Anthony Friedkin, Jim and Mundo, Montebello, East Los Angeles, 1972. From The Gay Essay, 1969–73. Gift of Anthony Friedkin. ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries. Courtesy of Anthony Friedkin
Teddy Sandoval, Las Locas, c. 1980. Courtesy of Paul Polubinskas. Photo by Fredrik Nilsen
Born in Tijuana in 1955, Edmundo “Mundo” Meza was raised in East LA, in the heart of the Chicano scene. As an artist, Meza worked outside of the mainstream, building a network of radical creatives who were dealing with issues political activism, identity, and social justice connected with the emergence of the Chicano Civil Rights, Women’s, and Gay Liberation Movements.
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His untimely death from complications due to AIDS at the age of 29 in 1985 changed everything. As an early casualty of the epidemic, his voice was silenced too soon. Shortly after, his work stopped being exhibited and began to disappear.
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Curators C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz were on an urgent mission to preserve what remained. As they began their work, they tapped into a gold vein. An explosion of artists from Mundo’s underground network began to pour forth, and over a period of four years, the curators developed relationships with more than 50 artists, groups, and bands working between the late ’60s and early ’90s.
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Patssi Valdez, Reclining (Betty Salas and Gloria), c. early 1980s. Courtesy of Patssi Valdez