"Calacalandia: Somewhere Between Aztlán and Mictlán" Ricardo Favela

Review #1

Color and music fill the Witt gallery this week. Its normally stark white walls accentuate the colorful display of photographs, colored drawings, poster art, newspaper clippings, and sculpture that affirms Chicano cultural identity and social struggle. The artist, the late Ricardo Favela, was a founding member of the RCAF and a beloved member on this campus. This memorial exhibition is a visual timeline displaying the history of Favela’s work in the RCAF and at CSUS. Everything on display is a tribute to his life, including a traditional Dia de los Muertos ofrenda (altar), which pays homage to Favela. "Calacalandia: Somewhere Between Aztlán and Mictlán" converts the sorrow and loss of great man and artist into a celebration and festival honoring his life and his life work.

-C. Castaneda

Viva Favela!

This week the Witt Gallery opens its doors to an exhibit in memory of the late Ricardo Favela, Chicano artist and Associate Professor at CSUS. This week's exhibition features a retrospective of poster art, prints, and sculpture. Favela's work as a poster artist follows a long line of local Chicano artists working with a locally grown but nationally known artist collective RCAF, or Royal Chicano Air Force.

Chicano art arose in the mid 1960's, from a larger political and social movement within the Chicano community to support its political propaganda. Favela's contributions to the Chicano movement are numerous, and his posters touch on a wide range of these Chicano themes: worker's rights, cultural identity, racial equality, and social justice.

Especially interesting is the small collection of sculptural works depicting fellow Chicano activists, "Tapon, Machi y el Negro." These sculptures aptly convey the sense of pride which characterizes so much of Favela's art (and, Chicano art as a whole). From the loose fit of their clothes to their relaxed stance and even their slightly tilted heads, these men portray a pride that is so much a part of Chicano culture.

In addition to his own work, the exhibition features two traditional Dia de los Muertos altars, one created by his wife in his memory, and another, using Favela's own artwork, assembled by RCAF artist Xico Gonzalez.

-JB

Review #3

With Dia de los Muertos around the corner, the homage to Ricardo Favela in the Witt Gallery this week is perfectly fitting. The memorial exhibition features a handful of photographic portraits by Favela, old posters advertising various exhibitions and events, and colorful drawings that are reminiscent of Jose Guadalupe Posada’s calaveras. Like Posada, and Diego Rivera, Favela’s drawings feature animated skeletons, mostly dressed as farm workers and in the middle of labor. Some of the more interesting drawings include one of a skeleton dragging a toilet on top of a child’s wagon while a bird sitting on the skeleton’s head defecates into it. Another features a skeleton dressed in a bright orange executioner’s robe, standing by a guillotine that has a calendar instead of a blade, while a headless skeleton lies beneath. These illustrations are filled with symbolism, while the bright colors and thick outlines give a cartoonish feel, as if they were from a children’s book. A highly recommended show.

-Susanna Tu

Review #4

Political and cultural activism is the sole theme underlying this memorial to a man who has touched the
lives of the Chicano population since the sixties. The gallery portrays over forty years worth of this man’s
art. The work consists partly of posters advertising cultural celebrations, such as The Day of the Dead,
and political moves to boycott key consumer goods. Most of the works portray skeletons working with bones that seem to represent the way society might have viewed the Chicano population, as tools to be used for labor. My first reaction to the gallery “Pablo, What’s going on?!?!”

-Charles Dresser

Review #5

Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success....
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life --
MY OWN PEOPLE

From the poem by Rodolfo Corky Gonzalez, I am Joaquin

In his influential poem Gonzalez struggled to define himself. Ricardo Favela and his contemporaries did the same. With colored pens on paper, with the silk screen and clay, he expressed the state of being Mexican in America, being the descendent of spiritual astronomers and conquistadors.

The twinkle of humor in Favela’s eye shows in his work but don’t be fooled by the children’s book-like images. There’s a lot of symbolism going on. The show itself is presented professionally and the addition of the music makes it a complete experience. Did I hear Reggae?

SEE IT TWICE

-P. Castellanos