GUSMANO CESARETTI:
“My Journey with Maria Sabina”
SEP 14, 2024 - OCT 26, 2024
Cocktails provided by BajaDios Mezcal Company
Live screen printing by @hnrcrew
Eastern Projects is proud to present Gusmano Cesaretti’s second SOLO SHOW with the gallery: “My Journey With Maria Sabina” is a portfolio of over 50 photos taken in 1982 by Cesaretti during a “chance” healing encounter with the Mexican healer.
Maria Sabina (1888-1985) was a healer, curandera, and Shaman who lived her entire life in a modest home in the “Sierra Mazateca” in the state of Oaxaca. Her practice was based on the use of various native species of psilocybin mushrooms which she used in ceremonies to cure hundreds in her community throughout her lifetime. This association with the Psilocybin mushroom resulted in an unlikely late in life counterculture notoriety that brought her into contact with the likes of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Mick Jagger.
In recent years, there’s been a push in the United States to legalize the use of Psilocybin mushrooms for medicinal use to treat depression and other medical issues. These have been in use by native cultures throughout the Americas for thousands of years. The audience will experience the photographer’s personal, healing journey and see why there’s a rising popularity in its medicinal use.
Eastern Projects Gallery is part of PST ART as a Gallery Program Participant . Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art
“Maria Sabina with Mushrooms; Huautla de Jimenez,” 1982, Gusmano Cesaretti. Photo by Gusmano Cesaretti. © Gusmano Cesaretti, 1982.
Eastern Projects Presents:
“LOS FOUR”
50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LACMA EXHIBIT 1974 - 2024
On View 6/22/24 - 8/10/24
Eastern Projects is proud to present our first show of summer 2024,”LOS FOUR” 1974-2024
Extended to SATURDAY, AUG 10, 2024
In 1974, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art showcased an exhibition of four Chicano artists: Carlos Almaraz, Beto de la Rocha, Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, and Frank Romero. Together they were known as “Los Four”, and made history that year as the first Chicanos to exhibit in a world-renowned, national art museum. The show was an expanded version of their previous exhibit at the Art Gallery in the University of California Irvine, and it included sculptures, watercolors, drawings, two graffiti murals, and paintings rich in iconography, representative of the Civil Rights movement and turbulent times of “El Movimiento” throughout the Southwest.
50 years later, this show honors the legacy of these four Chicano artists who planted the seeds for generations of artists to come. The exhibition consists of new and vintage, original works by Frank Romero, multiple works on paper and sculpture by Magu, paintings and works on paper by Beto de la Rocha, and six works on paper by Carlos Almaraz.
*TAKE THE METRO A-LINE, GET OFF AT THE CHINATOWN STATION AND WALK WEST TO BROADWAY
*PUBLIC PARKING IS AVAILABLE UNDERGROUND, ENTRANCES IS ON COLLEGE AND ANOTHER ON MAIN ST.
View Artwork
“In February 1974, a collective known as Los Four made history as the first Chicano artists to exhibit at a major art institution in the United States. The exhibition, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, featured works that exposed Chicano art to a broader public audience and influenced the wider art community.
Los Four consisted of Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz, Gilbert “Magú” Luján and Roberto “Beto” de la Rocha — Judithe Hernández would join the group shortly after the LACMA show. The group members became significant figures in the Chicano arts movement. They were part of the burgeoning muralism scene and experimented with different ideologies around public-facing art, collectivism and identity, which emerged as a distinct visual vernacular and aesthetic of Chicanismo.”
Carlos Almaraz (1941- 1989):
Born in Mexico City in 1941 and died from AIDS in 1989 at the age of 48. Carlos Almaraz moved to the United States with his family in 1948, eventually settling in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from Otis Art Institute (today Otis College of Art and Design), Los Angeles, in 1974. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include Playing with Fire: Paintings by Carlos Almaraz, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2017) and Carlos Almaraz: A Life Recalled, Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles (2012). He has been included in institutional surveys including the touring Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., organized by Museum of Contemporary Art and ONE Gallery, Los Angeles (2017–2022); Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge (2002-2008) organized by the Cheech Marin Collection; Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. (2013-2014); Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement, Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles (2011-2012); Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland (2002); Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2001); Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1993); Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, organized by the Wight Art Gallery, UCLA (1990-93); Le Démon des Anges, Centre d’arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona (1989); and Hispanic Art in the United States, organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C. (1987). Almaraz’s works are in the public collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Museum of Modern Art, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, University of California, Irvine, The Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, The Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, The Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington D.C., The National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C., USC Fisher Art Museum, Los Angeles, Ca. and The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, among others. Almaraz’s life and work was chronicled in the 2018 documentary Carlos Almaraz: Playing With Fire directed by Elsa Flores Almaraz and Richard Montoya and is on view on Netflix.
Beto de la Rocha:
Beto de la Rocha (born November 26, 1937) is a Mexican-American painter, graphic artist, and muralist. De la Rocha was also influential in re-establishing the traditional Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead in Los Angeles, when he, along with Chicano artist Gronk and a few others, led a procession from Evergreen Cemetery up First Street in Eastside Los Angeles. Gilbert “Magu” Luján later said that de la Rocha “should be given credit for initiating this process—almost single-handedly. And what he did, he didn’t get funding or he didn’t ask permission from anybody, he just went and did it. Beto was also a phenomenal printmaker and worked at Gemini G.E.L.
Gilbert “Magu” Luján (1940–2011):
Luján is known for his coloration and visual explorations of Chicano culture and community that drew upon and brought to life various historic and contemporary visual sources with startling results: Pyramid-mounted low riders driven by anthropomorphic dogs traversing a newly defined and mythologized L.A. He was part of a small group of dedicated artists and intellectuals who set about defining a Chicano identity and culture as part of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Luján combined two world-making concepts, Aztlán, the mythic northern ancestral home of the indigenous Mexican Aztecs that became a charged symbol of Chicano activism; and Magulandia, the term Luján coined for the space in which he lived and produced his work, and for his work as a whole. Together, Aztlán and Magulandia represented both physical spaces and the complex cultural, geographic, and conceptual relationships that exist between Los Angeles and Mexico and served as dual landscapes for Luján’s artistic philosophy and cultural creativity.
Frank Romero:
Frank Romero (1941 - ) is an American artist considered to be a pioneer in the Chicano art movement.Romero’s paintings and mural works explore Chicano and Los Angeles iconography, often featuring palm trees and bright colors. Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He studied art at the Otis Art Institute and California State College (now California State University) at Los Angeles. In 1973, Romero, Roberto de la Rocha, Gilbert Lujan and the late Carlos Almaraz formed an art collective called Los Four. The University of California, Irvine presented an exhibition of the group in 1974, which subsequently was shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum. Romero worked as a designer for Charles Eames and A & M Records, and was the Design Director of the Community Redevelopment Agency when he designed the first section of the Broadway sidewalk project. In 1981, he curated the highly regarded exhibition The Murals of Atzlan at the Craft and Folk Art Museum. Although he is known as one of the city’s foremost muralists, Romero is now primarily a studio artist. His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows including the national exhibitions, “Contemporary Hispanic Art in the U.S.,” and “Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation.”
Eastern Projects Presents
SOLO Show Merrick Morton: Un-Rehearsed
SATURDAY March 30th 5-9PM
On View 3/30/24- 5/18/24
With the publication of Clique: West Coast Portraits From the Hood [Hat & Beard Press] followers of Merrick Morton’s over four decade career of street photography are reminded that, whatever its location, the real substance of a neighborhood is made of people, of individual and group personalities, of circumstance and shared modes of expression. Morton’s camera has served both as a passport and portal, bridging cultural differences as he has gained the trust and, in a sense, artistic partnership of subjects. This solo exhibition includes documenting the Barrio and Inner City, incarcerated men and women in America’s prisons, locked wards within the walls of a California state psychiatric hospital, portraits from cities, towns, and villages in Mexico and Cuba, and “Life of a Cholo” a special collaboration of poetry and photography with actor/poet Richard Cabral. The SOLO show will include an art installation by Richard and he will be performing spoken word at a later date during the exhibition. In counterpoint to the street scenes, Unrehearsed includes portraits of actors with whom Morton worked with on film sets. Behind Morton’s lens, the performer dissolves but the subject remains.
In the directness with which Morton’s subjects greet the camera, Morton earned the trust of people because he showed up for people who want to be seen –often ambivalent or challenging, usually intense - with people who feel their story is worth recording, if only in a single moment.
PRESS
LATIMES Article: LATIMES.COM
CALO NEWS Article: CALONEWS.COM
LAist Article: LAIST.COM
Prints Available for Purchase
MERRICK MORTON
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Merrick Morton is a documentary/street photographer, and film set still photographer of more than 90 films including Fight Club, La Bamba, Colors, The Big Lebowski, and the Chicano classic Blood In Blood Out. His photographs of 1980’s Southern California barrios and inner city communities capture an intimate look into a rarely seen side of Los Angeles, and were inspired by his interest in subcultures. His portraits of both incarcerated men and women portray a sense of strength and dignity; the images give viewers the chance to enter spaces they would otherwise never dare to. Other photographic essays of Morton include documenting locked wards at a California State Psychiatric Hospital, and extensive travels to Mexico and Cuba throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He is currently photographing the Cholo culture in Mexico City.
Morton’s documentary work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Guardian, and Vanity Fair.
Richard Cabral
Richard Cabral is an actor best known for his work on MAYANS M.C. and AMERICAN CRIME, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. His decade-long career has also included roles in LETHAL WEAPON, THE COUNSELOR, A BETTER LIFE, END OF WATCH and, most recently, on the hit Peacock series TWISTED METAL.
In addition to his work in film and television, Cabral has also been a vocal activist for his community. He has traveled throughout the country speaking on issues such as prison reform, drug rehabilitation and immigration. Cabral has maintained a relationship with Homeboy Industries, since he went through the program himself over a decade ago. Most recently, his coffee company, Tepito Coffee, partnered with Homeboy to create a staffing pipeline that creates jobs and a support network for reformed gang members, with the ultimate goal of breaking the cycle of incarceration and recidivism that plagues the communities of Los Angeles.
LIFE OF A CHOLO
IN IMAGES AND WORDS
The evening’s event will include:
Gallery exhibition walkthrough with photographer Merrick Morton.
Special screening of the short film “Life of a Cholo” directed by David Charles Rodriguez.
Live performance of spoken word and poetry by Richard Cabral.
Q&A Featuring
David Charles Rodriguez - Director, writer and filmmaker.
Richard Cabral - Emmy nominated actor, producer, and writer.
Franky Carrillo - A community leader, justice advocate, who was exonerated after being wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He is currently Commissioner of the LA County Probation Oversight Committee.
Charles “Bear” Spratley - Former Crip gang member and now Executive Director of B.A.B.Y (Brothers Against Banging Youth) it’s mission it is to prevent young people in South Los Angeles from entering gangs and to reduce the impact of gang activity on our communities.
Fabian Debora - Director of Homeboy Art Academy
JC Gable - Publisher Hat & Beard Press
MERRICK MORTON | IG @merrickmortonphoto |
Eastern Projects Gallery | IG@eastern_projects_gallery|
