Nuestro LA
Group Exhibition | Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles | July 24, 2009
Six artists. Twenty-eight works. Over 1,400 attendees. An evening of Latino heritage, professional community, and visual art — presented by La Mancha Gallery at the invitation of the Latino Professional Network.
Art in the Room Where Community Happens
When Alejandro Menchaca, President of the Latino Professional Network, extended an invitation to La Mancha Gallery to participate in Nuestro LA, the decision to accept was immediate. Not because the event was large — though it was, drawing over 1,400 Latino professionals, community leaders, and students from across Southern California — but because it was exactly the kind of cultural moment that La Mancha Gallery exists to meet. A room full of people who would understand what was on the walls. A community that did not need art explained to it. An evening where the work would not be observed from a respectful distance, but lived alongside.
La Mancha Gallery's curatorial contribution was six artists and twenty-eight works across 30 linear feet of exhibition space — a selection built around the same geographic breadth that the evening itself embodied. David Taveras brought the visual sensibility of the Dominican Republic. Xavier Yarto carried the chromatic force of Mexico City. Nestor Rodriguez represented Puerto Rico. María Teresa Chávez Montes brought the deep cultural traditions of Zacatecas. Benjamin Archundia contributed the contemporary urban energy of Mexico City. Eddie Jelinet brought the bicultural perspective of the United States and Mexico. Together, they formed a visual statement that mirrored the room: plural, proud, and alive.
The partnership with the Latino Professional Network reflected a conviction that has guided La Mancha Gallery's practice since its founding: that the most meaningful exhibitions are not built inside gallery walls but in the spaces where communities already gather, already speak to each other, already know who they are. The artists whose work hung on those walls were exhibiting to people who recognized what they saw, who felt its cultural weight, who understood that art made from within a community carries a force that art made about one never quite achieves.
"The most meaningful exhibitions are not built inside gallery walls — they are built in the spaces where communities already gather, already speak to each other, already know who they are."
— Omar Holguin, Curator & Director, La Mancha Fine ArtsNuestro LA at a Glance
| Exhibition | Nuestro LA Group Exhibition — Six Artists |
| Date | Thursday, July 24, 2009 6:30 PM – 1:30 AM |
| Venue | Westin Bonaventure Hotel 404 South Figueroa Street, Suite 418A Los Angeles, CA 90071 |
| Event | LPN Nuestro LA — Latino Heritage Month Networking Event & Celebration Presented by the Latino Professional Network |
| Attendance | 1,400+ Latino professionals, community leaders, and students from Los Angeles, Orange County, and the Inland Empire |
| Presented By | La Mancha Gallery Curator — Omar Holguin, Director & Owner |
| Host | Alejandro Menchaca, President Latino Professional Network |
| Artists | David Taveras, Xavier Yarto, Nestor Rodriguez, María Teresa Chávez Montes, Benjamin Archundia, Eddie Jelinet |
| Works | 28 works under consignment — various media, various frame sizes |
| Install | 30 linear feet (10 linear meters) |
What the Evening Presented
Six Artists, One Diaspora
David Taveras, Xavier Yarto, Nestor Rodriguez, María Teresa Chávez Montes, Benjamin Archundia, and Eddie Jelinet — six artists representing the Dominican Republic, Mexico City, Puerto Rico, Zacatecas, and the US-Mexico bicultural perspective.
1,400+ Attendees
Latino professionals, community leaders, and students from Los Angeles, Orange County, and the Inland Empire — one of the largest Latino professional networking events in Southern California, hosted on the pool deck of the Westin Bonaventure with 360-degree views of the city skyline.
A Cultural Evening in Full
Live mariachi, Andean ensemble Iliniza, salsa by Lucky 7 Mambo, rock en español by Vida Tinta — alongside complimentary tequila tastings, margaritas, mojitos, and wines from Chile, Argentina, and Spain. An evening that honored cultural heritage and professional community in the same breath.
Alternative Venue Exhibition Model
Twenty-eight works across 30 linear feet of exhibition space — placed not in a gallery but in a room already alive with cultural pride. La Mancha Gallery's conviction that significant art lands with greatest force in the spaces where community actually lives.
Partnership with the Latino Professional Network
Presented by invitation of LPN President Alejandro Menchaca — a collaboration that placed visual art at the center of Southern California's premier Latino heritage celebration, alongside 1,400 community leaders and professionals.
Art for a Community Audience
The artists were not exhibiting to a passive gallery audience. They were exhibiting to a room full of people who recognized what they saw, felt its cultural weight, and understood that art made from within a community speaks differently than art made about one.
Six Artists, One Diaspora
Six artists representing the breadth of the Latino diaspora — each bringing a distinct geographic and cultural identity to an evening that celebrated the richness of that plurality.
David Taveras
Painter and visual artist whose work channels the expressive traditions and cultural vitality of the Dominican Republic into a bold contemporary practice.
Xavier Yarto
Self-taught Mexican painter whose Pre-Hispanic Abstract series translates ancient Mesoamerican iconography into a chromatic, architecturally grounded contemporary language.
Nestor Rodriguez
Artist whose practice carries the visual and cultural heritage of Puerto Rico — work rooted in identity, community, and the expressive force of the Caribbean tradition.
María Teresa Chávez Montes
Visual artist whose practice draws from the deep cultural traditions of Zacatecas — bringing a distinctive regional sensibility to questions of identity, memory, and place.
Benjamin Archundia
Contemporary artist whose work reflects the urban energy and cultural complexity of Mexico City — a practice engaged with the visual language of a city in constant creative motion.
Eddie Jelinet
Bicultural artist working across the US-Mexico perspective — a practice shaped by the experience of living and creating between two cultures, two languages, and two visual traditions.
How the Exhibition Was Built
La Mancha Gallery applied its iterative, artist-centered curatorial methodology to Nuestro LA — building the exhibition around the cultural geography of the evening's attendees and the deliberate selection of artists whose work was in genuine dialogue with the diaspora the event celebrated.
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Phase 01
Partnership & Invitation
La Mancha Gallery received an invitation from Alejandro Menchaca, President of the Latino Professional Network, to present a curated art exhibition as part of the LPN's landmark Nuestro LA event. The invitation was accepted immediately — the alignment between the gallery's alternative venue model and the LPN's cultural mission was clear from the outset.
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Phase 02
Artist Selection & Geographic Framing
Six artists selected to represent the breadth of the Latino diaspora — Dominican Republic, Mexico City, Puerto Rico, Zacatecas, and the US-Mexico bicultural perspective. The roster built to mirror the evening's attendees: plural, proud, and rooted in specific cultural geographies rather than a generalized Latino identity.
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Phase 03
Installation at the Bonaventure
Twenty-eight works installed across 30 linear feet of exhibition space at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Suite 418A — positioned within the flow of the LPN event so that the art was encountered as an integral part of the evening, not a separate program. The pool deck setting, with 360-degree views of Downtown Los Angeles, provided a backdrop that matched the cultural ambition of the works on display.
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Phase 04
Evening of July 24, 2009
Exhibition open from 6:30 PM to 1:30 AM alongside live mariachi, Andean ensemble, salsa, rock en español, tequila tastings, and an attendance of over 1,400 Latino professionals and community leaders from across Southern California. The art was not an addition to the evening. It was part of it.
Art Made from Within a Community
Nuestro LA stands in the La Mancha Gallery archive as a landmark expression of the gallery's alternative venue exhibition model — and as one of the most vivid demonstrations of what that model can achieve at scale. To place six artists and twenty-eight works inside an event of 1,400 people, all of whom arrived already understanding the cultural weight of what they were seeing, is to close the distance between art and audience entirely. That is what happened at the Bonaventure on July 24, 2009.
The partnership with the Latino Professional Network was not incidental. It was the point. La Mancha Gallery has always believed that the most meaningful exhibitions are built through relationships — with artists, with communities, with the organizations that hold those communities together. Alejandro Menchaca and the LPN built an evening that honored Latino cultural heritage and professional ambition with equal conviction. La Mancha Gallery brought art into that space that was worthy of it. Our gratitude to the LPN for the invitation, and to the six artists who showed up and made the walls speak.
the Diaspora
Consignment
& Professionals
Exhibition Year
Art made from within a community speaks differently than art made about one. That evening at the Bonaventure, the difference was unmistakable.
La Mancha Gallery
Curator & Founder — Omar Holguin
Nuestro LA | Group Exhibition — Six Artists
July 24, 2009 | Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 404 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071
Presented in partnership with the Latino Professional Network · By invitation of Alejandro Menchaca, President
