Cheech Marin Center opens in Riverside, California, highlighting Chicano art

Chich Marin, who rose to fame as the pioneer of the pioneering stoner comedy duo Chich and Chong Half beginning in the 1970s before breaking into film and television, found it an uphill task. He recently learned that the “gorgeous medieval building” offered to him by the Chicanos to house a large art collection (identifying people of American-born Mexican descent) was 61,420 square feet. “Four twenty“You say?” he recalls five years later: “Thank you, Lord! I felt it had to happen.”

“This” marina means the new Chich Marin Center for Arts and Culture at the Riverside Museum of Art, or The Cheech, which opens June 18 in Riverside, the former California Central Public Library. It will feature Chicago Art Movement A-list paintings, photographs, sculptures and drawings from Frank Romero and Judith Hernandez to Gilbert “Magu” Luzhan and Pac Valdés. “This American art school is incredibly important for its longevity and accessibility, from coast to coast. It’s as important as the Hudson River Valley or the Ashes or anything else. “It’s just that it hasn’t had a moment of glory,” said Marini, who was approached by Riverside city officials after he exhibited his collection at the Riverside Museum of Art in 2017. This Riverside is a predominantly Latin American city, so far it has donated nearly 500 items from its collection of more than 700 pieces to an institution whose new home has undergone a $13.3 million renovation, largely funded by the state. (A $15.95 ticket gives admission to both Chichi and the Riverside Art Museum.)

A 75-year-old collector who loves childhood (baseball cards, marbles, stamps) – “It’s always been in my business” – Marin has been collecting and promoting Chicano art since discovering a fascinating Texas, under-the-radar band. Artists in the late 1980s. “I thought, this is it [all] “The same DNA,” he explains. “Some are a little more rural, some are a little more urban, but they are cousins ​​from the same family.”

Marin financed his collection with the help of his longtime television acting. Nash bridges In addition to voice acting for Disney cartoon characters, from Lion King s cars This one Poop s Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The collection is displayed in more than 50 museums, including LACMA, Smithsonian and San Francisco de Young; While many art institutes avoid exhibiting private collections, be aware that the museum’s prestige will unfairly increase potential secondary market prices. “But my answer has always been, ‘I have this collection and you don’t,’” argues Marini, arguing that the fine art world itself has neglected and marginalized Chicago artists for decades. “There was no answer to that, because I used to find myself there when no one was taking it seriously.”

Zack Horowitz, former president and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group who founded the Latin podcast company Pitaya, is a Chicano art collector who serves on the board of directors of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. “The Chechen passion for the art form, which required a struggle for recognition, has always impressed me,” he said. “Nobody has done more for the national and international championship. He worked tirelessly for decades to ensure it was seen and in the right context.”

These days, after the inevitable premiere of The Cheech (the star offered to be baptized in Los Angeles in response to The Broad’s blue-chip joke), Marin finds herself in the role of a canonizing institution, with the challenges that accompany. “What I learned in the process is nothing more expensive than a freebie,” she jokes, but also not, indicating that she was surprised to learn that she had to pay for each one. Your donated parts. As a celebrated collector, he also found that, to his annoyance, some artists displayed an exploitative tendency to turn the individual works he had purchased into series ex post facto. “They make it as soon as they buy it,” he notes softly. “Excellent, thanks guys!” “

The museum and its accompanying educational component (planned for a film workshop taught by director Robert Rodriguez) intends to use Marin’s unparalleled collection to explore critical issues, including the gap between those identified as generally chicanery and () . Associated with the term “Latin”. “All we do is weave curated fairy tales around the collection,” said María Esther Fernández, artistic director. “We look at the works together and separately, how they speak to each other thematically, politically, artistically, conceptually, visually, historically artistic. In the opening, The Cheech highlights the work of the late artist Carlos Almaraz, the subject of a 2020 Netflix documentary. play with fire – As Glujo “Gronki” Nikandro, a multidisciplinary artist who was a member of the collective Asco of the East LA under the influence of Dada.

The Marina House in Pacific Palisade, which he shares with his third wife, classical pianist Natasha Rubin, has been a pilgrimage stop for years at the highest level of art Steve Martin collects. It’s covered wall-to-wall with its rotating shopping selection.

On a weekday in late May, before heading to the ADR session for Bobby Farrell’s upcoming comedy. champions That he’s playing alongside Woody Harrelson, Marin told us the hollywood reporter From the dining room to the upper bathroom and bedroom. Amidst a passionate meditation on brush techniques and museum gauge systems, he thought about his long career in entertainment (“I have always existed beyond the show business mainstream”), as well as his reliance on intermittent jobs (“This is called divorce.”).

Then there are your many marijuana initiatives. “We have to invent the wheel in every state,” he sighs and reflects on the regulatory problems associated with the so-called green cannabis rush. This year, he made his debut on Muncheechos, a delivery concept that includes ghost kitchens as well as a separate weed line that started with Tommy Chong. He already had a curated offering of Cheech’s Stash, pre-rolls, proprietary strains, and natural foods. “We’re not growing,” he explains, “but you can trust that All Chich will always be good.”

Perhaps his favorite subject, at least for now, is the nuances of exposure. Even for a large building, the museum expects it to take half a decade before the entire marine collection is limited. “We want people to go around every corner and have a knockout in them.” [dedicated] “The wall,” he says, and his voice rises with passion. “We don’t collect anything. “Everyone is finally getting their fair share.”

The story first appeared in the June 15 issue of The Gossipify. Click here to subscribe.