Quick Summary
- Montoya, 85, has influenced several generations of students who went on to make art or make a mark on the world in other ways.
- Designed and painted mural on current 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Student Community Center
At recent exhibition openings, Malaqu铆as Montoya was surrounded by former students and colleagues, and artists from all over. Many brought their families to meet the man who has meant so much to them. Although recovering from COVID, he arrived early and left late.
Montoya, a professor emeritus of at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis, is being widely celebrated with two major exhibitions: at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis and at the Oakland Museum of California.
About current exhibitions
Manetti Shrem's
Oakland Museum of California:
Montoya is an artist. But he is much more. Montoya, 85, has influenced several generations of students who went on to make art or make a mark on the world in other ways.
At 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis he created classes in Chicana and Chicano art and culture, mural painting, and poster and print making 鈥 all still being taught 鈥 and co-founded the printmaking center (TANA) that is used by 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis students, community members and established artists.
Montoya鈥檚 art has been shown in many museums, but the current exhibitions 鈥渕ake me feel good,鈥 said Montoya, who joined 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis in 1989 after a decade at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, California.
There is a caveat 鈥 museum exhibitions have never been his goal.
鈥淢y interest has always been to get my art out to the people who don鈥檛 go to museums,鈥 Montoya said while walking through the Manetti Shrem Museum, surrounded by 60 years of his art addressing social and political issues: farmworkers rights, the Vietnam War, U.S. intervention in Central America, and the torture of prisoners by many governments, including the U.S.
The current exhibitions are mostly made up of prints and posters, but a major part of his impact has been through murals created as part of the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis mural class. In those, he and his students worked in conjunction with community members and young people to bring to life the walls of schools, community and health centers, and a juvenile jail. (View this of the murals and preparatory drawings.)
Once asked if he had gallery representation, he responded, 鈥淚 have a gallery from Lake Merritt to 87th Street (in Oakland). You can see my work on utility poles and the sides of buildings. The work was for people to see when they drive through the neighborhood or walk to the grocery store.鈥
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More about the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis mural at the student community center.