New Chicano Art Exhibit Opens at Cheech Marin Center

A new community exhibit titled Our Empire is now on display at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, featuring the work of Redlands-based artists James McClung and Marcus Mercado. The exhibition, which runs through October 23, 2026, is hosted in the Altura Credit Union Community Gallery and consists of 29 acrylic and mixed media paintings and drawings.

The artwork focuses on the urban landscape of the Inland Empire, specifically highlighting the gritty patina of the region. McClung and Mercado use the exhibition to honor unassuming entities such as decaying signage and dilapidated buildings, which the artists suggest conjure memories of life within the region.

Capturing Regional Memory

The exhibit aims to transform industrial landscapes into landmarks of memory. One prominent example featured in the collection is the San Bernardino Santa Fe smokestack. This 189-foot-tall structure, built in the 1920s, served as fuel for a nearby railway power plant until 1994.

For McClung, the tower is linked to memories of being in transit, given its proximity to the San Bernardino Santa Fe Depot, which connects the city to other Southern California locations via train. McClung noted that many individuals who grew up in these communities find the locations depicted in the art to be relatable to their own upbringing.

Valerie Found, the interim executive director of the Riverside Art Museum, stated that the passion of the artists to tell the stories of their neighborhoods aligns with the vision of the Altura Credit Union Community Gallery. Found described the gallery as a space intended to provide opportunities for Southern California artists to showcase their work and uplift the people and places of the region.

The Role of the Cheech Marin Center

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, colloquially known as The Cheech, opened on June 17, 2022. Located at 3581 Mission Inn Ave. In Riverside, California, the center resides in a renovated mid-century building that originally served as the city’s public library starting in 1964.

The 61,420-square-foot facility is the first cultural center of its kind dedicated to showcasing Chicana/o/x art and exploring its social, cultural, and political impact. It houses the Cheech Marin Collection of Chicano art, featuring hundreds of sculptures, photographs, drawings, and paintings by artists such as Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz, Sandy Rodriguez, and Patssi Valdez.

The center serves as a hub for scholarship and dialogue, tracing the roots of Chicano art from the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s to contemporary responses to global artistic movements and current social conditions.

Economic and Cultural Impact

Founded by comedian Cheech Marin, the museum was established with the goal of inspiring a Chicano art renaissance. Marin has stated that he viewed Riverside as a potential big art town because the foundations for such a movement were already present in the form of a nebulous underground scene that required a museum to reach officialdom.

Since its opening, the museum has had a significant impact on the local economy of Riverside, a majority-Latino city. According to an independent study commissioned by the city, the center attracted over 200,000 visitors during its first two years of operation. The study indicated that approximately 90% of these attendees traveled from outside the Inland Empire.

The economic influx resulting from the museum’s presence was estimated at approximately $29 million during that initial two-year period. Marin has noted that the reputation of the museum has spread across the United States, helping to legitimize Chicano art on a national scale.

The Altura Credit Union Community Gallery continues this mission by ensuring that the stories of the Inland Empire community are reflected within the larger institution, providing a platform for local curators and artists to reach a broader audience.