Cheech Marin spoke to us in front of Frank Romero’s “The Arrest of the Paleteros” (1996), a celebrated work in the Chicano art movement. It depicts ice-cream vendors being arrested in Echo Park, Los Angeles, for not having permits.
One of the nation’s first permanent museums showcasing Chicano art and culture opens its doors on June 18, and we had the opportunity to talk to Cheech Marin on May 23, the first day the art was on the walls.
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, in Riverside, California, houses Cheech Collects, the result of decades of passionate effort by Cheech Marín.
The Cheech Center
3851 Mission Inn Avenue
Riverside, CA, 92501
“The Cheech” is a space dedicated to Chicano Art, a vein born of the social unrest of 1960s America, when many of the artists were advocating for change and the term “Chicano” was coined.
“We want to see the talent and the outreach of this community that has existed for a very long time,” he told us.
“Hopefully [guests] will be taken away by the art inside the building. That’s the purpose of it, to have art conduct you to another place. To the appreciation of the art, and it’s open to everybody.”
Marin told us that there is a great school of Chicano art that has been forming for 60 years, and that he has followed most of the artists in his collection for some 40 years. “I’m glad to bring them to the forefront because that’s my purpose…”
The Cheech’s Artistic Director, María Esther Fernández, also talked with us, telling us she is “excited to be at a center where we are showing [Chicano] work every day. We’re not just bringing it out every few years. We’re committed to advancing scholarship and exhibition of this work every day.”
Cheech Marin, Chicano art connoisseur
Marin told us art has always inspired him. With his usual touch of humor, he recounted for us how he was interested in it when he was a kid at Sunday Mass.
“I would look at the ceiling in the church…there would be guys walking around in clouds, you know, with sheets…why are they barbecuing that guy in the corner? Right away I was intrigued,” he remembered with a laugh.
“I knew I was an artist. I just didn’t have a medium. I was a singer all my life, and I knew I could do that. But that wasn’t easy for me. But learning about art, that was a more studied approach.”
He explained to us that he began to read about art in books and then went to museums to see it, so today he knows what a good painting is.
“My criterion for adding things to the collection is that it has to haunt me,” Marin told us. “If a painting haunts me, and I dream about it, that is an indication…”
The artists he showcases make up a school that has contributed to Western painting, he said.
“All these artists, with only a few exceptions, are university and/or art school trained, so they were exposed to world art from a very early age … They fused their Mexican heritage or background with contemporary art and international art…as a modern interpretation of what was going on in the country. It’s like covering a standard and then adding your own beat to it.”
Marin told us that some Chicano artists have contributed new techniques to Western painting. “It’s a particular medium, and it has a lot of variations…It has a long history, and many, many techniques were discovered…”
What suggestions does Marin have for aspiring artists? “Read. Read books. See pictures. Go to museums and see the paintings live…Take the talents that you have and make the most of them…All my grandchildren read, all of them. They just read all the time.”
Cheech Marin the Actor
“The most difficult thing you can do is if you are writing, directing, and acting in a movie at the same time,” Cheech Marin told us.
That is why he is so proud of Born in East L.A. “It’s based on a true story,” he said. “It came at the right time at the right place, and it shocked everybody because it was my first solo effort. It was a tough one, but it was a real thrill to enact that story.”
We asked how he overcame obstruction in Hollywood, but he told us he has never seen it that way, “because I was always very successful… against popular belief or expectation.”
When we asked him about the animated movies he has helped voice, he told us he likes them all, but Disney’s Oliver & Company (1988) is special to him because it was the first. It was the one “that got me out of being anything else but Cheech, Cheech & Chong. I had to reinvent myself.”
He remembered that he wasn’t happy with his initial audition, so he tried again. “The director George Scribner gave me one bit of instructions. He said, ‘play the part like you had your fingers stuck in an electric socket.’”
So, he did, he told us, “And you could see everybody coming alive this time.”
He was hired for the part of Tito. “They kept writing more for the character. Other characters heard what I was doing… they wanted to do their parts over again,” he remembered. He realized, “I’m on to something here…”
- María Esther Fernández told us The Cheech will not only feature some 100 works from Marin’s collection but also temporary exhibitions and education programs, becoming a “vibrant community center,” through exhibitions that will rotate every six months. The idea is to “feature as many artists as possible in the inaugural year.”
- Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective premieres at The Cheech on opening day, and a second exhibition is set for December. A retrospective featuring Judithe Hernández’s art is programmed for 2024.
- The Cheech came about thanks to a public–private partnership between the Riverside Art Museum, the City of Riverside, and Cheech Marin.
- Fernández says families donated for over five years to have their name on the donor wall. “It’s not just the big checks, it’s those little ones that came every month that speak to the level of support that we’ve had.”
- The Cheech offers tours and courses in English, Spanish, and Braille.
- Some featured artists include Carlos Almaraz, Margaret Garcia, Wayne Alaniz Healy, Judithe Hernández, Frank Romero, and Patssi Valdez. Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro, Sandy Rodriguez.
- Admission tickets: riversideartmuseum.org
