Los Four / Murals of Aztlan (excerpt)

Volume 1
Early Chicano Art Documentaries

Los Four. Documents the first exhibition of Chicano artists held at a major art museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in 1974. Los Four (1973-1983) was an influential Chicano art collective that included Carlos Almaraz, Gilbert Magu Sanchez Lujan, Roberto de la Rocha, and Frank Romero. The documentary captures the group's debates over art, politics, and community, while it also reveals their experimentation with spray-can techniques, found object, and installation art as well as their self-conscious efforts to develop Chicano icons.

1974. 16mm. Color. 22:55.

Murals of Aztlán: The Street Painters of East Los Angeles. Documents the exhibition Murals of Aztlán: The Street Painters of East Los Angeles at the Craft and Folk Art Museum of Los Angeles in 1981. The exhibition featured portable murals in the gallery space painted by some of the leading Chicano and Chicana artists: Carlos Almaraz, Gronk, Judithe Hernandez, Willie Herron, Frank Romero, John Valadez, and the East Los Streetscapers (David Rivas Botello, Wayne Alaniz Healy, and George Yepes).

1981. 16mm. Color. 22:55.

James Tartan is a veteran filmmaker who played a pivotal role in documenting Chicano Los Angeles and also training early Chicano filmmakers in the 1970s.

Recently shown in the "Heritage Spectrum" exhibit at Indiania University.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Chicano Art
• Muralists
• Muralism
• Los Angels
• East Los Angeles
• Los Four
• Aztlan

[threeby8887]

@Tiburon87uno Not always. Shortly after this film was made, Beto left the group when fortune did not follow fame for Los Four. He then undertook a forty-day fast which led to physical and emotional health problems. For many years he locked himself in a darkened house and just read the Bible all day (nothing wrong with the latter BTW). He even destroyed all of his artworks, mistakenly believing that all art is of the Devil. It was nearly 20 years before he recovered and returned to art.

[threeby8887]

Carlos Almaraz and Gilbert Lujan, R.I.P.

[Tiburon87uno]

Beto de la rocha is zack de la rochas dad from Rage Against The Machine. It must have been real cool growing up with a dad like that for zack.

[bhedy]

los four,