“The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States,” says the award-winning comedian and museum founder
In 2022, the iconic L.A. comedian Cheech Marin opened an art museum with the hope of inspiring a Chicano art renaissance.
“I looked around and said, ‘This could be the next big art town’ — because the foundations were already there,” Marin told De Los. “There was this kind of nebulous underground here, but [they’ll] reach officialdom when they have their museum.”
Now, as the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture enters its fourth year, Marin said he believes his goal is slowly coming true.
Known colloquially as the Cheech, the museum is widely considered the only space in the nation that exclusively showcases Chicano art. It’s located in Riverside, a majority-Latino city which is also within one of the largest Latino-populated counties in the country.
Since its grand opening on June 17, 2022, the center has housed hundreds of artworks from Marin’s vast private collection, including from prominent artists such as Wayne Alaniz Healy, Judithe Hernández and Frank Romero.
In its first two years, the space attracted over 200,000 visitors, according to an independent study commissioned by the city, with around 90% of attendees coming from outside the Inland Empire. The study also found that the Cheech brought around $29 million into the city’s local economy in that time frame.
“We were recognized as one of the top 50 shows in the world,” Marin said. “The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States.”
While the Cheech grew in nationwide prominence, its artistic director, María Esther Fernández, explained that the museum’s team also worked to fulfill Marin’s goal by taking advantage of its rapid success.
In the last three years, the center has become a hub and vital resource for many of the region’s Chicano…