Garcia originally created this image for the Chicago Reader’s Fantasy Gig Poster Project:
“This week's gig poster features a fantasy concert at a real but defunct Chicago venue. Artist Eric J. García created this image in honor of former Pilsen community center and neighborhood anchor Casa Aztlán.
"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the famed poet and intellectual genius of 17th-century New Spain, LIVE! Her brilliance was so powerful that she was banished from the public and cloistered away by the Catholic church. Now, for one night only, on the eve of Día de los Muertos, she's back to RE-RE-occupy the famed Casa Aztlán auditorium in Pilsen. Initially occupied by Brown Berets during the Chicano movement, Casa Aztlán became a center for arts, culture, and social struggle in this Mexicano community for more than four decades. Now having been sold off and whitewashed by gentrifying realtors, Casa Aztlán is being re-re-occupied for this special performance."
Dimensions: 24 X 36''
Materials: Screenprinted poster
Hoofprint
(McKinley Park)
Hoofprint is a Chicago-based printshop and publisher specializing in fine art editions utilizing screenprinting, lithography, etching, and relief processes. They work collaboratively with emerging artists to create limited edition prints. Print partners Liz Born and Gabe Hoare co-founded Hoofprint in 2012.
Eric J. Garcia blends history, contemporary themes and a graphic style to create politically charged art that reaches beyond aesthetics. Using sculpture, mixed media installations, murals, printmaking and his controversial political cartoons, he aims to challenge his viewers to question sources of power and the whitewashing of history. After receiving his BFA with a minor in Chicano studies from the University of New Mexico, Eric Garcia went on to complete his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a core member of the printmaking collective, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago, one of the newest member’s of the Justseeds Cooperative, a part of the emerging Veteran Art Movement, and is a dedicated teaching artist. Garcia has exhibited nationally and his work can be found in the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.