Chon A. Noriega is an American

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

media scholar Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...

, and

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

. Noriega is professor of cinema and media studies at

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT), is one of the 12 schools within the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) located in Los Angeles, California. Its creation was groundbreaking in that it was the first time a leadi ...

. He was also the director of the

UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) was founded in 1969 to foster multidisciplinary research efforts at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It is one of four ethnic studies centers established at UCLA that year, all of whic ...

(CSRC) from 2002 to 2021. Noriega is an adjunct curator at

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

(LACMA), where he has worked as an curator since the 1990s. He has curated major exhibitions at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and LACMA.

Early life

Noriega was born in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in 1961. His father was a

beat reporter Beat reporting, also known as specialized reporting, is a genre of journalism focused on a particular issue, sector, organization, or institution over time. Description Beat reporters build up a base of knowledge on and gain familiarity with th ...

for the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

from

La Luz, New Mexico La Luz is a census-designated place (CDP) in Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,615 at the 2000 census. It is located immediately north of Alamogordo and lies in the eastern edge of the Tularosa Basin and on the w ...

. His mother was from

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. They moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 1973, where his father ran a PR agency and ran for mayor in the early 1990s. He graduated with a bachelor's in English from the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

. He received his master's and PhD from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Career

Noriega was an assistant professor of

American studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Sch ...

at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

. He moved to Los Angeles in summer 1992 to teach at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA). At UCLA, he served as the director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) from 2002 to 2021. He was succeeded as director of CSRC by Veronica Terriquez in June 2021. Noriega co-founded the National Association of Latino Independent Producers in 1999. In 2011, Noriega curated ''L.A. Xicano'', an exhibit about the contributions of Mexican American artists in Los Angeles since 1945, for ''Pacific Standard Time'', an eight-month exhibition that profiled the Los Angeles art scene from 1945 to 1980. In 2017, Noriega co-curated a

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

exhibit of photographer

Laura Aguilar Laura Aguilar (October 26, 1959 – April 25, 2018) was an American photographer. She was born with auditory dyslexia and attributed her start in photography to her brother, who showed her how to develop in dark rooms. She was mostly self-taugh ...

for the

Getty Foundation The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts".Getty FoundationAbout the Foundation. Retrieved September 18, 2008. In the past, it funded the G ...

with

Vincent Price Art Museum The Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) is an art museum located at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, California, US. The museum is named after American actor Vincent Price who donated portions of his personal art collection to the college in ...

director Karen Rapp and

East Los Angeles College East Los Angeles College (ELAC) is a public community college in Monterey Park, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. It is part of the California Community Colleges System and the Los Angeles Community College District. With fourteen communiti ...

art professor Sybil Venegas. Noriega received the 2021

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in the category of Fine Arts Research for two books about Raphael Montañez Ortiz.

Select bibliography

* ''Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema'' (2000)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Noriega, Chon UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television faculty Academics from Chicago American art curators Stanford University alumni University of New Mexico faculty Writers from Miami Mexican American American academics of Mexican descent American art historians Mass media scholars 1961 births Living people Historians from Illinois Historians from California Historians from Florida