The definitive history of a cherished East Los Angeles institution over five decades of art making and community building.

Self Help Graphics at Fifty celebrates the ongoing legacy of an institution that has had profound aesthetic, economic, and political impact on the formation of Chicanx and Latinx art in the United States.

Officially launched in 1973 during the Chicano Movement, Self Help Graphics & Art continues to serve on the cultural front. The institution’s commitment to art, dignity for all, and empowerment of Chicanx and Latinx artists appears in every aspect of programming, including the Día de los Muertos festival; the Barrio Mobile Art Studio, which brings art education to underserved schools; and the printmaking program, which offers an accessible medium infused with activist aims. Looking at the multiple genealogies of art that intersect in East Los Angeles, Self Help Graphics at Fifty bears witness to the organization’s influential role in US and global art histories.

About the Author

Tatiana Reinoza is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Reclaiming the Americas: Latinx Art and the Politics of Territory.

Karen Mary Davalos is Professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author of Chicana/o Remix: Art and Errata Since the Sixties.

From Our Blog

Celebrating 50 Years of Latinx Art and Collaborative Artmaking with Self Help Graphics

By Tatiana Reinoza, co-editor of Self Help Graphics at Fifty: A Cornerstone of Latinx Art and Collaborative ArtmakingThroughout the last five decades, Self Help Graphics & Art has created an artist-centered institution with an emphasis on empowerment, reciprocity, and exchange. Whether i

Contents

Introduction
Intangible Registers: Self Help Graphics and the Creation of Sustainable Art Ecologies
Karen Mary Davalos and Tatiana Reinoza

PART ONE: THE ETHOS OF SELF HELP GRAPHICS & ART

1. Dibujando el Camino: Ibañez y Bueno and the Chicano-Mexican Public Art Tradition
JV Decemvirale
2. The Barrio Mobile Art Studio: The History of an Art Education Program for Chicanas/os
and Mexican Immigrants in Los Angeles
Adriana Katzew
3. Generative Networks and Local Circuits: Self Help Graphics and the Visual Politics of
Solidarity
Mary Thomas

PART TWO: THE ATELIER

4. The Future Is Feminist: How the Maestras Atelier Transformed Self Help Graphics
Claudia Zapata
5. Unfinished: The Death Worlds of Homombre LA
Robb Hernández
6. Self Help Graphics & Art’s Contributions to Chicana/o/x Art Histories
Karen Mary Davalos

PART THREE: FROM EAST LOS ANGELES TO THE WORLD

7. Central America at Self Help Graphics: Camaraderie and Artmaking in the City of Angels
Kency Cornejo
8. Self Help Graphics and Global Circuits of Art in the 1990s
Olga U. Herrera
9. Creating Infrastructures of Value: Self Help Graphics and the Art Market—a Conversation
with Arlene Dávila
Arlene Dávila, Karen Mary Davalos, and Tatiana Reinoza

Atelier History
Self Help Graphics & Art Timeline
Further Reading
List of Contributors
Index

Reviews

"The contributors frame Self Help Graphics as an arts organization with the potential to inspire a vision of a more just and inclusive art world, providing new perspectives on the organization and its significant contributions to the Chicano art movement and making Los Angeles a major center for global art."
— Design and Culture

"It is a pleasure to see a scholarly anthology dedicated to the legendary Self Help Graphics & Art printmaking workshop. Highlighting the individuals, neighborhoods, and institutions who kept it thriving for decades, this thoroughly researched social history of art offers readers a refreshing view of art-centered community making, emphasizing cross-cultural, feminist, and queer perspectives."—Jennifer A. Gonzalez, coeditor of Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology

"An amazing collection of insightful essays on the critical role played by Self Help Graphics & Art over its fifty-year history in creating and nurturing an artistic community in East Los Angeles. By explaining the origins; networks of support; reach of art education; feminist, queer, and Central American collaborations; and reach of its art around the world, the editors have established the centrality of this institution of creativity and experimentation."—George J. Sánchez, author of Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy

About the Book

About the Author

From Our Blog

Celebrating 50 Years of Latinx Art and Collaborative Artmaking with Self Help Graphics

Table of Contents

Reviews