My passion for collecting and promoting Chicano Art is on display in the latest episode of Second Act. Second Act is a Webby Award winning webseries presented by Yahoo! on their Vitality channel. I’ve embedded the video below for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

You can find out more at The Talk’s website: http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_talk/

Cheech

Hey guys! I wanted to let you all know that Chong and I are going to be appearing at the San Manuel Casino on March 15th.

Tickets will be available soon and you can purchase them at Ticketmaster.

For the past month I’ve been working on the set of a brand new sitcom on CBS called “Rob.” The series premieres this Thursday, January 12th at 8:30/7:30c. “Rob” stars Rob Schneider as a lifelong bachelor and successful landscape architect who, after a whirlwind romance, marries Maggie, a beautiful, smart book translator. Little does Rob realize that he’s also married into Maggie’s tight-knit Mexican-American family.

That’s where I come in. In Rob, I play Fernando, Maggie’s overprotective and judgmental father. My wife, played by the beautiful and talented Diana Maria Riva, and I are not too happy to learn about Maggie’s choice of husband or decision to elope.

Here’s some pictures from the pilot episode.

The very talented Roberto S. Oregel made this small documentary video about my Chicanitas show. Enjoy!

I will be competing on Food Network’s new show, Rachael vs. Guy Celebrity Cook-Off, premiering Sunday, January 1st at 9pm ET/PT. Over the course of six-episodes, hosts Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri will each serve as coaches and mentors to eight multi-talented celebrities as they compete head-to-head.

Divided into ‘Team Rachael’ and ‘Team Guy’, each episode features celebrity contestants battling it out in a fun, fast-paced culinary fight-to-the-finish, with the two bottom-rated contestants from the losing team going head-to-head in a blind tasting elimination challenge.

In the end, the last contestant standing is crowned king or queen of the Celebrity Cook-Off and wins $50,000 for the charity they are playing to support.

My art exhibition, “Chicanitas, Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection,” is touring the country and it just opened up at the Museum of Monterey. Here is part of an interview I did with the Monterey Herald:

Q: What is it about Chicano art that speaks to you?

A: It speaks of the community. What I’ve found after awhile was that Chicano art wasn’t necessarily defined by any particular painting style. What it was defined by was an experience of being Chicano, from a myriad of different view points.

Whether it was religious, gender based, historical based, religious based or abstract even. When you put all these pieces together, you get the whole 360 of what the essence of what the Chicano experience is.

Q: This exhibit features some newer artists. Talk about them.

A: The established artists have been around for a while and earned some recognition. But the newer artists, I was fortunate enough to discover them because of my travels.

Ricardo Ruiz from Corpus Christi. There’s Carlos San Juan of Dallas. There’s this guy Work from El Paso. It’s all coming out of Texas. We’re just trying to give them recognition.

Q: Talk about the name “Chicanitas.”

A: I was going to call it Chicanitos, but then all the women started saying, “Hey, what about us!” I’m like, “Here’s your show, shut up! Now give me a beer.” (Laughs.)

Check out the full article.

Marin’s most recent passion is collecting small paintings averaging 16 inches square and smaller in size. In contrast to other works in his collection representing and promoting the Chicano art movement of the mid-60’s and 70’s, the content of many of these small paintings leans more towards the artist’s internal or personal statement rather than as a response to political, social or cultural situations.

The paintings, which range from photo-realism to abstractions to portraits to landscapes, offer a window into the lives of the artists. Whether showing us a glimpse of their neighborhood as Margaret García does in her expressive paintings of a car wash, hair salon, grocery store and taco shop; or personal interests such as graffiti art, street fashion and underground music that influence the works of Carlos Donjuán; or peppered with mystery and a bit of humor as in Ricardo Ruiz’s four Masotas portraits based on family members; or making a statement about the double standards imposed on Mexican women as Ana Teresa Fernández does in “To Press I” and “To Press II;” or John Valadez’s underwater figure studies painted on ceramic tiles, each artist draws on his or her own upbringing, cultural heritage, education and life experiences for inspiration.

With a keen and eclectic eye, Cheech has acquired a collection of paintings by both established and emerging Chicano and Chicana artists. Appearing at first glance as a disparate grouping of paintings, Chicanitas begs the viewer to examine, interpret and appreciate each artwork individually. This reveals the true secret of the exhibition that the individual parts are greater than the whole and size doesn’t matter!

For booking and sponsorship information, contact Melissa Richardson Banks at events@causeconnect.net.

TOUR SCHEDULE

Monterey, California – Museum of Monterey
December 10, 2011 through April 1, 2012

Notre Dame, Indiana – Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame
September 4 through November 13, 2011

Mesa, Arizona – Mesa Arts Center
March 11 through July 31, 2011