“The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States,” says the award-winning comic and museum founder
In 2022, the enduring L.A. comic Cheech Marin opened an artwork museum with the hope of inspiring a Chicano artwork renaissance.
“I looked around and said, ‘This could be the next big art town’ — because the foundations were already there,” Marin advised De Los. “There was this kind of nebulous underground here, but [they’ll] reach officialdom when they have their museum.”
Now, because the Cheech Marin Middle for Chicano Artwork and Tradition enters its fourth 12 months, Marin stated he believes his objective is slowly coming true.
Recognized colloquially because the Cheech, the museum is broadly thought of the one area within the nation that completely showcases Chicano artwork. It’s positioned in Riverside, a majority-Latino metropolis which can also be inside one of many largest Latino-populated counties within the nation.
Since its grand opening on June 17, 2022, the middle has housed lots of of artworks from Marin’s huge personal assortment, together with from distinguished artists akin to Wayne Alaniz Healy, Judithe Hernández and Frank Romero.
In its first two years, the area attracted over 200,000 guests, based on an unbiased examine commissioned by the town, with round 90% of attendees coming from exterior the Inland Empire. The examine additionally discovered that the Cheech introduced round $29 million into the town’s native financial system in that timeframe.
“We were recognized as one of the top 50 shows in the world,” Marin stated. “The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States.”
Whereas the Cheech grew in nationwide prominence, its inventive director, María Esther Fernández, defined that the museum’s workforce additionally labored to satisfy Marin’s objective by making the most of its fast success.
Within the final three years, the middle has turn into a hub and very important useful resource for most of the area’s Chicano artists. It has achieved this by creating alternatives to community with high-profile people, internet hosting recurring skilled improvement workshops and commonly contracting rising creatives for various design tasks.
Drew Oberjuerge, the middle’s former govt director, added that the museum has invested within the area’s financial system by hiring locals to assist put together paintings for set up whereas additionally paying musicians and different contractors to work all through their occasions.
Cheech Marin photographed within the Riverside Artwork Museum for the revealing of the Cheech Marin Middle for Chicano Artwork & Tradition (a.okay.a. “The Cheech”) in 2022.
(Gustavo Soriano / For The Instances)
Most essential for these artists, nevertheless, is the area that the Cheech has designated to place their artwork entrance and heart.
“What we’ve been really lucky to leverage is the visibility of the Cheech,” Fernández stated. “We’ve been really dedicated, since we opened, to featuring artists that are emerging or some that are even mid-career in the community gallery.”
A few of the creatives, who’ve collaborated with the Cheech throughout the neighborhood gallery because it first opened, say the middle’s efforts have legitimized their profession paths and created new alternatives to assist pursue their desires.
The gallery is positioned subsequent to the museum’s entrance and is just a fraction of the area given to the opposite reveals throughout the 61,420-square-foot museum — and it seems like being in a ready room compared to the remainder of the middle too. But, on solely 4 small partitions, the artists featured within the space have placed on highly effective exhibitions that inform the area’s story whereas additionally making artwork on par with Marin’s assortment.
This contains exhibits like “Desde los Cielos,” which was co-curated by Perry Picasshoe and Emmanuel Camacho Larios, and seemed into the idea of alienness — in addition to Cosme Córdova’s “Reflections of Our Stories,” which emphasised a cultural connection between Inland Empire artists, regardless of the usage of vastly totally different mediums.
Perry Picasshoe stands exterior the Cheech Marin Middle for Chicano Artwork & Tradition as a part of a efficiency piece in Riverside on July 3, 2025.
(Daniel Hernandez)
In complete, the Cheech has held at the very least seven totally different exhibitions that showcased artists from throughout the Inland Empire — at instances, catching Marin’s connoisseur eyes.
“I bought a couple of pieces from different artists because they are of that quality,” Marin stated. “It’s great to be encouraging local talent as well as recognizing a larger picture that they are a part of, or going to become a part of [the Cheech].”
In keeping with the Cheech’s spokesperson, Marin has bought three works from Inland Empire-based artist Denise Silva after they curated an exhibition named “Indigenous Futurism” throughout the gallery. One other piece, created by artist Rosy Cortez, who has been featured in a number of exhibitions, was bought by an nameless donor and added to the middle’s everlasting assortment.
“We’ve also begun to implement an artist fee for artists who are participating in the exhibitions,” Fernández stated, including that her workforce has assisted within the transportation of bigger artworks as nicely. “Participating in exhibitions can be cost-prohibitive for artists, and so it’s something we’re trying to mitigate in our practices.”
Their most up-to-date exhibition throughout the neighborhood gallery, known as “Hecho en Park Avenue,” has been considered one of their most profitable showings, with over 1,300 neighborhood members attending its opening earlier this 12 months.
The exhibition’s co-curator, Juan Navarro, defined that the present culminated years of labor inside Riverside’s Eastside neighborhood. He, together with different Chicano artists, has been creating artwork throughout the Latino-dominant neighborhood since 2021.
Then, when the Cheech requested them to curate a present, Navarro felt it was the proper likelihood to inform the tales of the Eastside’s locals. The response to the ultimate product was greater than Navarro might have ever imagined.
“The community showed out: from intellectuals from UC Riverside, from local government, to state government showed up, to the gang members,” Navarro stated. He additionally famous the emotional weight of being acknowledged for his artwork, whereas surrounded by the work of Chicano artists who waited a long time for their very own to be acknowledged.
“Seeing this big, broad community and seeing that our show met the need for a diverse audience… It was meaningful to a lot of people, that’s what I cared about.”
The present’s different co-curator, Michelle Espino, additionally expressed gratitude for the possibility to inform the Eastside’s story on the Cheech. In addition to being considered one of its featured artists, Espino labored on most of the behind-the-scenes elements of the “Hecho en Park Avenue” exhibition.
It was additionally a full-circle second for her; years prior, Espino had written about Fernández’s work for a Chicano artwork historical past class. This 12 months, she met with Fernández to ask for recommendation and to finalize plans for the exhibit.
“It [validated] that I do want to continue with this,” Espino stated. “She is literally the person I look up to.”
On prime of Espino’s one-on-one conferences with the inventive director, she has additionally enrolled in a number of skilled improvement workshops hosted by the middle, most just lately taking a category that taught each the artwork of portraiture and poetry. The Cheech commonly companions with a nonprofit group named the Riverside Arts Council to host skilled improvement lessons.
“If we had these resources when I was younger, my trajectory could have probably been a little bit different,” Espino stated.
Marin, in his lifelong quest to gather works for his personal assortment, has seen how Chicano artists have grown their communities of their respective cities. It begins with painters sharing their works with one another by means of smaller exhibits, he stated, which builds pleasure and will increase participation. He likened it to a organic course of, the place every technology builds upon the expansion of the earlier iteration.
That course of is beginning within the Inland Empire now, he added.
“We are a part of this big American picture,” Marin stated. “And there’s nothing more official that you can do besides having your own museum.”
Hernandez is a contract author primarily based in Riverside. This text is a part of a De Los initiative to increase protection of the Inland Empire with funding from the Cultivating Inland Empire Latino Alternative (CIELO) Fund on the Inland Empire Neighborhood Basis.
