Feliz año nuevo!

It’s a new year, and La Raza Galleria Posada is ringing it in with a double serving of art. Opening on January 8 and running until March 12, Prevenir es Vivir (prevention is life), is a traveling show of 30 nationally selected posters. Part of an effort to diseminate information about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment to the Latino community, the posters were chosen via a collaboration with the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, the Office of Minority Health, and Self Help Graphics & Art of East Los Angeles.

Each selection pulses with color and life. Ixrael Rodriguez’s “Diversidad” offers nine hearts separated by a tic-tac-toe matrix. Each heart reigns in its own painterly background, stroked with an acid green that’s just as vibrantly alive as the hearts themselves. One heart encapsulates roads that could serve as veins and arteries, but are more significant as the convoluted paths one chooses in life. Another exposes many hands bursting out, while another passes comically as a punk-strawberry head. But the bottom row of hearts, each a primary color, reveals the ultimate truth: Hearts—and people—of all colors are all the same inside.

For the second helping of art, La Raza Galleria Posada is kicking off the first Second Saturday of the year with the “ABC-Arts Books and Culture!” gala. The free festivities, lasting from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, celebrate the $25,000 grant awarded to the Sacramento Public Library and La Raza Galeria Posada by the California State Library. For the next six months, the two organizations will collaborate on bringing the ABCs together. Information on those upcoming activities will be announced at the event, and art awards will be presented to students of the Language Academy of Sacramento. La Raza Galeria Posada is located at 1421 R Street. For more information call (916) 446-5133.