Hey man, is Cheech & Chong back? Here's what Cheech Marin said at SXSW about the comedy duo

Cheech Marin is no stranger to Austin or to South by Southwest. Just this year, a film he appears in, “The Long Game,” screened at SXSW, and as someone who’s been in nine Robert Rodriguez films, he’s basically an Austin film player by proxy.

But over in California, one half of the legendary comedy duo Cheech & Chong is becoming widely known for one of the other things he does besides acting (and music): collecting Chicano art. In fact, he has been amassing a collection of art for many years and last summer, that art finally found a home at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, a downtown Riverside, California, museum.

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But you can call it “The Cheech,” which is what’s on the sign at the front of the museum, which houses more than 550 pieces of art, including pieces from artists from Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and other parts of Texas. Marin discussed the museum, the word “Chicano” itself and how he got interested in art in a Tuesday SXSW featured session at the Austin Convention Center that felt like an art studies class hosted by the coolest professor you’ve ever had.

Marin also sat down to talk with the American-Statesman after the panel about his plans for the museum that include Rodriguez.

What’s the deal with Cheech Marin and art?

Marin says his love of visual art began at age 10 when he was assigned a project in an AP class. “I studied a bunch of art books. Every Saturday, I would go to the library and look at art books. That’s how I learned about Western art. Then I went to museums and saw paintings in person. You have to see them in person.”

With his success in comedy, music and film, he began buying artwork by Chicano artists and storing it, at one point realizing that he was building a collection he’d eventually want to display in a museum. Some of those pieces were part of an art book and toured the country as part of a project called “Chicano Visions.”

That opportunity came along with a space in Riverside that Marin was offered for free. But as he joked on the panel, “I wish I was just a guy with a collection. What I learned is there’s nothing more expensive than a free gift.”

Marin said he’s “extraordinarily proud” of starting the first Chicano museum. “We’re doing excellent. The museum is beautiful and we’re starting to attract people from all over the world.”

He recognizes that it’s largely his celebrity that has helped make it all happen. “I knew what the art was, I had money to collect it and I had celebrity to proselytize for it,” Marin said during his panel.

What’s he doing with Robert Rodriguez?

Marin said he met with the Austin director this week and that Rodriguez will serve as the museum’s director of its film department. As a cultural center, The Cheech will eventually expand into printmaking, film and music. Rodriguez, Marin said, will bring some of his “How to Make a Movie With $7,000” knowledge to an ongoing program and expose it to future Chicano filmmakers.

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Is Cheech & Chong back?

Indeed, it is. Marin confirmed that the legendary duo (his partner is Tommy Chong) is working on three separate movies. One is a documentary about the comedy team, one is a biopic about their early years that would star other actors as them, the third would be a straight-up Cheech & Chong comedy about the two characters as old men (“Like right now,” he joked).

“We can’t have enough Cheech & Chong.”

Indeed; at the start of the very classy art panel, Marin asked, “Can we smoke a joint?”

That reminds us: Marin and Chong also teamed up to combine their separate cannabis product lines. The brand is called “Cheech & Chong’s Cannabis Co.” and when you go to its website, it asks, “Hey, Man, Are You 21?” with cartoon representations of the two characters.

The pair have split and gotten back together numerous times over the years. Time seems to have mellowed the partnership’s sharper edges. “We’re both getting older, let’s put it that way. But it’s OK,” Marin said.

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Is ‘Chicano’ an acceptable term?

During the panel, Marin discussed the ongoing debates about terms including “Chicano” and “Latino” versus “Latinx” to describe a very not-monolithic group of people. Marin said, “I get why different generations want to call it something different. You can call it anything at all, that part doesn’t bother me. If you want to be Chicano or Chicanox, cool. We’re going to have these types of discussions at The Cheech; it’s a cultural center, not just a repository for my art.”

As far as the term “Chicano,” Marin said, it began as a derisive term used my Mexicans to describe more assimilated Mexicans. “They were no longer truly Mexicanos, they were something less,” he said, “Little Chicos, Chicanitos.”

But eventually the term became one of empowerment for people like Marin’s father, and for Marin now, it means having a can-do spirit where nothing can stop you. “If you’re Chicano, you have three jobs at the same time,” he joked.

Marin is still acting, still making music and still investing a lot of his time in the Chicano art world. He says the things he’s doing help him keep his energy and inspiration up. “All these aspects are fun. I mean, doing the whole museum thing is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Cheech Marin at SXSW: Chicano art and the return of Cheech & Chong