As part of its ongoing efforts to document Chicano and Latino arts in Southern California, the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center has received a $124,000 grant from the Getty Grant Program to conduct a survey of materials related to Latino arts.

The center will search for materials related to Latino art groups and collectives, community-based arts organizations, alternative arts publications, and the individual artists and arts professionals associated with these efforts.

The survey is just one of the center’s efforts to archive Chicano and Latino arts in Southern California. The center has released two research reports on the Latino arts and both document the need to take immediate action in order to recover and safeguard the history of Chicano and Latino participation in the arts. The center recently initiated a community partnership with Self-Help Graphics in which the center will inventory the organization’s on-site collections and establish a computer management system and archival internship program. And in February, as an extension of this partnership, the center hosted a summit of Latino arts organizations in Southern California in order to address issues of preservation and access.

“This project addresses the necessity of surveying and archiving the Latino arts in Southern California,� said Chon Noriega, director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center. “We must document the cultural and institutional history before it is too late and incorporate these histories into a larger cultural and art historical tableau.�

Emerging out of the civil rights era, Chicano and other Latino artists created both art and institutions in the service of their communities. In Los Angeles, one of the national epicenters of this movement, Latino arts provided the visual vocabulary for social protest, cultural identity and historical awareness.

In addition to community-based political activism, Chicano and Latino arts have challenged and engaged the art world, promoting changes in historiography, influencing contemporary debates and validating new practices. But despite these accomplishments, Latino arts have yet to be integrated adequately into archival holdings and art historical scholarship.

Based on preliminary research, the center has identified six groups, 11 organizations, two publications, three exhibitions and at least 80 associated individuals that will be surveyed.


The Getty Grant Program is part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts and located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The Getty Grant Program provides crucial support to institutions and individuals throughout the world in fields that are aligned most closely with the Getty’s strategic priorities. It therefore funds a diverse range of projects that promote learning and scholarship about the history of the visual arts and the conservation of cultural heritage, and it consistently searches for collaborative efforts that set high standards and make significant contributions.

The Chicano Studies Research Center sponsors a monograph series on Latino artists, a research project on race and independent media, and ongoing preservation projects related to the visual arts, cinema and music. The center’s library includes non-circulating holdings, special collections and an archival program.