Somos+La+Luz

Date: 1992
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1994/1994.81_1a.jpg?itok=dQlQiYY7 width="398" height="257" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/somos-la-luz-34059"]] || Title: **Somos La Luz**

Artist: **Charles "Chaz" Bojórquez** Born: Los Angeles, California 1949

Medium: oil, zolatone, aluminum paint and aluminum leaf on canvas Dimensions: 56 3/8 x 88 1/4 x 3 1/2 in. (143.2 x 224.2 x 8.9 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program

Accession: 1994.81 || Chaz Bojorquez believes that true self-expression comes from the soul. At an early age, in the 1950’s he experienced the graffiti tradition of the East Los Angeles Mexican-Americans. Los Angeles ‘Cholo’ style graffiti was dictated by an honored code of writing. Allegiance to that code of traditional writing brought you respect. In 1968, out of high school with a liberal arts/mathematics diploma, and one year of state college, Chaz enrolled into Chouinard art school (known today as Cal Arts). He also studied Asian calligraphy from Master Yun Chung Chiang (Master Chiang studied under Pu Ju, brother of the last Emperor of China). From all of these experiences, in 1969 he combined the tradition and honor from Cholo gang graffiti and the educational knowledge from art school, and with the spiritual skills of Asian calligraphy. Chaz was one of the first graffiti writers from Los Angeles, with his own style. After more than a decade of tagging in the streets in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, came a deeper need to understand, why do we do graffiti? In 1975 Italian photographer Gusmano Cesaretti interviewed Chaz for Street Writers, a transcribed audio tour of East Los Angeles graffiti in the early 1970’s. A pioneer book in the Chicano and Graffiti culture.
 * Bio from Artist Website: **

In 1979 he embarked on a three year round-the-world experience, visiting and living in 35 countries, studying how graphics and letters describes culture and national pride. The graffiti art that Chaz Bojorquez paints today, ask even deeper questions of himself. Does graffiti have intent, purpose, cultural identity, history and create unity? Who owns the public space and who has the right to speak and be heard? These universal questions have answers in all of us. (http://www.chazbojorquez.com/bio/)

Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez grew up in East Los Angeles where he was exposed to the graffiti of the gangs around him. Somos La Luz (We Are the Light) combines a variety of writing styles layered one on top of another, simulating successive layers of paint accumulated on a wall. In creating the textural density of this dynamic composition, he used many subtle tonal variations that range from silver gray to black.

Media coverage of a Los Angeles competition to determine the city's best graffiti artist inspired this wall-sized painting. When critics used words like "respect," "acceptance," and "art," he realized that the outlaw language of street gangs had achieved a measure of approval. "The dark letters," he reported, "are the names of the young writers (Zender, Nuke, Duke, Skill, and Krenz) who are changing the legitimacy of graffiti language from the dark underground to the steel strength and light of acceptance." The words of the title appear among the names and numbers in this tribute to the tenacity and achievement of urban youth.  (http://americanart.si.edu/education/corazon/galeria_04.cfm )

 Like many artists of his generation, he was inspired by the Chicano movement for civil rights to create art that functions on multiple social and aesthetic levels. Although he lives in Los Angeles—a city from which he draws great inspiration—he has traveled to several countries and regions, including the South Pacific, Asia, and Europe, in search of other calligraphic languages.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">For quote, see Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez, statement in curatorial files, 1994, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Resources: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Artist Biography <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Links: **