1994 Crisis, Dreams, and the Aesthetic Imagination

CRISIS: MEXI AN, LATIN AMERICAN, LATINO, AND CHICANO ART

University of Colorado at Boulder "In the absenceof an adequatesocinlscience, critics and novelists, dramatists and poets have been the major,and often the only, formulators of private troublesand even public issues.'l) - C. Wright Mills

Mills defined "crisis" as a personal trouble or a public issue wherein individuals cherish values but feel them to be threatenedYl We will utilize Mills' definition to examine "crisis" as it is perceived by Mexican, Latin American, Latino, and Chicano artists. Art which seeks to address issues of social change has become a postmodern expression wherein multicultural voices are becoming part of the artworld. Indeed, issues of identity are part of the postmodern equation, e.g., ethnic and national identitiesYl Other issues in social change have been reported