Sunday, November 14
11:00 a.m

Join the Museum’s Latin American Arts Council (LAAC) on a field trip to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach for an in-depth, guided tour of Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, a Retrospective, led by LAAC board member Alessandra Moctezuma. We will meet at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 14 at the entrance to the Museum of Latin American Art (628 Alamitos Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90802).

Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, a Retrospective is the first comprehensive retrospective of the work of the internationally renowned Chicana muralist, public intellectual, and community activist, Judy Baca. Baca has been engaged in the creation of sites of public memory within historically disenfranchised communities since 1976. In mid-1970s Los Angeles, the art of “contestation” and place-making was already finding voice in Baca’s work. She pioneered a collaborative model that enabled young people to weave “hidden” histories of their underrepresented communities into monumental public artworks. These murals celebrated people’s contributions and articulated their stories and struggles. For the disenfranchised in California, and in the larger US, Baca’s works became epic narratives, connecting youth with their diverse heritage and creating new “sites of public memory.”

The exhibition is divided thematically into three sections that present different aspects of Baca’s artistic production. Gallery A is the Womanist Gallery, wherein we see female power presented. This gallery delves with greater insight into Baca’s more intimate history, and her very personal explorations of feminism, gender, and body politics. Gallery B will feature a Baca Public Art Survey, exploring her pivotal and career-defining work through the Social and Public Arts Resource Center, an organization she founded in 1976. In Gallery C, visitors will discover the history of Baca’s first masterpiece, the Great Wall of Los Angeles. This half-mile-long mural occupies the Tujunga Wash in the San Fernando Valley. The mural tells the story of California from prehistoric times to the 1950s and takes special care in presenting the lesser-known histories of the ethnic groups who inhabit this state. To understand the immensity of this project, viewers are invited to participate in an immersive audiovisual experience of the monumental piece.

Reserve your spot by clicking on this link.

Sponsored by the Latin American Arts Council.

Featured: Photograph of the exhibition Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra at MOLAA (2021). Judith F. Baca’s CARECEN: Migration of the Golden People mural (2003/2021) and Pancho Trinity, (1993), in foreground. Photo Credit: Pete Galindo, SPARC Great Wall Institute Director. Photo courtesy of Pete Galindo.