!

Learn more about the cruise ship, the Explorer of the Seas, and all this exclusive RAM Art + Wine Pacific Coast Cruise has to offer from Connection to Cruise. You’ll want to book the cruise even before you leave the meeting! 

Info Meeting Date: Thursday, March 22, 6 p.m. at the 
Riverside Art Museum, 3425 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CA 92501.

Cruise Dates: September 21 – 28, 2018

Please email [email protected] or call 888-798-9133 for more information.

“The 52 Project brought together the arts, personal enrichment and community togetherness in a way that I respect and desire,” he says. “Once I saw how those could and should be connected, it fundamentally changed me. I could not help but see how all the communities that make up Riverside were interconnected and interdependent.”

The book that resulted is “100 Things to Do in Riverside Before You Die,” published by Reedy Press. It features restaurants, entertainment, events and out-of-the-way experiences.

“I wanted this to be more than just ‘Larry’s List,” he says. “I wanted it to be a community book; Riverside’s book.”

— Larry Burns, “How Riverside man came to write ‘100 Things to Do in Riverside Before You Die'”

Please join us for the book launch of 100 Things to Do in Riverside Before You Die, written by Larry Burns, whose participation in our 52 Project last year inspired him to push forward with his artistic dreams.

There will be a short reading by Larry Burns, as well as a book signing with sales on site. Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Free event.

Premier: $50 ($40 RAM Members) | General: $20

The Riverside Art Museum (RAM) proudly presents “Look Who’s Talking” | Cheech Marin, on Wednesday, March 29, 2017, from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. Cheech Marin is back in Riverside to talk about his new memoir, Cheech Is Not My Real Name: …But Don’t Call Me Chong. This ticketed “Look Who’s Talking” fundraising event and book signing is moderated by Susan Straight, novelist, National Book Award finalist andDistinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California Riverside.

Premier tickets, which include a copy of Cheech’s memoir, a drink, and a place in the signing line, are $50 ($40 for RAM Members).

A very limited number of Premier tickets are still available. Please call 951.684.7111 to purchase.

General Admission is $20. Line photo opportunities are time permitting.

General tickets will be available at the door.

All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges. Personalization and line photo opportunities are acceptable, time permitting. No memorabilia will be signed.

In Cheech Is Not My Real Name, Cheech candidly writes about being the wisecracking kid in south central Los Angeles, resisting the draft as a young adult, his chance meeting with Tommy Chong in Vancouver, and how he formed one of the most successful comedy acts of all time to ultimately break up and reunite over the years – and still tour to this day. Cheech will take you on an incredible journey with his famous storytelling. You will learn about how this son of a cop became the face of the recreational drug movement. How this potter-turned-magazine-reporter’s first assignment was to interview Little Richard. Or about the time he won Celebrity Jeopardy! Just how he came to be the owner of the most renowned Chicano art collection in the world. Or even about the night that Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, asked him to dance.

“[This memoir is a] rollicking, plot-rich personal inquiry, in which Marin attempts to answer the question he has heard like a refrain over the nearly 70 years he’s been alive, “What the hell are you?” A fascinating self-portrait and social and artistic history.”

— Booklist

“Bookended by looks at his youth growing up poor in South Central Los Angeles

and his development as a now well-known collector of Chicago art, this memoir is fun,

wacky look inside Marin’s imagination.”

— Publishers Weekly

“A mildly diverting, modestly charming memoir from a surprisingly multifaceted showbiz survivor.”

– Kirkus

This “Look Who’s Talking” lecture coincides with RAM’s current exhibition, Papel Chicano Dos: Works on Paper, from the collection of Cheech Marin, which presents 65 artworks by 24 established and early-career artists whose work demonstrates a myriad of techniques from watercolor and aquatint to pastel and mixed media.

Part of Cesar Chavez Days 2017, presented by the Latino Network

Come enjoy free birthday cake (well it lasts!) at the Chavez Memorial Statue downtown in honor of Cesar Chavez’s birthday! Our current artist-in-residence, C. Matthew Luther, will be there with the newly created Mobile Printmaking Cart for people to watch him work and even help out! Come engage in some conversation about printmaking and get hands-on experience, after eating cake, of course!

Cesar Chavez Week Membership Special!

March 23 – April 9, 2017

Become a new RAM Family level member for $68 (regular price $100) to commemorate the year artist Emanuel Martinez created the altar that Cesar Chavez broke his 25-day fast.

Family level membership gets you:

• Unlimited annual admission for up to 2 adults and 2 children
• 10% discount on all Museum Store purchases
• Discount on Youth and Adult Art classes, when offered
• And discounts or free admission to select events

Click here to become a new RAM Family level member today!

For Friend of RAM, Julia Morgan Associate, Artist Circle Advocate, and Art Alliance members only. 

What wine pairs best with cheeseburgers and a good book?

Open to Friend of RAM, Julia Morgan Associate, Artist Circle Advocate, and Art Alliance members, this FREE members event will feature an author talk and book signing by Lisa Napoli, author of Ray & Joan – The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave it All Away, along with tax tips about charitable giving.

Wine pairings with a selection of McDonald’s fare will be served.

RSVPs required. Please call 951.684.7111 as seating is limited.

Presented by the Riverside Art Museum Fund Development Committee

Book Review

“…this wonderfully moving and entertaining biography will have you thinking differently about what it means to give generously and spend lavishly.” 
—Marie Claire

“Napoli’s narrative skills are outstanding. She depicts Ray and Joan in vivid detail and with deep sympathy, something that’s especially difficult given how neither Kroc was an especially appealing person.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Journalist Lisa Napoli’s Ray & Joan is remarkable… a playful, even waggish work of biography.”
—Christian Science Monitor

“Napoli weaves together the Krocs’s personal and business dramas with considerable intelligence… [her] portrait of Joan in her final two decades, impulsively writing multimillion-dollar checks and dispatching her private jet “like a pickup truck” to run personal errands for friends, is charming and engaging.”
—Boston Globe

“Lisa Napoli shows herself to be both a storyteller and a journalist as she pulls back the curtain.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune

“Fabulous… entertaining… Ray & Joan is a moving, extremely well-written story of big business, big love, and big giving.”
—Huffington Post

Books will be available for purchase at this event.