VINCENT PRICE ART MUSEUM PROUDLY PRESENTS “TEDDY SANDOVAL AND THE BUTCH GARDENS SCHOOL OF ART” EXHIBITION OPENING OCTOBER 21

September 28, 2023

Curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz Co-Organized by Independent Curators International (ICI) in collaboration with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College and the Williams College Museum of Art.

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 21, 2023 from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Monterey Park, CA (September 28, 2023) – The Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College is proud to announce the opening of the exhibition Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art on Saturday, October 21, from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM. The exhibition will be on view from Saturday, October 21, 2023, through Saturday, March 2, 2024. Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art is the first museum retrospective dedicated to the inventive though overlooked artist Teddy Sandoval (1949–1995). A central figure in Los Angeles’s queer and Chicanx artistic circles, Sandoval was an active participant in both US and international avant-garde movements. For twenty-five years, he produced subversive, yet playful artworks that explored the codes of gender and sexuality and continuously mined archetypes of masculinity through his signature icon of a faceless man, often sporting a mustache.

The exhibition’s title highlights Sandoval’s faux institution and artistic persona named after Butch Gardens, a gay bar in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles during the early 1970s that was frequented by the artist and other Chicanx clientele. He utilized this imprint to distribute his artworks and organize exhibitions with friends and collaborators. While the “school” designation invokes a group, the Butch Gardens School of Art only had one member: Sandoval.

While presenting artworks across many media, this exhibition pays particular attention to Sandoval’s works on paper, including prints, drawings, artist photocopies, and mail art. Sandoval was trained in art and printmaking at East Los Angeles College and California State University, Long Beach, in the early 1970s during the Chicano Civil Rights and gay liberation movements.

“Teddy Sandoval’s posthumous return to East Los Angeles College comes almost half a century following his participation in the groundbreaking group exhibition Chicanismo en el arte at VPAM in 1975,” said VPAM Director Steven Wong. “We are proud to once again showcase Sandoval’s important art practice and underscore his enduring impact on the Chicanx and queer creative communities in Los Angeles and beyond.”

As Sandoval’s artistic practice developed, his work examined the codes of masculinity within Chicanx and queer culture, most directly through his signature archetype of a faceless male figure. Through his work Sandoval amplified the uniformity of these macho icons with both irreverence and desire. Sandoval’s figures appeared in his fine art prints, drawings, and ceramics, and were also adapted for his mail art multiples, gay male magazine illustrations, and advertising for a Los Angeles-based record store.

In the series La Historia de Frida Kahlo (1978), made in collaboration with the artist Gronk, the artists use humor and performances to send up the lives of artists Frida Kahlo (played by Sandoval) and Diego Rivera (Gronk). Sandoval’s exuberant performance casts Kahlo as a gender outlaw and model of artistic inspiration.

Into the late 1980s and ’90s, Sandoval became well-known for his whimsical ceramics, also on view in this exhibition. Works such as the print Angel Baby (1995), produced at the esteemed Self Help Graphics & Art, present a muscular angel in boxing gloves as a figure of strength and resilience in the face of the unfolding AIDS pandemic.

In the spirit of collectivity suggested by the “school of art,” this expansive survey proposes an alternative model for the monographic exhibition by including works by an intergenerational grouping of queer, Latinx, and Latin American artists who share similar graphic sensibilities, approaches to media, or thematic interests. As explained by exhibition curators C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz, “Our curatorial approach honors the imagination of Sandoval’s Butch Gardens School of Art and reactivates it by bringing artists in dialogue with his work and with one another. In the process, we highlight parallel approaches across the Americas among artists who largely did not have the opportunity to show with or know one another.” Examples includes the alluring fashion illustrations of Antonio Lopez; a sensual depiction of touch by Marisol; cruisy renderings by Ever Astudillo of men in the street of his native Cali, Columbia; and tender representations of Chicana lesbian erotics by Ester Hernández.

Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art is accompanied by a scholarly catalog co-published by Independent Curators International (ICI), Inventory Press, the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, and the Williams College Museum of Art to be released in early 2024.

Artists:

• Teddy Sandoval (b. 1949, Los Angeles; d. 1995, Los Angeles)
• Yolanda Andrade (b. 1950, Villahermosa, Mexico)
• Félix Ángel (b. 1949, Medellín, Colombia)
• Ever Astudillo (b. 1948, Cali, Colombia; d. 2015, Cali, Colombia)
• Myrna Báez (b. 1931, Santurce, Puerto Rico; d. 2018, San Juan, Puerto Rico)
• Felipe Baeza (b. 1987, Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico)
• Álvaro Barrios (b. 1945, Cartagena, Colombia)
• Sérgio Valle Duarte (b. 1954, São Paulo)
• Gronk (b. 1954, Los Angeles)
• Ester Hernández (b. 1944, Dinuba, CA)
• Hudinilson Jr. (b. 1957, São Paulo; d. 2013, São Paulo)
• Antonio Lopez (b. 1943, Utuado, Puerto Rico, d. 1987, Los Angeles) and Juan Ramos (b. 1942, Caguas, Puerto Rico; d. 1995, New York)
• Marcos López (b. 1958, Santa Fé, Argentina) and RES (b. 1957, Córdoba, Argentina) with Liliana Maresca (b. 1951, Avellaneda, Argentina; d. 1994, Buenos Aires) and Adriana Miranda (b. 1969, San Juan, Argentina)
• Marisol (b. 1930, Paris, France; d. 2016, New York)
• María Martínez-Cañas (b. 1960, La Habana, Cuba)
• Agustín Martínez Castro (b. 1950, Veracruz, Mexico; d. 1992, Acapulco, Mexico)
• Marta Minujín (b. 1943, Buenos Aires)
• Troy Montes Michie (b. 1985, El Paso, TX)
• Adolfo Patiño (b. 1941, Mexico City; d. 2005, Mexico City)
• Claudio Perna (b. 1938, Milan, Italy; d. 1997, Holguín, Cuba)
• Moises Salazar Tlatenchi (b. 1996, Chicago)
• Ana Segovia (b. 1991, Mexico City)
• Ginger Brooks Takahashi (b. 1977, Huntington, WV)
• Joey Terrill (b. 1955, Los Angeles)
• Alex Vallauri (b. 1949, Asmara, Ethiopia; d. 1987, São Paulo)
• Martin Wong (b. 1946, Portland, OR; d. 1999, San Francisco)

About the Curators

C. Ondine Chavoya holds the John D. Murchison Regents Professorship in Art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, and is a 2023-24 MoMA Scholar in Residence. Previously, he was Professor of Art History and Latina/o Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous texts on Chicanx art, media, and performance, and is a leading figure in the field of Latinx art history and visual culture. His curatorial projects have addressed issues of collaboration, experimentation, social justice, and archival practices in contemporary art. Chavoya co-organized Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987 with Rita Gonzalez in 2011 and Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. with David Evans Frantz in 2017.

David Evans Frantz is a curator based in Los Angeles. He has held curatorial positions at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries and the Palm Springs Art Museum, and currently works at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. In 2017, he co-curated with C. Ondine Chavoya the exhibition Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., a collaboration between ONE Archives and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles that traveled through 2022 in an exhibition tour organized by Independent Curators International (ICI). He is co-editor with Christina Linden and Chris E. Vargas of the forthcoming book Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects, a publication of the Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art (MOTHA).

About Vincent Price Art Museum
The Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College serves as a unique educational resource for the diverse audiences of the college and the community through the exhibition, interpretation, collection, and preservation of works in all media of the visual arts. VPAM provides an environment to encounter a range of aesthetic expressions that illuminate the depth and diversity of artwork produced by people of the world, both contemporary and past. By presenting thoughtful, innovative, and culturally diverse exhibitions and by organizing cross-disciplinary programs on issues of historical, social, and cultural relevance, VPAM seeks to promote knowledge, inspire creative thinking, and deepen an understanding of and appreciation for the visual arts. Learn more about VPAM at VPAM.org.

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About East Los Angeles College
East Los Angeles College (ELAC) is the largest of nine two-year community colleges within the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). More information about ELAC is available online at www.elac.edu. Follow ELAC on social media at Facebook @EastLACollege, X/Twitter @EastLACollege, and Instagram @ELACHuskies.

For VPAM press inquiries, please contact Katie Dunham, Katie Dunham Communications, at katie@katiedunham.net.

About Independent Curators International

Independent Curators International (ICI) supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration and international engagement. Curators are arts community leaders and organizers who champion artistic practice, build essential infrastructures and institutions, and generate public engagement with art. Our collaborative programs connect curators across generations and across social, political and cultural borders. They form an international framework for sharing knowledge and resources—promoting cultural exchange, access to art, and public awareness for the curator’s role. http://www.curatorsintl.org/

About the Williams College Museum of Art

The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) creates and inspires exceptional experiences with art that are integral to a liberal arts education, lifelong learning, and human connection. The museum is a partner in nurturing the cross-disciplinary arts in support of a liberal arts education; advancing the academic and experiential preparation of arts leaders; enriching the cultural ecosystem; engaging artists; and creating a shared learning community that spurs new thinking, creative making, and civic engagement. Located on Main Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on the Williams College campus, the museum draws on the collaborative and multidisciplinary ethos of the surrounding college to enliven the more than 15,000 works in its growing collection. The museum is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit artmuseum.williams.edu.

The Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art exhibition tour has been organized by Independent Curators International (ICI) and is available for hosting art spaces through 2027. For more information, contact ICI’s Director of Exhibitions, Becky Nahom, at becky@curatorsintl.org

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To request an interview or further information regarding VPAM and the exhibition Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, please contact VPAM Curator of Exhibitions, Joseph D. Valencia at jvalencia@vpam.org. Learn more at vpam.org.

Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art is a traveling exhibition curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz. It is produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, in collaboration with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College and the Williams College Museum of Art. The exhibition is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project initiative and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional support has been provided in part by the Mellon Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Research Fellowship program, the AltaMed Art Collection, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Estrellita B. Brodsky. It is made possible with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum. Crozier Fine Arts is the Preferred Art Logistics Partner.

Image: Teddy Sandoval, Detail of Angel Baby, 1995. Twelve-color silkscreen, 38 x 26 in. Courtesy of Paul Polubinskas. Photo: Ian Byers-Gamber