[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap] project for a Chicano art center to house the art collection of legendary Chicano actor and comedian Cheech Marin just received an allocation of $9.7 million from the state budget, allowing it to move forward and eventually rise in Riverside.
Governor Jerry Brown made the allocation in the budget he signed this Wednesday for the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, a brainchild of Marin’s dating back to the mid-80s, is scheduled to open 2020 in Riverside, 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, in a 61,420-square-foot facility at 3581 Mission Inn Avenue, where the city’s 54-year-old Main Library currently stands.
“I have dreamed for many years of finding a home for the hundreds of pieces of art that I have spent much of my life collecting, protecting and showing, when possible, at major museums around the world,” Marin said in a statement Wednesday. “Chicano art is American art. My goal is to bring the term ‘Chicano’ to the forefront of the art world.”