On September 7, Google’s Cultural Institute went live with a massive archive of Latino history in the U.S. — it’s the biggest digital archive of U.S. Latino art curated online, and Latino Cultures in the US launched one week ahead of Hispanic Heritage Month (which runs from September 15 through October 15). Google partnered with about 50 cultural institutions, including the UCLA Chicano Research Studies Center and the Smithsonian Latino Center, to make this happen, and the new dedicated website is big, sweeping, easy to navigate, and good-looking.
It’s not just art — the site covers a range of Latino cultural history, including contemporary pop culture — but the art aspect is well-served by not only the hi-res imagery (you can study Diego Rivera’s murals in great detail) but also the extra work of contextualizing the art, helped along by the institutions that partnered with Google for the project.
On its home page, under the “Discover US Latino Art” section, you’ll find some unexpected gems, like the feature on GRONK (the LA-born Chicano painter, printmaker, and performance artist Glugio Nicandro); a great feature on the post-War art and journalism photography of US-Latino artists on both coasts; and a feature on craft as practiced by three significant artists working today: Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Gerardo Monterrubio, and Jaime Guerrero (along with, of course, many great images of the work).
Go here to explore it.