Media alert: new exhibition “Empujando Tinta” opens Saturday, May 4

For more information, additional images, or interviews, please contact:

Jenn Hernandez, Community Relations Manager

media@galeriadelaraza.org

NEW EXHIBITION AT GALERÍA DE LA RAZA

Empujando Tinta

Taller Tupac Amaru: 10 Years of Collaborative Activism

Opening reception Saturday, May 4, 2013

7:30pm-10pm

Exhibition runs May 7 - June 20, 2013

Gallery hours Tuesday-Saturday, 12pm-6pm

Galería de la Raza is pleased to present Empujando Tinta, a 10-year retrospective of Taller Tupac Amaru’s (The Taller) work, opening on Saturday, May 4, 2013.

The Taller, a collective art studio, was founded in 2003 by Jesus Barraza and Favianna Rodriguez, and in 2007 was joined by Melanie Cervantes. Its mission is to produce political posters and fine art prints, while also continuing to maintain the art of screen printing active; thus, The Taller has produced political posters and art prints to national and global acclaim while reviving the screen printing medium.

For the past 10 years, The Taller has collaborated with a plethora of community organizations in the Bay Area and beyond providing key support - in the design and printing facets - on campaigns highlighting social justice issues, including work with Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, Consejo Gráfico, and many advocacy organizations.

The Taller strives to keep cultural and political fine art screen prints alive, collaborating with over 30 emerging and established artists. These fine art editions by artists including Barbara Carrasco, Emory Douglas, Juan R. Fuentes, Rupert Garcia, and Ester Hernandez will be highlighted during the Galería de la Raza exhibition along with over 100 prints and posters printed by Master Printer Jesus Barraza.

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About the collective: Taller Tupac Amaru was founded in 2003 by Jesus Barraza, Favianna Rodriguez, and Estria Miyashiro, and in 2007 was joined by Melanie Cervantes. Its mission is to produce political posters and art prints in order to revive the medium of screen printing. The Taller started with the aim of building a studio that focused on creating political posters that served as tools for community organizations, as well as fine art prints with emerging and established artists. Throughout the past 10 years, The Taller has collaborated with community organization in the Bay Area and beyond, designing and screen printing posters for campaigns that focus on social justice issues such as globalization, immigration, LGBT justice, and food sustainability.

Web >>

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About the artists: Jesus Barraza is an activist printmaker based in San Leandro, California. Using bold colors and high contrast images, his prints reflect both his local and global community, and their resistance in a struggle to create a new world. Barraza has worked closely with numerous community organizations to create prints that visualize struggles for immigration rights, housing, education, and international solidarity. In 1998, Barraza was a co-founder of ten12, a collective of digital artists. He has also worked as a graphic designer for the Mission Cultural Center/Mission Grafica, where Calixto Robles, Juan R. Fuentes, and Michael Roman mentored Barraza in various screen printing methods. In 2003, he co-founded the Taller Tupac Amaru printing studio to foster resurgence in the screen printing medium, where he has printed over 400 editions. Additionally, he is a partner at Tumis Inc., a bilingual design studio helping to integrate art with emerging technologies, and one-half of Dignidad Rebelde.

Printmaking has allowed Barraza to produce relevant images that can be put back into the hands of his community and spread throughout the world. He believes that through this work and the work of Dignidad Rebelde, he is playing a role in keeping the history of graphic art activism alive. As a teacher, Barraza has conducted printmaking workshops at numerous universities and organizations, and has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, the de Young Museum San Francisco, Parco Museum Tokyo, Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, and El Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in Bolivia. He was a 2005 artist-in-residence with Juan R. Fuentes at San Francisco’s prestigious de Young Museum, and is a recipient of the “Art is a Hammer” award in 2005 from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and the “Exemplary Leadership Award” from the SFSU College of Ethnic Studies College in 2010.

Favianna Rodriguez is a transnational interdisciplinary artist and cultural organizer. Her art and collaborative projects deal with migration, global politics, economic injustice, patriarchy, and interdependence. Rodriguez lectures globally on the power of art, cultural organizing, and technology to inspire social change, and leads art workshops at schools around the country. Rodriguez’s mission is to create profound and lasting social change in the world. Through her bold and provocative art, she has already touched the hearts and minds of millions. In addition to her fine arts and community work, Rodriguez partners with social movement groups around the world to create art that is visionary, inspirational, radical and, most importantly, transformational. When Rodriguez is not making art, she is directing CultureStrike, a national arts organization that engages artists, writers and performers in migrant rights. In 2009, she co-founded Presente.org, a national online organizing network dedicated to the political empowerment of Latino communities.

Melanie Cervantes is a Xicana activist-artist whose role is to translate the hopes and dreams of justice movements into images that agitate and inspire. Cervantes’ work includes black and white illustrations, paintings, installations and paper stencils, but she is best known for her prolific production of political screen prints and posters. Employing vibrant colors and hand-drawn illustrations, her work moves those viewed as marginal to the center - featuring powerful youth, elders, women, and queer and indigenous peoples. Cervantes has exhibited at Woman Made Gallery and National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago), Mexic-Arte and Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (Austin), Crewest (Los Angeles), and internationally her art has reached Thailand, Slovenia, Palestine, Venezuela, Switzerland, Africa, India, and Guatemala. Her work is in public collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Latin American Collection of the Green Library at Stanford, and the Hispanic Research Center at the Arizona State University as well as various private collections throughout the U.S.

Cervantes currently works full-time as Program Officer at the Akonadi Foundation, which supports movement building organizations working to finally put an end to the structural racism that lies at the heart of social inequity in the United States. She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and is the other half of Dignidad Rebelde.

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FOR CALENDAR EDITORS

Galería de la Raza presents

Empujando Tinta

Taller Tupac Amaru: 10 Years of Collaborative Activism

Exhibition reception: Saturday, May 4, 2013 – 7:30pm

Free and open to the public

Exhibition runs May 7, 2013 – June 20, 2013

Exhibition on Facebook >>

Galería de la Raza artist profile >>

Galería de la Raza | Studio 24

2857 24th St (at Bryant)