By Jesús Manuel Mena Garza
[Click photo to enlarge. Click header to go to LACMA website.]
Asco, four Chicana/o artists from Los Angeles have been described as radical performance artists. Today, they are touted as revolutionary conceptual artists and their popularity is at a fever pitch.
An exhibition titled "Asco: Elite of the Obscure, a Retrospective, 1972-1987" opens to the public on Sept. 4 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Southern California Chicana/o glitterati are sure to be in attendance at the "super grande" opening on August 31.
Like all things local, Los Angelinos adore "Los Four." Along with the upcoming exhibition they are being feted as heroes by regional academia. From outsiders tagging museum walls in 1972 to being placed on a pedestal inside the museum in 2011, it has been a forty year journey for artists Harry Gamboa Jr., Willie Herrón, Patssi Valdez and Gronk.
The question I ask today is why a group like Asco flourished in Los Angeles and not in Northern California? Artists in the Bay Area painted incredible murals, posters and works on canvas but only in Southern California did Chicanos and Chicanas combine theater and art into performance art in the early seventies.
I remember there being a distinct separation in the Bay Area of those who were on stage and those who painted, printed or photographed. To combine the two genres required a force of personality or in the case of Los Four, the effect of Hollywood.
I have noticed that Hollywood holds a certain power over Southern Californians. Many here achingly desire to be part of the performance culture. Asco was “cast” by this phenomenon. It was an insular trend, not replicated outside of Tinsel Town, and not valued as much too.
The South is proud of their homegrown products. When I travel to other parts of the country, Chicanos and Chicanas also venerate their artists. Be it San Antonio, Albuquerque or Denver, they all have a parochial attitude toward their creative class.
Growing up in the Bay Area I too developed an intense sense of place. As a point of pride, I can proclaim that no artist from the South presented works on paper as politically intuitive and compelling as Northerner, Malaquias Montoya. No SoCal Chicano muralist created finer works than those on San Francisco walls. José Antonio Burciaga exalted the jalapeño to new heights in his poetry and made us proud of our spicy culture. Yes, there is culture up north... too.
Theater groups were manifest in the Bay Area. In fact, Northern California is the home of Chicano Theater and Teatro Campesino. Some of those weaned by Bay Area theater moved and infused Southern California teatro, making it more professional and relevant to the Chicano cause.
Lowriding may have been popular on Whittier Boulevard but it took three San José State Students; Sonny Madrid, Antonio Perales and Larry Gonzalez to quantify it. They explored the nuances of our car culture and delivered it to the world in Lowrider Magazine. That distinct manifestation has even found a home in Japan.
In the end, each community has their heroes. Today, LA has Asco. These four artists had the guts to get in front of the camera and perform. They are unique to the City of Angels and part of the early 70s Chicano avant-garde.
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4 comments:
L.A. had no shortage of the kind of work you describe as prominent in the Bay Area in the '60s & '70s: Carlos Almaraz, David Botello, Judy Baca, Barbara Carrasco, Leonard Castellanos, Richard Duardo, Johnny D. Gonzalez, Wayne Healy, Judithe Hernández, Gilbert Sánchez Luján, Frank Romero, John Valadez, Linda Vallejo, etc. Asco was distinctive, however, because the group not only pushed against the limiting stereotypes of the dominant culture but against the limiting requirements of Chicano culture. I could be mistaken, but I'm not aware of anything similar having happened in the Bay Area.
Who is this Anonymous anyway? Don't be shy.
In my article I tried to note what I felt were some of the key differences between the two regions. I still feel after meeting and seeing the work of most those on your list that the Northern California art scene was far more diverse and important. Please feel free to compare the work of Malaquias to any of the printers on the list. Also please compare the influence of Lowrider Magazine, Teatro Campesino and the others described in my short article to their contemporaries in LA and you will find I am right. Again... that is my opinion, having grown up and around these Northern California Chicanos and Chicanas. Living in SoCal, I am sort of tired of hearing academics and their minions yammer about the local scene. C'mon, the folks up north weren't just twiddling their thumbs
You do a great job of chronicling important artists from Northern California and their contributions to Chicana/o art and culture.
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