Latino Arts Celebrates 40 Years of Community Building

The nonprofit cultural organization marks its anniversary with concerts, exhibitions and a celebration of community.

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Visual Arts

“Our mission has stayed the same, but the focus has been fine-tuned,” says Jacobo Lovo of Latino Arts Inc.’s 40th anniversary. He has served as Latino Arts’ managing director for nearly 10 years, coming to the position after teaching art in the elementary and middle schools nested within United Community Center’s campus. It’s a short walk from those schools to Latino Arts’ gallery-performance space, and Lovo brought with him the initiative to focus on educational programs and workshops as well as gallery shows and concerts.

“By design we work with local artists and educators to connect with the community through events that are fun, instructive and meaningful,” Lovo explains. “We work with local artists whose craft is rooted in their cultural heritage.”

This has not precluded bringing national performers to Latino Arts. On Friday, March 6, the Los Angles Afro-Latin combo Quitapenas—first-generation sons of immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico—will perform their danceable fusion of Latin rhythms in conjunction with the opening of “Cosechando Historias” (“Cultivating Histories”), an exhibit of prints and installations by Christie Tirado, a University of Wisconsin MFA. “When we curate a season, we aim to have different art forms speak to each other,” Lovo says.

Satisfaction Survey

Latino Arts has worked to serve a Milwaukee Hispanic Latino community, whose members are muti-generational and come from diverse national heritages and immigrant experiences. They encourage visitors to take the audience satisfaction survey, which often helps shape programming. And Latino Arts is also concerned with reaching Milwaukee’s non-Latino residents. “Our mission is also to build bridges, to invite non-Hispanic folks to know our community in positive ways,” Lovo says.

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The artists represented in recent Latino Arts seasons have often been responsible for creative fusions of regional-national traditions while remaining true to the authenticity of the cultures they represent. Lovo cites Latino Arts’ annual exhibition for Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead), a holiday that in careless hands has become as commercialized in the United States as Christmas and Halloween. “We take it to its historical, indigenous roots and expand the conversation,” Lovo says. Most Americans know of Dia de Muertos as part of Mexican culture, but Lovo is interested in showing how the holiday is celebrated in neighboring Latin American countries.

For Lovo, Latino Arts is a “celebration of community and humanity through culture. We are excited about our 40th year and thinking about the future.”

Latino Arts Inc. is located at 1028 N. Ninth Street. For more information, visit https://www.latinoartsinc.org/