A vibrant and socially relevant exhibition has arrived at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. The traveling show from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., consists of 119 artworks by some 74 artists of Mexican descent and “allied artists active in Chicanx networks,” according to a museum description.
Like other activists in the 1960s, Chicano artists became involved in movements of the time — among them civil rights, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ causes. Their aesthetic expressions in artwork, particularly printmaking, developed along with a broadening cultural and political consciousness as Mexican Americans. “More than reflect the need for social change,” explains the museum, “the works in this exhibition revise and celebrate notions of Chicanx identity.”
A current and very noisy political faction seems bent on erasing the experiences and contributions of nonwhite Americans from the nation’s history. The Hood Museum has pointedly adopted an opposite approach in recent years. Bringing this exhibition, notes Hood curator Michael Hartman, “reflects our dedication to telling a broader, more diverse and inclusive history of American art.”
Screen prints dominate the artworks in the collection, but “¡Printing the Revolution!” also includes installation, digital and augmented-reality formats. And though the works foreground social issues, they get their messages across in a variety of lively visual modes — including satire, pop art, appropriation and portraiture — and printmaking techniques. In short, this is American art history.
“¡Printing the Revolution!” is on view through June 11. A reception is Thursday, February 16, 6:15 to 7:15 p.m.
This article appears in The Love & Marriage Issue 2023.
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