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12/30/05
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
He's done movies, television, and standup. Now Cheech Marin is a serious art collector and a man with a mission.
Cheech Marin>> You have to realize that ninety-nine percent of the country does not know what a Chicano is, much less what their art looks like. You find out in museums that it's the golden rule. Whoever's got the gold makes the rule (laughter).
Val Zavala>> And then, these performers have all the right moves and we meet the man who keeps them on a string.
These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.
Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> Welcome to this special edition of Life and Times. Tonight we bring you our favorite stories about art and artists, including a story about an actor turned art collector, a puppeteer, and beginning with a famous sculptor.
He is a world-renowned artist at the top of his field. His name is Robert Graham and, unlike other artists who experimented with abstract forms or conceptual art, Graham stayed true to his first love: the human form. For more than forty years, he has mastered human anatomy in all its exquisite details. I got a chance to talk to Robert Graham as an extensive exhibition of his work opened at the Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills. It is called "The Female Form".
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Val Zavala>> From metaphysical to physical, from massive to miniature, from public monuments to personal portraits. Artist Robert Graham is fascinated with the human body.
Robert Graham>> The human body has got everything in it. It's got everything that I am interested in and, without making a list which is pretty impossible, it's infinite and it's wonder and magic and, you know, that's enough for me.
Val Zavala>> It is the female form that is the focus of this exhibit, a collection of more than fifty pieces, some of them never seen publicly before. He does not consider them statues, but rather three-dimensional portraits, each capturing the uniqueness of the models, Lise, Heather, Klara and Elisa.
Robert Graham>> It's really easy to say that they're all nude and they're doing this and that, but what is important to me is that they're all portraits. They're all portraits of that person and they happen to be nude.
Val Zavala>> This is the most complete exhibition of Graham's work to date, but to see a more complete portrait of the artist, you have to go to public places like the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. An angel haloed by the sky floats above doors twenty feet high weighing ten tons. Forty squares contain symbols of Christianity and ancient cultures. It took Graham five years and a team of two hundred to bring it to fruition.
Robert Graham>> All their names are on the doors. It's something that, you know, every one of them at every level made it happen.
Val Zavala>> Graham's work is seen in cities across the United States. In Detroit, a bold right arm hangs in tribute to prize fighter, Joe Lewis. In New York, jazz great Duke Ellington is surrounded by nine muses. In San Jose, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl anchors Cesar Chavez Plaza. And in numerous Los Angeles locations, Graham's work lends a silent nobility to the sites.
Robert Graham Pena was born in Mexico City. His father died when he was six. He remembers his grandmother taking him to see the spectacular monuments, cathedrals and murals of Mexico City. When he was eleven, his family moved to San Jose.
Robert Graham>> This room has got some drawings that I did of my model Clara.
Val Zavala>> His talent for drawing was apparent as a child. He went on to study art in San Francisco and it was not long before his sculptures were winning attention. In the early 1970's, Graham moved to Venice where he still works and lives today. His earliest pieces in the exhibition are from the 1970's, miniature nudes carved in wax or figures placed in relation to a mirror.
Robert Graham>> The mirror is in equal distance to the two figures to create a third figure in the middle and that was something that I've been using for a long time in terms of mirror images. Like the angels are complete mirror images. Well, the angels were first intended to be on the doors of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. By herself was enough.
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Val Zavala>> It was in 1984 that Robert Graham burst onto the public consciousness with the unveiling of the Olympic Gateway, a portal to the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Mayor Tom Bradley>> "So it's an indication that our culture is very much alive in Los Angeles. We're proud of the contribution which Graham has made to that."
Val Zavala>> But it's hard to be the force behind so much public art without also being a target. In Detroit, the twenty-four foot long arm was viewed by some whites as a symbol of black power more than a tribute to Joe Lewis. In San Jose, the plumed serpent was viewed by some as un-Christian.
Reporter>> "The plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl has caused quite a stir. Some Christian fundamentalists claim the statue represents demonic forces."
Reporter>> "A federal judge has already ruled this statue is a work of art, not a religious object."
Reporter>> "Now can you say something about your work?"
Robert Graham>> "It's too emotional. Let someone else talk about it."
Val Zavala>> But over time, controversies fade and art endures.
Robert Graham>> The authorship of the artist is not important in that sense because nobody really cares who made these things as long as they work. It doesn't mean that I don't have an ego (laughter). I have a big one. You know, it's just that that's not what's going to last.
Val Zavala>> In the early 1980's, Graham tried something completely different. He designed a home for his friends and patrons, the Doumani's. It was featured in Architectural Digest. Despite the acclaims, he returned to his first love: the human figure. Graham knew that art could change lives and, after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, he hired eight former gang members as apprentices, teaching them the difficult process of casting in bronze. They made three thousand torsos and raised more than seven hundred thousand dollars for arts education.
Robert Graham>> And these all have names. You can see on the walls who they are and, again, very specific portraits.
Val Zavala>> In the center of this gallery is a bronze of Robert Graham's wife, actress Anjelica Huston. Graham's exploration of the human figure continues to evolve. In the exhibition, he displays not only sculpture, but drawings, videos and photographs.
Robert Graham>> I did the series of like all these dancing things. These are part of kind of trying to see things that were influenced by the photographs that I was taking, the way the flesh moves, you know, as you're spinning around. There's nothing static on it. You can see like that is not any more real than that.
Val Zavala>> Graham is often short on words even when he's receiving one of many awards and honors.
Robert Graham>> "I'm very honored by this. Thank you very much."
Val Zavala>> But then words are not Robert Graham's currency. He is an artist whose medium is metal and his message is strength and beauty.
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Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> They say it's never too late to have a happy childhood and here is your chance. We take you to the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles near a freeway off-ramp in a plain cinder block building. But as Vicki Curry found out, once you go inside, you've entered another world, the world of Bob Baker's Marionettes.
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Vicki Curry>> No one understands a child's fascination with puppets like Bob Baker. His shows have delighted children for forty-five years, making the Bob Baker Marionette Theater the oldest continuously running theater of its kind.
Bob Baker>> We try to entertain the children. When they're sitting on the floor, they're looking almost into the puppets' eyes, so they become very real. I have people come here today who tell me that they came here when they were small kids when they had their birthday parties twenty-five years ago or they're bringing their child to see a theater here that they saw when they were kids.
Vicki Curry>> Baker is a native of Los Angeles. His father took him to a puppet show when he was five and he was hooked. By age eight, he was staging his own shows.
Bob Baker>> I had an hour lesson every day but Sunday and I had to practice mostly two hours a day. I was really learning the skill of not only working the puppets, but making the puppets.
Vicki Curry>> Baker's talent soon brought offers from Hollywood. He's worked on hundreds of television shows and movies, including "A Star is Born", "Bedknobs & Broomsticks" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". It was his onscreen experiences that led him to create the theater.
Bob Baker>> We kept saying we want to do puppets on film. About that time, we put this theater together so we could show people production numbers and things that could be done.
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Vicki Curry>> Countless people have witnessed what Baker's puppets can do not just in Los Angeles, but around the world. He has two traveling companies and they've performed at thousands of county fairs and private parties.
Bob Baker>> You know, there's very few places I haven't performed somewhere along the line. "Have puppets, will travel", I guess, is the slogan.
Vicki Curry>> He can take the show on the road because of a technique he pioneered decades ago when he had to put on a show with no stage.
Bob Baker>> Well, I did it out front this way and they liked it. I thought, well, why bother with the stage? I'll bring more puppets and do a longer show and not have to carry in that great big old bulky stage. We do nothing to really camouflage the puppets here. We come out as ourselves. The puppet is down below us and the children are on the floor. Also, it gives us the freedom of, if we want to do a skating number or a dance number, we can actually do it. This is more fun. We've broken the barrier.
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Vicki Curry>> Even without a stage, the shows are elaborate productions. How many puppets do you usually have per show?
Bob Baker>> A hundred to a hundred twenty-five.
Vicki Curry>> For each one-hour show?
Bob Baker>> For one hour.
Vicki Curry>> Wow. And how many puppeteers?
Bob Baker>> Five to six. And back in here, we have a light board. It's an antique board.
Vicki Curry>> Now the people who work here really learn the fundamentals and they can in the theater.
Bob Baker>> They have to learn how to be a lighting designer and figure out what lights to use and dimmers when they come in and out. Also, what colored lights are best. We have painted ceilings that come down here besides just having drapes. Each show has its own set.
Vicki Curry>> And so everything that you have in a show is created and built here?
Bob Baker>> Built right here.
Vicki Curry>> In this theater?
Bob Baker>> Um-hum.
Vicki Curry>> Every bit of it?
Bob Baker>> Every bit of it.
Vicki Curry>> That includes, of course, the marionettes themselves. Besides building puppets for their shows, Bob Baker and his team hand-craft puppets for sale. He's overseen the Disney character collection for fifty years. When you make the puppets that you sell as collectibles, you hand-make each individual puppet?
Bob Baker>> Every puppet is handmade. It's hand-crafted, handmade. It's strictly one of a kind.
Vicki Curry>> Baker's team is made up of a few long-time colleagues plus a group of young people from the neighborhood.
Bob Baker>> A lot of people come here -- they don't come here to be a puppeteer. They come here to work and do something and, before long, they're working a puppet. I'd rather teach a puppeteer how to work a puppet than to have one that has had bad training because it's very hard to break the habits that they have with moving the puppets, and especially the way we work.
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Bob Baker>> While we're working the puppet, I'd be moving around like this with the puppet.
Vicki Curry>> The puppet in some ways mirrors what you're doing.
Bob Baker>> Yeah, I move my body with the puppet. Anyway, it helps get the action because they're able to swing out and do various things. It involves acting, body movement, a little bit of drama, a little bit of just personality, also kind of wanting to show off.
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Vicki Curry>> Bob Baker says he's proud to be teaching something to both the young people he trains and those in his audiences.
Bob Baker>> Most children today are not exposed to a lot of music. They're not exposed to a lot of theater and they bring them in from the schools. They get to see a theater, kind of a miniature theater, in operation with the lights, with the scenery going up and down into the gallery. The puppets, you can feel that something alive is coming through.
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Bob Baker>> Every time I try to do something else, something brings me back to puppetry. I've never really quit a hundred percent. I won't be sitting in a rocking chair and I won't retire because I don't have a hobby (laughter). I'm hoping that there will be legacy that I can leave, that all the puppets and the theater will be carried on. I have determination that it's going to stay here a long, long time.
[Film Clip]
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Val Zavala>> He's known best as half of the comedic duo, Cheech and Chong, but since then, Cheech Marin has taken on a whole new passion in life. He has become an art collector, but not just any art. Solely, Chicano art. He lives in a seaside home in Malibu, a far cry from his upbringing in South Los Angeles and the Valley.
Cheech Marin>> My dad was a policeman. He was born in Los Angeles as well. My mother was born in Los Angeles.
Val Zavala>> I'll bet that kept you out of trouble.
Cheech Martin>> Oh, baby (laughter). The fear of death (laughter). This is my hallway. I have a lot of pieces here.
Val Zavala>> His home is full of art, Chicano art.
Cheech Marin>> They're from San Diego and Little Tijuana, that area, and they're getting very big internationally. They just came back from their one-man show.
Val Zavala>> Now you say that you had had art training, but you're not an artist?
Cheech Marin>> No, I'm not an artist, a visual artist. I have no ability (laughter) whatsoever and I was told that. But I really liked art. I appreciated it at a very early age. Since sixth grade, I started going to the library and checking out all the art books just because I wanted to be sophisticated and I wanted to have a knowledge of art. So I worked my way through the collection at the library until I was kind of fairly knowledgeable about the artists.
Val Zavala>> He also studied the great Mexican muralists, but he didn't know much about contemporary art until he started visiting galleries.
Cheech Marin>> What I wanted to do was be kind of sophisticated. I wanted to, you know, be able to walk into a party and say, oh, that's a nice mural or whatever -- "What a beautiful Chagall you have there", like that was going to happen -- but it eventually did, you know.
Val Zavala>> And the first painting he ever bought?
Cheech Marin>> The first Chicano painting I ever saw and what I bought was called "Amor Marizado" by George Yepes. I was really intrigued by the images and the more I saw of the various Chicano painters, the more I saw this other story emerging and that story was the experience of being Chicano in this country.
Val Zavala>> From that point on, it was like an addiction.
Cheech Marin>> I mean, first you want to buy something you want to go over the couch, you know, look nice in here and then you start picking up speed. Then very quickly, I realized that, hey, I'm starting to put together a collection. Then I realized that I was really in a unique position. I was somebody who was Chicano, knew what the art was, recognized what it was, recognized the significance of it and recognized how it had been denied access to the mainstream. I thought, well, this could work out. And over here, we have a little tiny Carlos Almaraz. It's a little oil of Echo Park and the bridge in Echo Park. It's a little lake and it could be Impressionist, but it's very specifically Chicano.
Val Zavala>> It literally could be any garden setting, it could be a little --
Cheech Marin>> -- and turn around, a larger Carlos Almaraz painting. This guy could really put the paint on. This particular one is called "Even Bats Have Mothers".
Val Zavala>> "Even Bats Have Mothers"?
Cheech Marin>> (Laughter) Yeah, I don't know.
Val Zavala>> I'm glad you shrugged at that one.
Cheech Marin>> But the great part of this painting is how he put the paint on. You know, he's as good as any painter I've ever seen.
Val Zavala>> But collecting is just the first step. He has now taken on a second mission, to move Chicano art into the mainstream of the American art world, but the art market is a very arbitrary place. What is it that makes something hot? What is it that makes something accepted? What is it that makes something collectible and is there any rhyme or reason to this?
Cheech Marin>> Publicity. It's access to publicity. It's access to access.
Val Zavala>> It's a balmy evening at Plaza de la Raza, a Latino cultural center in East Los Angeles. Cheech is launching the opening of an exhibit of prints called The Chicano Collection. Los Angeles's new mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, is the special guest.
Antonio Villaraigosa>> "That's Frank, right? Frank Romero?"
Val Zavala>> But this is more than an exhibition. One hundred fifteen sets of these high-quality prints will be distributed free to fifty major art museums and universities across the United States. It contains work by top Chicano artists like Margaret Garcia, Eloy Torres, John Valadez and Gilbert "Magu" Lujan. Besides this print exhibition, a collection of more than eighty originals, most of them Marin's, is touring the country. Its final destination? The Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2008. Is this the first Chicano artist exhibition they've had?
Cheech Marin>> Oh, yes, for many of them. This is the first Chicano art exhibit they've had. You have to realize that ninety-nine percent of the country does not know what a Chicano is, much less what their art looks like. You find out when you're in museums that it's the golden rule. Whoever's got the gold makes the rules (laughter). Here's a print by Gronk, one of the Chicano artists. She was a member of a group called ASCO, which was nausea in Spanish. Everybody says they make me nauseous. This kind of becomes the first abstract Chicano artist. She's always figurative, but she's always working in the background in a very abstract manner and now the background is so strong, it becomes the foreground.
Val Zavala>> But many museums realize they will have to change along with the cities and the populations they serve.
Cheech Marin>> You have salsa being the number one condiment in the United States over catsup, so you have these two poles that are coming together and how do you bring them together? This art tour is a gift of here's how to do it. Here's how we understand each other. All you have to do is look at the picture. We have a piece by Patssi Valdez.
Val Zavala>> She's one of your favorites.
Cheech Marin>> She is one of my favorites. She's a great painter. She's getting better all the time. This is a study of the study in the Gamble House in Pasadena.
Val Zavala>> See, now, that's interesting. Gamble, very far from Chicano culture, but she goes in there and then she draws something.
Cheech Marin>> No, actually the Gamble House is in the middle of Chicano culture because of where it's situated. You know, it's not confrontive. It is welcoming. That's what we're trying to get across. It's inclusion. Here's another De La Torre piece.
Val Zavala>> Made of glass.
Cheech Marin>> Yeah, made of glass, hand-blown. It's really, really spectacular.
Val Zavala>> "Adios".
Cheech Marin>> "Adios". The story behind it, they told me, was when the missionaries first came into Japan, they were Portuguese missionaries, the first incursions of the west. They were trying to get across to the Japanese this concept of Christ and he died on a cross and he went to heaven. He died and he went to heaven, so they thought they wanted to be killed, so they killed them all (laughter). So "Adios" means to God and goodbye. So here's this kind of like naïve little symbolization of this little innocent bird, tweet-tweet, holding the head of the missionaries (laughter).
Val Zavala>> Cheech knows not everyone will fall in love with Chicano art, but he says that's not the point.
Cheech Marin>> You can't love or hate Chicano art unless you see it.
Val Zavala>> And you can't see it unless people like Cheech Marin are working to open doors, open minds and open eyes. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
This program was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.
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