Gilbert Luján
Encyclopedia
Gilbert "Magú" Luján was a well known and influential Chicano
sculptor
, mural
ist and painter
. He founded the famous Chicano
collective Los Four
that consisted of artists Carlos Almaraz
, Beto de la Rocha
(Father of former Rage Against the Machine
frontman Zack de la Rocha
), Frank Romero and himself. In 1974, Judithe Hernández
became the "fifth" and only female member of Los Four.
Luján was born in French Camp, California
, near Stockton
, to parents of Mexican
and indigenous ancestry
from West Texas. Six months later, his family relocated to East Los Angeles, California
, where he spent his childhood and adolescence, except for some time in Guadalajara
in 1944 or 1945. As a young teenager, Luján was heavily influenced by the Afro-American music scene in Los Angeles, for instance listening to Johnny Ace
, Spade Cooley
, and Mary Wells
. He went to El Monte High School
, class of 1958.
After serving in the Air Force
, Luján returned home from three years in England in 1962 and began to attend college, first at East Los Angeles College
, then to California State University, Long Beach
, where he earned his B.A. in Ceramic Sculpture in 1969 and then to University of California, Irvine
, where he earned an M.F.A. in Sculpture in 1973. By this time East L.A. had become a hotbed of socio-political and cultural activity, as the Chicano Movement
became a turbulent and exciting social force in the communities the U.S. Southwest. At this time Luján began to organize art exhibits and artists' conferences to establish Chicano Art as a valid form of artistic axpression. The first of these was held at Camp Hess-Kramer, which was, according to Luján, "a Jewish camp that allowed Mexican-Americans to meet there to talk about educational disparities that we had in East L.A." In 1969, Luján curated a Chicano art show at Cal State Long Beach, and during the show's run, met with various artists associated with East LA art journal Con Safos. Luján was invited to become art director of Con Safos, and through this work, he met with three other like-minded Chicano artists and formed Los Four in the Fall of 1973 at the University of California, Irvine. In 1973, Los Four had their premiere exhibition at UC Irvine. In 1974, Los Four exhibited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
's first-ever Chicano Art show, appropriately called "Los Four." This was quickly followed by several other exhibitions on the west coast. Los Four did for Chicano visual art what ASCO
had done for Chicano performance art; that is, it helped establish the themes, esthetic and vocabulary of the nascent movement. "Magú", the name by which Luján is most known says of that time:
From 1976-1980, Luján taught at the La Raza Studies Department at Fresno City College
becoming department chair 1980. Since then, Luján has worked full-time on his artwork, devoted to developing his aesthetic. During the years of 1999-2007, Magú held his art studio operations at the Pomona Art Colony in downtown Pomona, CA, helping to garner appreciation and support of the arts in the city and surrounding communities. During 2005, he took on a position as art professor at Pomona College
, one of the seven prestigious Claremont Colleges
.
In 1990 Magú was commissioned as a design principal for the Hollywood & Vine station on the Metro Rail Red Line (Hollywood/Vine (LACMTA station)
) in Los Angeles, California . By 1999 Magú completed a series of wall tiles and platform sculptural benches in the form of lowrider
automobiles. He chose the theme song, "Hooray for Hollywood", as the signature tune for the Hollywood & Vine Metro station. A design rudder established was 'light,' which Lujan considered another central motif in Hollywood, from the light that passed through film projectors to the sunny streets of Southern California to the creation of celebrity "Stars." The Yellow Brick Road, which was built to run from the plaza (which is currently being demolished to build a high-rise with chain restaurants and businesses) to the train platform, is a prominent motif taken from the 1939 classic movie “The Wizard of Oz,“ a movie which was an inspiration to Luján's work.
Magú's artwork became famous in its own right throughout the 1980s and 1990s as it used colorful imagery, anthropomorphic animals, depictions of outrageously proportioned lowrider cars, festooned with indigenous/urban motifs juxtaposed , graffiti
, Dia De Los Muertos installation altars and all sorts of borrowings from pop-culture. Magú states:
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Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
ist and painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. He founded the famous Chicano
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
collective Los Four
Los Four
Los Four was a Chicano artist collective during the 1970s and early 1980s in Los Angeles, California. The group was instrumental in bringing Chicano Art to the attention of the mainstream art world.-Brief history and significance:...
that consisted of artists Carlos Almaraz
Carlos Almaraz
Carlos Almaraz was a Mexican-American artist and an early proponent of the Chicano street arts movement.-Childhood and education:...
, Beto de la Rocha
Roberto de la Rocha
Roberto "Beto" de la Rocha is an American painter, graphic artist, and muralist. He was born in Wilmar, California to Mexican American parents. However, according to Carlos Almaraz, he claimed to be a Hasidic Jew from a Spanish Jewish family...
(Father of former Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group's line-up consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello and drummer Brad Wilk...
frontman Zack de la Rocha
Zack de la Rocha
Zacarías Manuel "Zack" de la Rocha is an American rapper, musician, poet, and activist best known as the vocalist and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine.-Early life and childhood:...
), Frank Romero and himself. In 1974, Judithe Hernández
Judithe Hernández
Judithe Hernández is a Chicana artist and a founding member of the Chicano Art/Los Angeles Mural movements. She first received acclaim in the 1970s as a muralist...
became the "fifth" and only female member of Los Four.
Luján was born in French Camp, California
French Camp, California
French Camp is a census-designated place in San Joaquin County, California, United States. The population was 3,376 at the 2010 census, down from 4,109 at the 2000 census. San Joaquin General Hospital is located in French Camp....
, near Stockton
Stockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
, to parents of Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
and indigenous ancestry
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
from West Texas. Six months later, his family relocated to East Los Angeles, California
East Los Angeles, California
East Los Angeles is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
, where he spent his childhood and adolescence, except for some time in Guadalajara
Guadalajara
Guadalajara may refer to:In Mexico:*Guadalajara, Jalisco, the capital of the state of Jalisco and second largest city in Mexico**Guadalajara Metropolitan Area*University of Guadalajara, a public university in Guadalajara, Jalisco...
in 1944 or 1945. As a young teenager, Luján was heavily influenced by the Afro-American music scene in Los Angeles, for instance listening to Johnny Ace
Johnny Ace
Johnny Ace , born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, was an American rhythm and blues singer. He scored a string of hit singles in the mid-1950s before dying of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound....
, Spade Cooley
Spade Cooley
Donnell Clyde Cooley , better known as Spade Cooley, was an American Western swing musician, big band leader, actor, and television personality...
, and Mary Wells
Mary Wells
Mary Esther Wells was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s...
. He went to El Monte High School
El Monte High School
El Monte High School, located in El Monte, California, is a high school of the El Monte Union High School District. It is one of the oldest high schools in the San Gabriel Valley. Founded in 1901, it began operation in a single, upstairs classroom in the old Lexington Avenue Grammar School, with an...
, class of 1958.
After serving in the Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
, Luján returned home from three years in England in 1962 and began to attend college, first at East Los Angeles College
East Los Angeles College
East Los Angeles College is a community college of the Los Angeles Community College District in the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park. Fourteen communities comprise its primary service area...
, then to California State University, Long Beach
California State University, Long Beach
California State University, Long Beach is the second largest campus of the California State University system and the third largest university in the state of California by enrollment...
, where he earned his B.A. in Ceramic Sculpture in 1969 and then to University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, where he earned an M.F.A. in Sculpture in 1973. By this time East L.A. had become a hotbed of socio-political and cultural activity, as the Chicano Movement
Chicano Movement
The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, also known as El Movimiento, is an extension of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement which began in the 1940s with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment.-Origins:The Chicano Movement...
became a turbulent and exciting social force in the communities the U.S. Southwest. At this time Luján began to organize art exhibits and artists' conferences to establish Chicano Art as a valid form of artistic axpression. The first of these was held at Camp Hess-Kramer, which was, according to Luján, "a Jewish camp that allowed Mexican-Americans to meet there to talk about educational disparities that we had in East L.A." In 1969, Luján curated a Chicano art show at Cal State Long Beach, and during the show's run, met with various artists associated with East LA art journal Con Safos. Luján was invited to become art director of Con Safos, and through this work, he met with three other like-minded Chicano artists and formed Los Four in the Fall of 1973 at the University of California, Irvine. In 1973, Los Four had their premiere exhibition at UC Irvine. In 1974, Los Four exhibited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
's first-ever Chicano Art show, appropriately called "Los Four." This was quickly followed by several other exhibitions on the west coast. Los Four did for Chicano visual art what ASCO
Ascó
Ascó is a large village in the comarca of Ribera d'Ebre, Catalonia, Spain, on the right bank of the Ebre river. The village of Ascó is known for its nuclear power station, and for excellent fishing in the river....
had done for Chicano performance art; that is, it helped establish the themes, esthetic and vocabulary of the nascent movement. "Magú", the name by which Luján is most known says of that time:
- The significance of Los Four mirrored the socio-political introspection and concerns of Raza at that time besides providing some iconographic vocabulary to initiate definitions of our ethno-art forms. Our Los Four Xicano contingency ran against some Euro-aesthetic standards of the period. We, as pictorial artists, gave a visual voice to those interests of parity for our young artist constituency-culture. It was a form of cooperation binding us by our sociological circumstance, indigenous paradigms and our adopted response to unify ourselves along political cultural oriented purposes, in lieu of solely aesthetical ones.
From 1976-1980, Luján taught at the La Raza Studies Department at Fresno City College
Fresno City College
Fresno City College is a community college in Fresno, California. Established in 1910, it was the first community college in California and the second in the nation...
becoming department chair 1980. Since then, Luján has worked full-time on his artwork, devoted to developing his aesthetic. During the years of 1999-2007, Magú held his art studio operations at the Pomona Art Colony in downtown Pomona, CA, helping to garner appreciation and support of the arts in the city and surrounding communities. During 2005, he took on a position as art professor at Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
, one of the seven prestigious Claremont Colleges
Claremont Colleges
The Claremont Colleges are a prestigious American consortium of five undergraduate and two graduate schools of higher education located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...
.
In 1990 Magú was commissioned as a design principal for the Hollywood & Vine station on the Metro Rail Red Line (Hollywood/Vine (LACMTA station)
Hollywood/Vine (LACMTA Station)
Hollywood/Vine is a subway station on the Red Line of the Los Angeles Metro in Hollywood, Los Angeles.-Location:As the name implies, Hollywood/Vine station lies below the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. The central station of the three subway stops in Hollywood, it is within...
) in Los Angeles, California . By 1999 Magú completed a series of wall tiles and platform sculptural benches in the form of lowrider
Lowrider
]A lowrider is a style of car originated by Chicano communities that sits lower to the ground than most other cars. Many lowriders have their suspension systems modified so that their ride can change height at the flip of a switch...
automobiles. He chose the theme song, "Hooray for Hollywood", as the signature tune for the Hollywood & Vine Metro station. A design rudder established was 'light,' which Lujan considered another central motif in Hollywood, from the light that passed through film projectors to the sunny streets of Southern California to the creation of celebrity "Stars." The Yellow Brick Road, which was built to run from the plaza (which is currently being demolished to build a high-rise with chain restaurants and businesses) to the train platform, is a prominent motif taken from the 1939 classic movie “The Wizard of Oz,“ a movie which was an inspiration to Luján's work.
Magú's artwork became famous in its own right throughout the 1980s and 1990s as it used colorful imagery, anthropomorphic animals, depictions of outrageously proportioned lowrider cars, festooned with indigenous/urban motifs juxtaposed , graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
, Dia De Los Muertos installation altars and all sorts of borrowings from pop-culture. Magú states:
- "My art intentions, over the years, have been to use Mesoamerican heritage as well as implementing current popular Art and cultural folk sources as the content substance to make Chicanarte."
Installations and exhibitions
- Hollywood/Vine (Los Angeles Metro station)
- Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles County Museum of ArtThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
- Corcoran Gallery of ArtCorcoran Gallery of ArtThe Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
- University of California, IrvineUniversity of California, IrvineThe University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
- Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn MuseumThe Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Guadalupe Center for the Arts
- Centro de la Raza, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
- "Inaugural Museum Show" at the El Paso Art Museum, El Paso, Texas
- "Le Demon des Anges", a European Art Tour, with 16 Chicano Artists in Nante & Leon, France; Barcelona, Spain; and in Sweden
- "Caliente y Picante" an HBOHome Box OfficeHBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
Art Special
External links
- Images of Luján's work on Hollywood & Vine metro station:
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