Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge

It might be a challenge to think of a guy best known for enthusiastically inhaling (with Tommy Chong) as a serious art collector, but Marin has been acquiring paintings by Mexican-American artists for more than 20 years. Chicano Visions presents the work of 30 Chicano artists whose paintings will be exhibited at the Smithsonian and tour the country. The exhibition, which has major corporate sponsorship, is a breakthrough for a movement that has been largely excluded from museums and galleries, Marin notes. He defines the school as ""a blending of influences-traditional Mexican and American Pop,"" and admires the spirit that drives these artists to show paintings ""in restaurants, coffeehouses, or wherever there is a wall and an audience."" There are 96 paintings in full color here, including Gronk's Hot Lips, a portrait in which a woman's large, loose curls of hair perfectly frame her title attribute, and Leo Limon's ""Mas Juegos,"" in which a nude, smoking woman reclines on an ordinary couch, but daydreams extraordinary things.