By Jocelyn Bogen
February 12, 2007

Latino Art Beat, a Chicago based not-for-profit arts organization that awards scholarships to high school students through its regional art competitions, unveiled its Latino Art Beat 2007 National Commemorative art poster calendar during the Tourism, Arts, Parks, Entertainment, and Sports Committee January 25.

Students attending public high schools in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington (DC) participated in the Latino Art Beat’s national Hispanic Heritage art competition. Since its inception in 1998, Latino Art Beat has awarded its competition winners over $1,000,000 in college scholarships, monetary prizes, college credit courses and language courses along with appropriate award certificates.

The national Hispanic Heritage art competition runs in collaboration with the mayor’s office and respective departments of education in each of the participating cities. All of the first place regional winners’ artwork is featured on the Latino Art Beat 2007 National Commemorative art poster calendar, which has been unveiled and displayed at The United States Conference of Mayors Winter Meetings for the past several years. Some of the award winning artwork is featured on the 2006 Official City of Chicago poster for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Latino Art Beats motto is “Celebramos la Juventud, el Arte y la Cultura Hispana” (We Celebrate Youth, Art and Hispanic Heritage & Culture). All award winning artwork is displayed at various gallery shows during the following year to profile the young aspiring artist’s talents.

The 2006 national winner, Kandy Lopez from Miami (FL), was selected from the first place winners of all the regional competitions. Lopez received a $3,000 cash scholarship as the Miami first place winner, a further $10,000 cash scholarship as the national winner, and an additional $40,000 from the Latino Art Beat/Maryland Institute College of Arts (“MICA”) scholarship partnership for a total award of $53,000. Awards presentations took place during Hispanic Heritage Month in all participating cities.

In 2005 Latino Art Beat in partnership with The Latin Recording Academy® introduced a competition category calling for the design of the official 6th Annual Latin GRAMMY® Awards poster, representing the first time that visual arts students were able to receive such a high level of mainstream international recognition.

To further encourage interest in the arts, in 2002 a joint documentary film exchange project was initiated with Platform One and Artswork of the UK with four young high school and early college Latino Art Beat filmmakers and four young English filmmakers. This international film exchange project that resulted in a documentary film short titled “Mind the Gap” afforded young aspiring filmmakers hands on job training, as well as the opportunity to travel abroad to Europe. Latino Art Beat plans to undertake further documentary film projects in Cuba and other Latin American countries during 2007/2008.

General Motors (“GM”) is one of the proud sponsors of Latino Art Beat’s national Hispanic Heritage art competition. Academic partners include Loyola University Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Robert Morris College, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Illinois — School of Art & Design, The Illinois Institute of Art, Instituto Cervantes and the Maryland Institute College of Art (“MICA”), Baltimore (MD). American Airlines is the official airline of Latino Art Beat.

Mayors interested in introducing the Latino Art Beat program in their city should reach out directly to Don Rossi Nuccio, President of Latino Art Beat in Chicago at 773-291-6901 or send e-mail to latinoartbeat@hotmail.com Visit their website at www.latinoartbeat.org. Entry deadline is May 2007.