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Getty Foundation Project Weaves U.S. Latino Art With Latin American Art

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And let's hear about a different artistic connection, this one between Los Angeles and Latin America. In the coming year, it will be featured in more than 60 museums and art centers throughout Southern California. NPR's Mandalit del Barco has this preview.

MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is the name of the series that opens in September, 2017. It's an initiative between cultural institutions from Los Angeles all the way out to Palm Springs, and from Santa Barbara down to San Diego. Heather MacDonald is program officer for the Getty Foundation, which largely funded the massive project.

HEATHER MACDONALD: There's been a huge effort by many of the curators participating to think in a very, very new way and to tell stories that really weave together U.S. Latino art with Latin American art in ways that I think will be quite surprising.

DEL BARCO: That includes a survey of art and science fiction in the Americas, and works by Japanese and Chinese Latin Americans, and showings of Mexican punk films. One exhibition will feature cartoons in espanol from the 1940s, created when Walt Disney sent a group of artists to South America.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE THREE CABALLEROS")

JOAQUIN GARAY: (As Panchito Pistoles, singing in Spanish).

CLARENCE NASH: (As Donald Duck, singing in Spanish).

GARAY: (As Panchito Pistoles, singing in Spanish).

JOSE OLIVEIRA: (As Jose Carioca, singing in Spanish)

MACDONALD: Walter Disney Studios used and adapted imagery and cultural iconography from Latin America, but then artists, intellectuals, writers in Latin America responded to Disney and took that iconography and tweaked it, played with it, used it in subversive ways, political ways.

DEL BARCO: MacDonald says many of the exhibitions will be political. One will feature underground so-called renegade art from 1990s Mexico. Another explores the role of murals in LA's Chicano Movement. There will be a photo show featuring images from the bilingual newspaper La Raza. Several venues will have music and film screenings.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "I AM JOAQUIN")

LUIS VALDEZ: (As Narrator) Like a sleeping giant, it slowly rears its head to the sound of tramping feet, clamoring voices, mariachis playing, fiery tequila, explosions.

DEL BARCO: A newly restored version of the classic 1969 film "I am Joachim/ Soy Joaquin" is on the slate for a series at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And UCLA is digging into its archives to recreate the classic Latin American cinema scene of downtown LA from 1930 to 1960. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

As an arts correspondent based at NPR West, Mandalit del Barco reports and produces stories about film, television, music, visual arts, dance and other topics. Over the years, she has also covered everything from street gangs to Hollywood, police and prisons, marijuana, immigration, race relations, natural disasters, Latino arts and urban street culture (including hip hop dance, music, and art). Every year, she covers the Oscars and the Grammy awards for NPR, as well as the Sundance Film Festival and other events. Her news reports, feature stories and photos, filed from Los Angeles and abroad, can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Alt.latino, and npr.org.