LACMA

ASCO 115 As a teenager in East Los Angeles, Patssi Valdez was known for singing the lyrics to a popular song by the Animals: "We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do." Growing up Chicana/o in that particular urban landscape in the late 1960s and early 1970s was not easy; as Harry Gamboa Jr. recalls, "If you managed to avoid the cops and the cholos, then you might have a good time in East L.A." In this unincorporated part of L.A., racism, violence, and social inequities were all part of everyday life. In response to such issues as public education policy and police brutality, East L.A. residents began to form grassroots community coalitions. Further, the loss of so many young Mexican American men to the Vietnam War and the racism that many experienced at home seemed irreconcilable, and this paradox would culminate in civil unrest and a cultural awakening that would give form to the Chicano movement and Chicano identity. Two important events helped solidify the movement: the nonviolent antiwar protests known as the Chicano moratoriums, and the massive student demonstrations of 1968, also known as blowouts. This is the cultural milieu that produced the four founding members of the Chicano avant-garde art collective Asco. Harry Gamboa Jr., Patssi Valdez, and Willie Herrón III met during their senior year at Garfield High School, a major participant in the blowouts. The death at the hands of the police of Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar at the National Chicano Moratorium March on August 29, 1970, shook the city and transformed Herrón's artistic production and approach. In 1971, Gamboa became the editor of the publication Regeneración, and called on Valdez and Herrón, as well as Gronk (Glugio Nicandro), to help with the illus- trations for the magazine. Coming together for the first time as a group, they realized how much they had in common with each other. The name Asco derived from an exhibition at Self-Help Graphics called Asco-Zilla, which the artists had organized to purposefully exhibit so-called bad works of art that would otherwise never be shown in a gallery setting. The reception was cool at best, with the pervading audience response being one of asco—the Spanish word for "nausea." The word resonated with the group, and after this delirious and deliberate showcase of uncouth art, they formally came together under the banner of Asco. Asco created an urban, binational avant-garde art in a hostile and even danger- ous environment. Through humor and satiric performance-based art, Asco engaged in counternarrative strategies in their guerrilla practices and tactical interventions, similar to those of Fluxus and dada, as well as non-European art groups like the Mexican Grupos and even the amateur street performers of Mexico known as merolicos. Christmas Eve, 1971, marked Asco's first walking mural. Protesting the war, they performed Stations of the Cross on Whittier Boulevard, Gronk dressed as Pontius Pilate blessing the onlookers with popcorn, while Herrón led the procession, dressed as something between Christ and a calav- era (skeleton figure). The performance culminated at the doorsteps of a U.S. Marines recruiting center, where Gronk conducted a faux blessing, followed by five minutes of silence. As a grand finale, the trio placed the cross on the recruitment center's front door; the aim of this act was to interrupt Chicanos enlisting that day. Stations of the Cross was followed a year later by Walking Mural. Due to unrest in the community and heavy police presence, the annual Christmas parade had been canceled; as a response, Asco staged their own parade (or, as Gronk called it, a nonparade) to reclaim the streets. Valdez's makeup and attire (including crown) has been referred to as a "Virgin of Guadalupe in black." The group walked down Whittier Boulevard in silence, with friends walking alongside them in solidarity and Gamboa documenting the performance. Spray Paint LACMA (also subsequently referred to by Gronk as Project Pie in De/Face) (1972), was the first Asco intervention staged outside East L.A., this one in response to a Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator who told Gamboa during a meeting that Chicanos didn't make "fine art"; they only made "folk art" or were in gangs. In response, Asco tagged their names on all of the museum's entrances.

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