LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA, USA, July 15, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- With much anticipation, the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) re-opens its doors for the first time since the pandemic to present Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, a Retrospective, the first comprehensive retrospective of the work of this internationally renowned Chicana painter and muralist, public intellectual, community activist, monument builder, and scholar.

This exhibition will be the highlight of MOLAA’s reopening on Wednesday, July 14, 2021, and will include a 9,880-sq.-ft. exhibition, a publication, and a robust and enriching public programming schedule.

CEO & President of MOLAA Dr. Lourdes Ramos said, “Through this exhibition MOLAA will celebrate Baca's outstanding lifework and contribution to the Latino community, presenting more than 110 of her artworks in three of our galleries.”

The exhibition is divided thematically into three sections that present different aspects of Baca’s artistic production.
In Gallery A, visitors will find WOMANIST GALLERY, female power represented, which will be focused on the ‘Womanist’ artworks in a variety of media—drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, and photography—created throughout her long career. It also includes more intimate works, many never before seen, gathered from her daily personal journals.

PUBLIC ART SURVEY from painted murals to digital works, located at Gallery B, introduces visitors to the breadth of projects spearheaded by Judy through the Social and Public Arts Resource Center (SPARC), an organization she founded in 1976. Featured pieces include the World Wall collaboration with international artists; renderings and reproductions from the Guadalupe murals; canvases from the César Chavez monument at San Jose State University (2008); La Memoria De Nuestra Tierra: Colorado (The Memory of Our Land) at the Denver International Airport (2000) and the earlier USC version; CARECEN digital mural.

In the Great Wall of Los Angeles gallery, (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. To understand the immensity of this project, the viewers are invited to participate in an immersive audiovisual experience of the monumental piece.

Baca reflects on her work, saying, "Of greatest interest to me is the invention of systems of "voice giving" for those left without public venues in which to speak. Socially responsible artists from marginalized communities have a particular responsibility to articulate the conditions of their people and to provide catalysts for change, since perceptions of us as individuals are tied to the conditions of our communities in a racially unsophisticated society. We cannot escape that responsibility even when we choose to try; we are made of the "blood and dust" of our ancestors in a continuing history. Being a catalyst for change will change us also.”

“We are honored and overjoyed to receive the support of the California Humanities and its Humanities for All Project Grant, the support of the Miller Foundation, Bank of America, National Endowment for the Arts, Pasadena Art Alliance, and the Employee Community Fund of Boeing, which will make possible a compelling retrospective of renowned artist and activist Judy Baca,” said Ramos, who added that the research leading to this exhibition has been underway for the past three years.

Although Baca has been included in major national group exhibitions as well as many acclaimed solo exhibitions, Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, will be the first to examine the artist's prolific career over a 40-plus–year arc, highlighting both public art initiatives and more personal works.

The exhibition includes more than 20 public programs and MOLAA's bilingual core K-12 education initiative, APRENDE (LEARN), that will reinforce the artist's important place in, and continuing impact on, the Chicano arts movement and contemporary Latin American diasporic art. Visitors with special needs will benefit from labeling and narration adaptations, closed caption video, hands-on tours and materials for the visually impaired, and wheelchair accessibility.

Judy Baca: Memorias de Nuestra Tierra, a Retrospective will be open to the public beginning Wednesday, July 14. MOLAA’s opening hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. To get up-to-date information on the days and hours of operation and for the option of purchasing tickets online in advance visit www.molaa.org.

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About Judy Baca
Baca founded the first City of Los Angeles Mural Program in 1974, which evolved into a community arts organization known as the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) which has been creating sites of public memory since 1976. She continues to serve as its artistic director and focuses her creative energy in the UCLA@SPARC Digital/Mural Lab, employing digital technology to create social justice art.

Baca, has been teaching art in the UC system since 1984, and her public arts initiatives reflect the lives and concerns of populations that have been historically disenfranchised, including women, the working poor, youth, the elderly, LGBT and immigrant communities. Throughout Los Angeles and increasingly in national and international venues, Baca’s projects have often been created in impoverished neighborhoods that have been revitalized and energized by the attention these works have brought and the excitement they have generated.

About the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)
The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) was founded in 1996 in Long Beach, California and serves the Greater Los Angeles area. MOLAA is the only museum in the United States dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American and Latin art.

MOLAA expands the knowledge and appreciation of modern and contemporary Latin American and Latin art through its collection, innovative exhibitions, stimulating educational programs and engaging cultural events.

MOLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Avenue, Long Beach, CA. For more information call 562.437.1689 or write to info@molaa.org

Solimar Salas
Museum of Latin American Art
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