Rene Yañez, an artist and co-founder of Galería De La Raza and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, died Tuesday morning in the hospital. He was 75. Yañez had long suffered from cancer, and despite a short prognosis and intensifying symptoms, he continued to produce art until the end, showing it earlier this year at “Into the Fade” at the...
“Baby Beast” tamed again A 60-unit housing project proposed at 19th and Bryant streets has stalled yet again in the face of fierce community opposition. During a Planning Commission hearing Thursday, community activists, fired up from an anti-gentrification march down Mission Street earlier that day, gave testimony on why the project will ultimately push longtime residents out of the neighborhood....
Shotwell Improvements The 21st and Shotwell intersection will be getting new streetlights and crosswalks in the next few months, according to Sandra Zuniga of the city’s “Fix-It” team. PG&E will be installing four new streetlights at the corner of 20th and Shotwell, and the SFMTA is recommending the installation of more prominent crosswalks. Zuniga said she also requested more street...
A community hub that began as an empty furniture store will celebrate 40 years of supporting artists this Saturday as the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts throws its 40th Anniversary Gala. The focus and feel of the center has shifted dramatically through the decades, from its international political roots to its role as a community center for local artists...
“Spirit of the Arts,” an iconic mural on the face of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts on Mission Street near 25th Street has been restored and will be rededicated with a celebration tonight. From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., dancers and speakers including the Mixcoatl Aztec Dancers, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen and MCCLA Director Jennie Rodriguez will...
At a meeting Monday night, service providers for the city’s Latino and immigrant populations said fear of deportation and family de-stabilization have risen while the resources to deal with both have diminished. “Our attorneys are doing quasi-social work,” said Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, executive director of the Mission-based Central American Resource Center or CARECEN, a nonprofit that provides immigration legal services to...
After 35 years of enduring the Mission weather, the iconic mural that decorates the front of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts needed a bit of a facelift and that restoration started Tuesday morning with two of the original artists on hand. “What I did then, and what we hope to do again is to provide an opportunity for the...
Poseidon sashayed down the runway to the sound of salsa Saturday as the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts kicked off its 40th anniversary celebration. The show, titled “5 Continents of Fashion and Fantasy,” paraded a string of historical, international and Carnaval themed pieces by Salvadoran costume designer Mario Chacón. “Fashion is something we dismiss, sometimes people tend to think...
The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts will host a fashion show with more than 75 elaborate outfits by acclaimed Salvadoran designer Mario Chacon on Saturday, March 11. The styles range from ethnic to European-influenced to Carnaval costumes. Chacon, whose designs have graced many a San Francisco Carnaval parade, originally studied architecture in El Salvador but turned to fashion after enrolling...
Local band Soltron will play at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts this Friday to mark the release of its self-titled album celebrating the Mission District’s culture and exploring themes of gentrification and displacement. Soltron began as a trio of drummers in 2014 after percussionist Anthony Sierra went to Cuba, where his father is from, to study the batá,...
Tonight: A Mexican journalist explores the cross-border drug trade and the American consumption that fuels it tonight at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. J. Jesús Esquivel will discuss his book, Los Narcos Gringos, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The presentation will be in Spanish and is free to attend. More from the event sponsors: This new investigative study by...
In an artistic collaboration that crosses individual and national boundaries, 55 artists will be showcasing their politically-fueled work in an effort to address struggles shared on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. “Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra: We didn’t cross the border, the borders crossed us,” opens at the Mission Cultural Center on January 16 for one month, but the exhibit’s organizers hope that the messages conveyed in featured...
Imagine 2,500 cans of spray paint for artists courtesy of German Loop Paint used by artists in Osage, Lilac, and Cypress alleys off 24th Street. Yes, a feast of new mural art was produced over the weekend thanks to the international graffiti group Mind Above Matter that sponsored the Meeting of Styles event to celebrate the 28th anniversary of the book Spraycan Art. The latter was the...
The artists presenting their work at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts’ gallery as part of this year’s Solo Mujeres show come from around the world, but they represent a range of experiences more complex than nationality, shaped by their identities as transgender, minority, or disabled women. Those identities, and how they layer and interact, are explored by the works presented in...
For the last 10 years, Paulo Acosta Cabezas, a San Francisco resident who owns the the Mamá Art Cafe in the Excelsior and the Cara y Cabezas Contemporary Gallery in Kansas City, has been going to the Havana Biennial Art Exhibition. On those trips he fell in love with the work Cubans were producing and two years ago began preparing the exhibition, “Feminine Voices and Poetics,”...
