Photos from Hollywood Entertainment News "Las
perspectivas de Hollywood," an exhibit at the Hollywood
Entertainment Museum, opened yesterday.
By Siddarth Puri
Daily Bruin Contributor
Latino artists are breaking through the silk screen and
exhibiting their perspectives on their community and how society
perceives Latinos.
The Hollywood Entertainment Museum’s new exhibit,
“Las Perspectivas de Hollywood: Contemporary Latino
Printmaking,” opens Feb. 21 and offers an exploration of
Hollywood and its icons through the eyes of 20 different local
Latino artists.
“The exhibit aims to reflect issues of diversity in our
community. It brings together artists that have produced images
that force the viewer to think about how Hollywood has stereotyped
the Latino community and to think about deconstructing that
stereotype,” said Jan-Christopher Horak, curator of the
exhibit.
“Las Perspectivas de Hollywood” intends to examine
American cinema’s influence on the history of Latino imagery
in motion pictures, including interpretations of Latino images
still missing from the screen. The exhibit focuses on the numerous
talents found in the art of the Los Angeles Latino community and
shows how these artists react to Hollywood’s portrayal of
their cultural heritage and people.
Self-Help Graphics and Art, an East Los Angeles based visual
arts center, started the project a year ago and continues to stay
involved in its progress. Striving to help the Latino community by
promoting the artwork of local Latino artists, the Self-Help
Graphics and Art is a non-profit organization that helps to endorse
the contributions of Latino artists to the contemporary American
experience.
 MICHAEL MANTEL
Actor Edward James Olmos and other Latino icons in Hollywood are
portrayed by artists at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum’s
exhibit, “Las Perspectivas de Hollywood.”
The exhibit features a collection of 20 premiere prints created
by local Latino artists. The artworks focus on how Hollywood has
perceived the Latino community throughout the years and how it has
perpetuated certain stereotypes. It also encourages the viewer to
consider a broader perspective and see how these perceptions impact
all communities in general.
“While Hollywood has continued to get “˜white and
whiter,’ the population of Los Angeles continues to grow and
become more diverse,” Horak said. “Thus, as we move
forward with more diversity, society’s perspective stays the
same. This exhibit challenges ideas of those continuing
stereotypes.”
The show features all local artists, including Shizu Saldamando,
a 2000 UCLA graduate in Chicano studies whose monoprint,
“Bandito,” will be displayed in the exhibit. Other
renowned Latino artists contributing to the exhibit include Frank
Romero, CiCi Rodriguez, Miguel Angel Reyes and another UCLA alumni,
Salomon Huerto.
“Hollywood has a huge population of Latinos that need to
be represented more in the industry,” Saldamando said.
“We need to get more faces out in the public for people to
see how large of a Latino population we have and how much they have
contributed.”
Saldamando’s painting, “Bandito”, shows the
flat depiction of a bandito caricature done on a silk screen. The
painting is one of three Saldamando did that depicted stereotypes
of the Latino community. The other two paintings were titled
“Chola” and “Chacha.”
Though most of the works focus on the obvious actor-icons Rita
Hayworth and Edward James Olmos, there is also a more critical
perspective of the exhibit that centralizes on the fact that many
Latino actors and performers are often left behind in Hollywood
because of the stereotypes attached to their heritage. The artists
address some of these stereotypes by including portrayals of the
“Cholo” and the “Bandito” in their works.
Horak evens mentions the lower-class’ stereotypical jobs that
Hollywood gives to the Spanish-speaking actors in movies.
“One of the most striking paintings, to me, was one that
had the “˜Hollywood’ sign decorated in the painting, but
when you looked at it from the side, it reflected the word
“˜invisible’ written inside the “˜Hollywood’
letters,” Saldamando said.
Though many exhibits aim to display a certain genre of art, this
exhibit creates an atmosphere that challenges stereotypes and
invites the viewers to see the Latino artwork through their own
perspectives.
“Hollywood has created an interesting perspective of
Spanish-speakers that is not too flattering,” Horak said.
“These artists want to present Latino people in Hollywood in
a different perspective.”
ART: The Hollywood Entertainment Museum is open
daily 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. except for Wednesdays. General admission is
$8.75 and $4.50 for students. The museum is located one block west
of Hollywood Blvd. and Highland Ave. in the lower level of the
Hollywood galaxy complex. For more information call (323)
960-4833.