National Hispanic Cultural Center Breaks New Ground in Art History with "Voces del Pueblo"

You can Google anything.

Or so it seems.

When Ray Hernández-Durán tried Googling information about first generation Chicana and Chicano artists in New Mexico at the beginning stages of researching an exhibition on the subject, the professor of Spanish colonial art and architecture in the University of New Mexico’s Department of Art was stunned to discover how little information was available.

“Everybody knows bultos and retablos and santos. They know the Pueblo artwork. They know the white modernists, but when it came to this generation of the Chicano movement, there was nothing I could find,” Hernández-Durán said. “I Googled the artists and maybe two of them popped up, very little information, so I felt like we had an opportunity here to do something that would have a longer lasting impact.”

What he’s doing is highlighting the generation’s artists and artworks, for the first time, in “Voces del Pueblo: Artists of the Levantamiento Chicano in New Mexico,” a presentation on view through February 8, 2026, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. An exhibition catalogue will be published in December.

“Levantamiento Chicano” translates to “Chicano movement.”

“It took seven years because you can't just go online, you can't just go to the library. We had to drive out to people's homes,” Hernández-Durán explained. “We had to pay visits, long road trips with my iPhone; I photographed the work that they had. Conservation was not a priority for them when they were students, so we don't have a lot of work from the 1970s, but we had to work with what they presented.”

A vast majority of the material Hernández-Durán ran across had not been documented or exhibited previously. The subject has never been treated with anything approaching the seriousness or thoroughness of “Voces del Pueblo.” Hernández-Durán demanded nothing less. As ideas for the presentation were being kicked around, he would only agree to taking on the project if it were suitably funded as a full-blown, scholarly, museum presentation, with catalogue and programming schedule. Major league.

Juanita J. Lavadie, ‘Nuestra Señora Guadalupe Norteña’ (ca. 1980), acrylic on canvas, 30”x80”. Collection of Robert (Corky) Frausto. Photo by Stefan Jennings Batista.

Pedro Rodríguez

“Voces del Pueblo” brings together artwork from six New Mexican artists who were among the earliest generation of Chicana and Chicano activists in the state: Ignacio Jaramillo, Juanita J. Lavadie, Francisco LeFebre, Noel Márquez, Roberta Márquez, and Adelita Medina. All were students at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas in the early 1970s when Chicano scholar Pedro Rodríguez was hired as the inaugural Director of Chicano Studies there in 1971.

“The six artists in the show, three men and three women, what ties them together is that they were his students,” Hernández-Durán explains. “They took classes with him. They were inspired by him.”

Under Rodríguez’ tutelage, these young men and women became politically activated and proceeded to paint murals, produce art, and organize in New Mexico as part of the nascent Chicano civil rights movement unfolding nationally.  

“Up until that moment, the art history the students were exposed to was European. They knew about the Renaissance and the Baroque artists. They knew nothing about Mexican art, Latin American art, Chicano art,” Hernández-Durán said. “Pedro taught courses on Mexican art history, Chicano art, and he sent the students down to Mexico City in a kind of travel abroad program where they studied with a Mexican muralist Ramiro Romo Estrada. While they were there, studying with this muralist, they were visiting the ancient sites, they were going to the museums.”

The students, newly enlightened, were changed forever.

“They returned to NMHU activated, and under (Rodríguez’) guidance, he really promoted this idea of art as activism, using art as a tool – as we saw across the Chicano art movement – to communicate, to educate, to organize,” Hernández-Durán continued. “They started painting murals all over the university, and this really pissed off the university administration; Pedro was fired less than two years after he arrived (at NMHU) because he was considered a troublemaker and everyone associated with him was considered a troublemaker.”

His firing set off a series of demonstrations and protests on campus, combining with his brief teaching tenure, to make NMHU one of the “ground zeroes” for Chicano student activism in state.

Adelita M. Medina, ‘What Happened to Chicano Studies’ (ca. 1973), silver gelatin print, 8”x10”. Collection of David Montoya.

“I don't think the administration expected how the murals, the artwork, the courses, were going to present critical stances against the very institutions that were the foundation for the university. They regretted (hiring him),” Hernández-Durán said. “At first, (NMHU officials) were behind starting a program that explored the civil rights concerns of a majority of the local population, the students were behind this, some of the faculty were behind this, not just Chicanos, but some Anglo members of the faculty as well were behind this, and that's something that motivated the effort to found the program and hire Pedro, but once he got there, he activated the students. They were painting murals. I don't think they had approval for a lot of these murals and (administrators) quickly regretted their decision.”

Not only Anglo administrators, Spanish identifying Hispanos were upset by what was taking place in the new Chicano Studies program as well.

“Those New Mexican Hispanos that were Spanish identified were anti-Chicano because the Chicano identity involves celebrating indigenous heritage, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist,” Hernández-Durán explained. “These are all the things that rang (alarm) bells for the administration. What was being promoted in the content of the murals, administrators felt attacked.”

History and identity in New Mexico, in America, is never as simple as it seems. Change never comes easily. Power is never vacated willingly.

After Rodríguez’ firing, a series of new directors attempted to fill his shoes as NMHU’s Chicano Studies program attempted to persist with a less activist bent.

Noel Márquez

The six artists in “Voces del Pueblo” came to NMHU prior to the start of the Chicano Studies program. They studied art and education and journalism. All of them came from homes in rural northern New Mexico except for Noel Márquez. He was from the southwestern part of the state. He’s also the only featured artist not still living, passing while the exhibition was being researched.

“He was so excited to see this kind of show because he told me that no museums or galleries in New Mexico wanted to show his work because they thought it was too political,” Hernández-Durán explained.

Márquez was an environmental activist and artist. His work and art highlighted the aftereffects of nuclear weapons testing in New Mexico, ongoing harm created by mining and oil drilling, water contamination. He was convinced the illness that killed him was a result of being contaminated or poisoned.

“Of the whole group, he's the one I consider the master,” Hernández-Durán said. “He was prolific. He’s a master painter, muralist, his drawings are amazing, his print making. It was heartbreaking to lose him because he was such an accomplished artist and that few people know who he is, to me, is shocking.”

Noel Márquez, ‘Jorge y Martina Hernández’ (2003), graphite on paper, 36”x 32 ½”. Collection of the Artist. Photo by Stefan Jennings Batista.

Chicano Murals

Everything Rodríguez showed and taught the students was new. Affirming. Empowering.

“Roberta Márquez, I remember she told me that when she first met Pedro and she was learning about Mexican art and Chicano art, she was like, ‘Do we have art? We have art? What is it like,’” Hernández-Durán remembers. “(Historic Chicano) artistic traditions were new to her. She says that learning about murals gave her a way to process this information and to consider the significance of these traditions in the contemporary setting at that time.”

Muralism became a major force in the Chicano Movement, drawing on muralist traditions established in Mexico. From Los Angeles to San Diego, across Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, messaging the Chicano Movement through murals was essential.

“This is not intended for galleries or museums or for collectors, it was art for the community, because these (New Mexico) artists, for the first time, learned about Mexican art, Chicano art, when they were in Mexico,” Hernández-Durán said. “It was never valued. It was never taught. Their eyes were opened to their own traditions. They were making connections between their experience growing up in northern New Mexico and the rest of the Americas. They're making these connections and seeing where they fit into the larger hemispheric puzzle. This was one of the things that ignited their political activism, this pride in the deep history they had that also included indigenous contributions. It's not just Spanish. There's so much cross pollination.”

Murals are publicly sited. They’re designed to be legible to the public, a general audience. They’re not abstract, they’re representational. Figural. Foregrounding people and traditions and events important to the communities where they’re located. Subjects then excluded from the mainstream art world.

“For (New Mexico’s first-generation Chicana and Chicano artists) it was this wake-up call: ‘Wow, we have art, we have a history. We have these traditions,’” Hernández-Durán said. “Murals were one of the best ways to present this, and their objective was to educate the community about their history in a way that they never had been before, to develop pride in seeing their own experiences featured in these monumental artworks. You don't have to know anything about art to look at the murals and understand what you're seeing. For many of the viewers, it was the first time they were learning this history or seeing these kinds of figures.”

The murals helped educate community members, further motivating political awareness.

Francisco Lefebre, ‘Realidades de Nuevo México’ (1976), acrylic on canvas, 72”x96”. Collection of Albuquerque Museum, museum purchase, 1985, General Obligation Bonds. Photo Courtesy of the Albuquerque Museum

California vs. New Mexico

As Hernández-Durán informed colleagues about his work, and as word of the show spread, he found interest in the subject wasn’t limited to New Mexico.

“I've been getting emails from New York, LA, Chicago, Miami, Mexico City, Bogota, Colombia, Madrid, Spain. People are curious: what are the New Mexicans doing in the early 70s? Nobody knows,” he said. “All the Chicano art historians, everything's so California focused.”

It’s not only historians wearing California blinders. Hernández-Durán remembers a conversation with weaver Juanita J. Lavadie during his research for the exhibition. Not long ago, she was showing with a group of California Chicana artists. While they were introducing themselves, she mentioned she was from New Mexico.

“(Lavadie) said that one of them was like, ‘Oh, the Chicano Movement wasn't in New Mexico. You really don't make Chicano art, you're too country,’” Hernández-Durán recalls. “They think New Mexico is very rural and nothing really significant is being produced here in terms of Chicano art. It’s shocking, but that's the general attitude. The Californians feel a sense of ownership over the Chicano Movement. They're a little bit arrogant at times about it.”

Hernández-Durán found New Mexico to be blind spot in histories of Chicano art.

“New Mexican Chicano and Chicana art is unique. It's very, very different than it is from California,” he said. “California is very urban. The only time you see land is when it's with migrant workers; here, the land is foundational to everything. One of the things that you see in Chicano art here that you don't see in the same way anywhere else (is landscapes).”

“Voces del Peublo” stands up for New Mexico’s contribution to the movement while filling important gaps in the historical record.

“New Mexico is unique, not just in the U.S., but the Americas. A very long history. It's indigenous presence, colonial history, territorial history. It's very different from Texas or California,” Hernández-Durán said. “(New Mexico Chicana and Chicano artists) all came from the local Hispano population. They grew up with these artistic traditions, the retablos, the santos, the bultos, the adobe, the wool, all that; they draw from their (background) and put it into conversation with the principles of the Chicano Movement.”

Take that Google.