Cheech Marin: Comic Icon and Art Curator
Posted Jan 27th 2006 6:20PM by TMZ Staff
By CHERYL WITTENAUER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. LOUIS -- Cheech Marin, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, knew racial prejudice growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s.
But the comic, actor and director -- better known as one half of stoners Cheech and Chong -- refused to acknowledge it.
His traveling exhibit of Chicano art, now more than halfway through its U.S. run, is sweet vindication. "Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge" has set attendance records at nearly every city where it's appeared since the exhibit first opened in November 2001 in San Antonio, drawing a mixed-ethnic audience of 1.3 million.
"Visions," the story of Mexican-American culture as portrayed by 26 of its master painters, is a sign of pride and inclusion for Marin, and "one of the most fulfilling things in my life," he said.
The lifelong art collector owns most of the exhibit's works, created from 1969 to the present. A few pieces were loaned by actors Dennis Hopper and Nicholas Cage.
The show, which opened Friday at the Saint Louis Science Center, takes its name from a once-pejorative moniker.
The word, "'Chicano,' started as an insult by Mexican-Americans," Marin said. "You were no longer a Mexicano, but a chico, a satellite Mexican living here, but it evolved into a sense of pride."
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Filed under: Movies, The Biz, Wacky & Weird, Life Style
Tags: Cheec Marin, CheecMarin, Up In Smoke, UpInSmoke
