Agroup of Chicago artists is making history by participating in the first contemporary Latino-American art show to be exhibited at the Edinburgh Arts Festival in Scotland.
The 40-year-old festival is the world`s largest, showcasing theater, music and visual arts. Attendance doubles Edinburgh`s population of 250,000 and has 300 performances going on daily.
The festival will not only give exposure to Chicago, but also show the world many diverse themes within the Latino experience.
Gamaliel Ramirez, 43, has waited 20 years to be part of a major Latino art show, but he never dreamed that the opportunity would be in a Celtic land. ”I thought New York, Mexico or Puerto Rico, never Scotland,” said Ramirez, a muralist of Puerto Rican descent.
It all started last December when an artist from a contemporary gallery in Scotland visited Chicago`s Near Northwest Arts Council, another
contemporary gallery, in Wicker Park.
The artist met Ramirez and he informed her of the contemporary Latino art scene in Chicago. Impressed, she asked if he`d be interested in coordinating an exhibit in Scotland at Gallery 369. He agreed, though he was skeptical.
”I`ve been waiting for something like this for so many years,” Ramirez said. ”People see your work, they say they want to do a show, but it doesn`t work out. I wanted to do something like this 20 years ago in Chicago, but I couldn`t get grants and there wasn`t much support.” He has had some brushes with fame by participating in a nationally touring show called ”Mira”
several years ago, and some of his work hangs in a Wicker Park cafe called Borderline.
He has been an art teacher in the Urban Gateways arts educational project sponsored by the Chicago Board of Education for nearly a decade.
Gallery 369 kept in touch with Ramirez and the arts council. In March, the council`s director, Laura Weathered, visited to complete plans and set up the show, deciding which paintings would fit in the gallery and ensure a diverse representation of Hispanic styles.
While there, Ramirez is also commissioned to paint a mural titled ”Dias de los Muertas” (Day of the Dead), based on the Latino holiday celebrated Nov. 1. The mural, sponsored by the Haagen Dazs ice cream company, depicts skeletal figures with their faces covered in real masks, Ramirez said.
Ramirez took with him 30 works of paintings, photographs and graffiti by 12 artists of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Chilean, Argentinian, Ecuadoran and Mexican descent.
The exhibit includes mystical and tropical landscapes by Raul Ortiz Bonilla, of Puerto Rican descent; work depicting passion, anguish and the terror of the soul by Ecuadoran-born Santiago Vaca; and street-smart political murals by Mario Gonzales, of Mexican descent.
”In general, most Latino artists paint in a surrealistic, not a realistic style,” Ramirez said.
Gallery 369 director Andrew Young is excited about the exhibit and says the gallery`s ties with the Chicago contemporary art scene date back 10 years when the gallery participated in the Art Expo at Navy Pier in 1982. Bringing Chicago artists to Scotland is a natural move, he said.
”I think the most interesting art now is Latino art because of their critique of urban society,” Young said from Edinburgh.
”They integrate their past with the experiences of living in a city, particularly Chicago. Chicago to me is the `great city,` it`s the hub of America. The artists are more serious and long term. In New York, the art scene is whatever is fashionable. In Los Angeles, they`re more laid-back and self-indulgent.”
Ramirez hopes that the show will attract enough attention so he can take it to London. He said he hopes the artists will finally gain respect in their own hometown. There is a sentiment that Chicago artists, especially Hispanics, have to exhibit elsewhere before gaining respect in Chicago, he said.
He also plans to take advantage of the cultural exchange and is bringing Puerto Rican spices to share. And he started drinking Scotch whiskey to be sociable.
”I never liked the stuff, so I started drinking it in March. Now I`ve acquired a taste for it. At least I`ve got that part of the language down.”
