Postmodern Modern and Contemporary Art

¶ … reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles," Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA will initiate dialogue about the role of Chicano/a culture in the arts of Southern California throughout the past several generations. The J. Paul Getty partners with dozens of other California art institutions, galleries, and museums to develop the collection, which will not be limited to visual art but which will also include dance, music, and performance art.

However, the Getty has already held two previous Pacific Standard Time events, the first of which received more than twice the amount of funding than this edition focusing on Chicano/a art. Although the LA/LA exhibition is welcome, it is also long past due and its secondary status symbolically reflects the role of Chicano/a artists within the Southern California canon, as well as the status and perception of Chicano/a culture in general.

The current exhibitions and permanent collections at the Getty center do not reflect general interest in Chicano/a art and no Chicano/a artists are featured. In spite of this fact, the social and political ethos that has consistently characterized the arts of Latin America find their parallels in the Modernist pieces on display at the Getty. One example is French artist Jean-Francois Millet's "Man with a Hoe," which depicts the titular, nameless character as a man clearly beaten down by an exploitative labor system.

As smoke rises in the distance, the man leans his body weight on his hoe and appears about to collapse from exhaustion. The color palette is dull and earthy, reflective of the agricultural industries and results of thankless labor. Although countless Latin American artists, particularly muralists like Diego Rivera, had systematically set out to convey similar messages about labor exploitation in their work, the Getty lacks in its collection due homage to the contributions of art south of the border.

Vargas warns against stereotyping "Chican@" art as being solely consumed by political and social protest, but political themes have been irrepressibly integral to the corpus of Chicano arts.

Somewhat of an exception to the general rule appears in the Getty's photography collection, which houses a few samples of work by Latin American artists, yet many are not on display and must be viewed on the museum's website such as Manuel Alvarez Bravo's "The Good Reputation, Sleeping." Taken originally in 1938 and printed in the early 1970s, the image stands on the cusp of modern and postmodern eras, and it contains all the analogical symbolism of the latter with some of the more straightforward sensibilities of the former.

Modernists dealt directly with the potency of sexuality and the sexual response, leading to problems such as censorship and censure (Butler, Modernism). In "The Good Reputation, Sleeping," the viewer immediately discerns the modernist conflicts between sexually liberated women and the rigid social norms that confine them, which are symbolized by the confining undergarments and particularly by the cactus prickles next to the woman's body.

The cactus symbolize barbed wire fencing or other such restrictive imprisonments, and yet because the woman is simply lying and sleeping, she is technically free to get up and leave at any time. Thus, Bravo engages in a discourse about power, a core feature of the shift from modernism to postmodernism (Butler, Postmodernism).

More decisively modernist in its approach to power structures, class, and gender in society is Hector Garcia's photograph "Islate de Injusticia en la gran Ciudad de Mexico," in which a young girl who sleeps on the street stares directly at the viewer. Here, the photographer depicts poverty in all its realism, much as Millet achieves in his painting of the man with the hoe. Instead of postmodern meta-analysis, both Garcia and Millet simply present the raw imagery of class conflict.

Postmodernists like Bravo add extra symbolic dimensions, drawing attention to the links between race, class, gender, and power worldwide. It is important to note that Bravo and Garcia are not Chicano artists; they are Mexican but they do not represent the bi-cultural discourse represented by Chicano culture in Los Angeles. Ostensibly Pacific Standard Time LA/LA will rectify the lack of Chicano/a art in the Getty's general collection.

The Getty's ignorance of Chicano contributions to the arts and to the social and political zeitgeist of Los Angeles has roots in broader patterns of discrimination. As Gaspar de Alba points out, Anglo-American culture has presumed hegemony and exhibits "blatant ethnocentrism," (digital copy, no page). Chicano/a art has been instrumental in shaping the cultural landscape of the state of California, which is why the omission in the Getty comes across as being overtly biased.

Modernist Chicano/a art might have been more concerned with social and political protest, but postmodern contemporary work reflects the diversity and entrenchment of the community in California. Second, third, and even fourth-generation Chicanos continue to shape the arts and remind viewers to challenge the presumptions of Anglo hegemony in Los Angeles. Outside the confines of the J.P. Getty center, one can find numerous examples of Chicano/a art throughout the city. Murals are particularly emblematic of the Chicano community, and can be viewed throughout the city.

"The Great Wall of Los Angeles" and "America Tropical" are two of the most notable public art pieces by Chicano artists showcasing the classic postmodern sensibility that fuses "high" and "low" art forms: something the Getty has failed to do with its regular collection and which the institution hopes to compensate for with the ambitious Pacific Standard Time LA/LA exhibition. Central to postmodern discourse is an "attack on authority and reliability," as well as "general loss of confidence within Western democratic culture," (Butler Postmodernism, 110).

The refusal to conform to traditional, modernist hierarchies in the art world makes way for vibrant and effective street art in urban cores like that of Los Angeles. In place of the authoritative assertions on what qualifies as "fine art" worthy of inclusion in a moneyed and socially elite institution like the Getty, Chicano/a artists rely on postmodern principles like multiculturalism, pluralism, and relativism (Butler Postmodernism, 120).

There is social critique in a classical, modern sense in Chicano/a street art but there is also an ironic sense of humor, placing a large proportion of the city's Chicano/a art on the razor's edge between modernism and postmodernism. The great irony of placing public art like murals at the forefront of cultural expression is embodied by a central postmodern principle: the panopticon and all it represents in terms of social engineering, social management, and surveillance. Traditional power structures and.