Cheech Marin Receives Honor From Smithsonian For His Fine Taste In Chicano Art; We Are Amused

Actor, comedian and art collector Cheech Marin received a Legacy Award from The Smithsonian Latino Center for his role in promoting Chicano artists. He certainly does wear many hats. Cheech credits his Catholic upbringing for helping him become such an artistically-inclined Renaissance meng:

People think of you predominantly as an actor, but you’ve done a lot of other things.

Yeah, I was the product of a catholic education in both religious and secular terms. I was interested in a lot of subjects from very early on. And that’s uniquely Chicano, because every Chicano I knew always had three jobs.

Insightful. Anyway, this award was important enough for Smithsonian magazine to send a former intern to chat with Cheech, who feels Chicano art is great because you can get it for cheap and its so delightfully kitschy:

Is there an affinity between the art you saw and your experience as a Chicano performer and artist. Do you feel there’s a similar vibe or spirit running through out?

Absolutely, there was a reverence and an irreverence simultaneously—that really characterizes Chicano. It is sophisticated and naïve simultaneously, sometimes in the same symbols that they use. It’s multilayered all the time. And that’s exactly the way that I work: there’s the obvious layer, there’s a sub-layer and there’s a much deeper layer. It’s a combination of high and low art at all times.

Sophisticated and naïve, yes. Like a solid gold lowrider or a van with “The Birth of Venus” airbrushed onto the side. But that’s Chicano art, some examples of which you can find below. What can Cheech teach us about the people behind the art? What, exactly, are Chicanos all about?

With your career, how have you mixed reverence and irreverence? I think of your song “Mexican-Americans.”

That’s a perfect example. It was very naïve, here was a very naïve thought, there was a guy who was even singing out of meter, and he’s trying to be earnest, but he’s uncovering real sentiments, real thoughts, that exist. “Mexican-Americans don’t like to just get into gang fights; they like flowers and music and white girls named Debbie too.” It mixes the high and the low, the serious and the stupid—but the truth.

Call us snobs if you like, but we’ll stick to high art. And Funyuns.

Q&A Cheech Marin [Smithsonian Magazine Online]