Magu Lujan (left) working on Hooray for Hollywood in 1997.

With great sadness, Metro Art shares the news of the passing of artist Gilbert “Magu” Luján. Magu’s 1999 installation Hooray for Hollywood at the Hollywood/Vine Metro Rail Station was a collaboration with the architect Miralles Associates, and is on view for all to enjoy. A benefit and exhibition of his work is planned at the dA Center for the Arts in Pomona from August 13th to the 30th.

As Peter Clothier wrote in The Huffington Post just days before Magu’s passing, “The pioneering social work for which Magu is widely known proceeds from his creative energy, the art work. His efforts as an emerging artist and student in the master’s program at the University of California, Irvine in 1960s and the early 1970s changed the course of art history. Famously, at that time, he brought together Los Four — along with himself, the artists Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero and Beto de la Rocha — who breached the sober, Euro-centric walls of academia and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with the exuberant artistic energy that had been gathering on the streets — and particularly the walls — of East Los Angeles . . . In the constellation of our contemporary culture, Gilbert “Magu” Lujan occupies a unique and vitally important place.”

More about Magu:

• Peter Clothier in The Huffington Post
• Adolfo Guzman-Lopez on KPCC
• Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times
• Reed Johnson in the Los Angeles Times
• Gabriel San Roman in OC Weekly
  

  Hooray for Hollywood by Magu Luján at Hollywood/Vine Station