Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. maps the intersections and collaborations among a network of Los Angeles based queer Chicanx artists and their artistic collaborators between the late 1960s and early 1990s. Taking its title in deference to the artist Edmundo “Mundo” Meza (1955-1985), a central figure within his generation, Axis Mundo presents over two decades of work—painting, performance ephemera, print material, video, music, fashion, and photography— created in the context of significant artistic and cultural movements, from the emergence of the Chicanx civil rights, women’s, and LGBTQ liberation movements through to the political activism around the AIDS epidemic. While the exhibition centers on Los Angeles, it reveals new research into the collaborative networks that connected these artists to one another and to artists from many cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, and international urban centers, thus deepening and expanding narratives about the development of the Chicanx Art Movement, performance art, and queer aesthetics and practices. Curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz, Axis Mundo marks the first historical consideration and significant showing of many of these pioneering artists’ work.

Artists:

Laura Aguilar, Jerri Allyn, Carlos Almaraz, Skot Armstrong, David Arnoff, Steven Arnold, Asco, Judith F. Baca, Alice Bag, Tosh Carrillo, Monte Cazazza, Edward Colver, Vaginal Davis, DIVA TV, Jerry Dreva, Tomata Du Plenty, Simon Doonan, Tomata du Plenty, Elsa Flores, Anthony Friedkin, Harry Gamboa Jr., Roberto Gil de Montes, Gronk, Jef Huereque, Louis Jacinto, Ray Johnson, Alison Knowles, Robert Lambert, Robert Legorreta (Cyclona), Zoe Leonard, Les Petites Bonbons, Scott Lindgren, Mundo Meza, Judy Miranda, Ray Navarro, Nervous Gender, Graciela Gutiérrez Marx and Edgardo Antionio Vigo, Richard Nieblas, Dámaso Ogaz, Pauline Oliveros, Ferrara Brain Pan, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Clemente Padín, Phranc, Ruby Ray, Albert Sanchez, Teddy Sandoval, Joey Terrill, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Patssi Valdez, Ricardo Valverde, Jack Vargas, Gerardo Velázquez, Johanna Went, Faith Wilding

Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. is curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, an initiative of the Getty to encourage ambitious research and exhibitions at Southern California cultural institutions. The exhibition is organized by ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries in collaboration with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and organized as a traveling exhibition by Independent Curators International (ICI). Lead support for Axis Mundo is provided through grants from the Getty Foundation.