Monday, August 4, 2008 - Our Family Car

The car of the week, what you could call the ultimate Chicano Chevy, the centerpiece of a new exhibit down at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire – and that exhibit seems to be Chicano masterworks from the private collection of Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin (of Cheech & Chong) – Los Angelinos, running through November 2, 2008.

This is a high-modified and quite surreal, but fully functioning 1950 Chevrolet coupe – "Our Family Car" by Gilbert "Magu" Luján.  He began decorating it in 1985 as a celebration of Chicano heritage – note the Mayan and Aztec motifs, along with more modern images. It is a work in progress – inspired by customized and low-rider car culture out here.

And it is also full of humor – not shown, the driver and passenger are a giant taco and a giant burrito.

This is Los Angeles. Deal with it.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site. 

Technical Note:

Photographs after March 3, 2008, were taken with a Nikon D200 – or a Nikon D70 when noted. All previous photographs were taken with the D70. The lenses used are (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto, or (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. Photography here is modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  The earliest photography in the archives was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik