An LA Chicano artist's best friend: Chon Noriega

[Photo is the cover of the October 2011 issue of Artforum Magazine]

Having lived in SoCal for several years now, I have gained a respect for UCLA professor Chon Noriega. Along with his minions, he has done an incredible job of promoting Southern California Chicano artists. Here are a few examples:

1) Helped gain exhibitions at major galleries including LACMA, the Autry, UCLA and the Getty (at the biggies not just the small barrio galleries)

2) Coordinated or created compelling articles and books on local artists (quite a few... not just a couple)

3) Promoted artists in important publications like the SF Chronicle, LA Times, Artforum, NY Times, etc. (he is a promoter)

4) Held panels and events that highlighted Chicano artists (rarely a Northern California Chicano or Chicana in sight)

5) Apparently, promoted the work of Chicano artists to international galleries and publications (Mexico, Europe, Asia... nice)

Chon's Los Angeles artistic and academic collaboration is groundbreaking. In San Jose, San Francisco, Berkeley, Austin, etc., Chicanos are typically relegated to smaller galleries even though their work is just as good if not better than their peers in Southern California. These communities don't have a hard-working academic like Chon making waves and news.

Typically scholars are sequestered in their ivory tower writing books and participating on the occasional panel. These tired academics are the norm, but Chon has broken out of this paradigm. This is great for LA artists and definitely bad news for other communities who lack an articulate and passionate person who is promoting Chicano and Chicana art "con ganas". Makes me wish I was born in Los Angeles... almost.

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Mex/LA” Exhibits Modern Chicano Art

Article from the Occidental College Weekly

Southern California's Getty Center-sponsored Pacific Standard Time initiative, a collaboration between more than 60 art institutions across Southern California, celebrates the growth of Los Angeles' art scene and its establishment as a center of artistic innovation between 1945 and 1980.

The project officially starts October 1, but several participating institutions have opened their doors early, including the Museum of Latin American Art, located in the East Village Arts district of Long Beach.

The Museum of Latin American Art unveiled "MEX/LA: ‘Mexican' Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985," on Sept. 18, an exhibit that examines the complex relationship between Mexican culture and the Los Angeles melting pot through modern, avant-garde artwork.

On display until Jan. 29, 2012, much of the work displayed showcases the interaction between pop culture, modernist traditions and traditional Mexican folk art.

"The exhibition, in a way, is like the city of Los Angeles itself," the curator Ruben Ortiz-Torres said.

"Like a modern collage, it is a fragmented juxtaposition of simultaneous clashing and contesting representations and misrepresentations that do not quite integrate but talk to each other and together form awhole."

Saturated with allusions to political and social issues, the exhibit does more than merely showcase significant pieces of art produced throughout this particular time period.

Ortiz-Torres selected pieces from an incredibly vast selection of artists, varying from filmmakers to photographers to experimental artists.

Numerous pieces are on display, for example, by Graciela Iturbide, a Mexican-born photographer who is best known for her images of the daily lives of Mexican-Americans in East Los Angeles.

Her photograph "Cholas, White Fence, East LA" (1986) captures four young women flashing gang signs while posing beneath a mural of former President of Mexico Benito Juarez, infamous revolutionary general PanchoVilla and Mexican Revolution figurehead Emiliano Zapata.

David Alfaro Siquerios' mural "Mitin en la calle" (Street Meeting) documents a trade union militant addressing a multiracial audience, making more overt social commentary.

Harry Gamboa Jr., one of the founders of the Chicano performance art collective, ASCO, is also featured in the exhibit as well as the influential photographer Edward Weston, a Southern Californian who lived and created his most powerful work in Mexico. Weston's famous portrait of Mexican painter Jose Clemente Orozco is featured at the exhibit and reflects the relationship between Mexican and American artists during this time period.

Martin Ramirez' work of collages and drawings, which directly evinces pop culture's intersection with high art forms, deals with Mexican folk traditions in a way influenced by twentieth-century modernism.

A large selection of Disney sketch artists is on display as well. In the ultimate portrayal of low/high art, however, the 1944 Disney film "The Three Cabelleros" plays among pieces by Weston and Siquerios.

Despite the cohesive execution and diverse selection of art, the exhibit lacks an adequate appraisal of the audience's knowledge of the history behind the pieces on display.

The brief timeline of Latino history in L.A. outside the entrance to the building provides some context, but in retrospect, it would have been beneficial to have a more extensive knowledge of the Chicano experience inL.A. throughout the twentieth century in order to appreciate the complexity and multidimensional quality of the exhibit.

Many images reference specific incidents in Mexican history, without adequate explanation on the placard.

Consequently, the importance of the artwork might be lost on those who are uninformed about Los Angeles and Mexico's tumultuous history.

For example, multiple pieces pay homage to the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, when violence erupted between white sailors stationed in Los Angeles and Mexican youths.

Without sufficient background, much of the meaning is lost on the viewer.

If "MEX/LA" is any indication of the Pacific Standard Time exhibits to come, though, Los Angeles art enthusiasts can expect increasingly vibrant and important cultural milestones.

The works of "MEX/LA" portray the chaotic periods of Los Angeles' past through the lens of social, political and racial analysis.

The art displayed is not only aesthetically interesting, but also culturally relevant, a theme to be continued throughout the remainder of the Pacific Standard Time initiative.

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Scholar Shifra Goldman, 85, dies

By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez of KPCC

A preeminent scholar of Chicano and Latin American art, Shifra Goldman, died on Sunday from complications of Alzheimer's disease.

Goldman was approaching middle age when she enrolled at UCLA to earn her doctorate in art history. In the early 1970s she was one of the first academics to write seriously about the growing work of Chicano artists in L.A. and other parts of the southwest.

Television director and filmmaker Jesus Salvador Treviño said Goldman took him to Olvera Street in the late 1960s and showed him a whitewashed 1932 mural by renowned Mexican artist Siqueiros.

"She was very much involved in Mexican-American art and in Mexican art," Treviño says. "She was one of the pioneers that was giving it credence and that was giving in respectability at a time when few people even acknowledged its existence.

The Getty tapped into Goldman’s research; it's building an interactive viewing area next to the mural and on the museum's website.

Treviño says Goldman was a mentor to many artists and critics. Artists came to expect her brutally honest criticism of their work at gallery openings.

Shifra Goldman was 85 years old when she died.

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1970s L.A. Chicano Conceptual Art Group Gets its Due

[Click header to go to original article. Click photo to enlarge. Photo courtesy of LACMA.]

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez for KCET SoCal Focus

I'm worried. The internet is not a history book and if the book is dead, maybe so will be the exploits of ASCO. For the time being there's hope. I got my hands on a copy of the exhibition catalogue, "ASCO: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987." The show is currently on display at the L.A. County Museum of Art.

My fingertips gorge as they read the raised, printed images on the cover: an old razor blade, Patssi Valdez's piercing eyes inside two lips. I thumb through some of the 432 pages like a deck of cards -- the house always wins -- and there on pages 258 and 259, a two-page spread of a photograph depicting that which has become legendary in the Latino art world: the 1972 graffiti spray painting of a wall outside LACMA. The placazo heard around the Chicano world. The four ASCO founding members are represented: Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herron with their spray painted tags, and Patssi Valdez standing behind the chest-high wall white wall, looking to her left, at someone or something coming, maybe in the distance of time.

As Marcel Duchamp signed a urinal and made it art, the four artists signed LACMA and turned it into the largest piece of Chicano art. It was a response to a curator having told one of the members that Chicanos didn't belong in the museum's galleries. ASCO outdid Duchamp.

I was out of town last Wednesday so I couldn't sip the wine and chew the cheese at LACMA's opening for the show. I emailed a few people to hear how it went and to hear about how the exhibit deals with the lesser known members of the group. I've written about ASCO here and there. A few weeks ago The New York Times published a lengthy article about ASCO's current show. It was meant to bring New Yorkers and non-Chicanos up to date. The article hit all the points well known in these parts: the LACMA graffiti, the founders all met at Garfield High School, the first happenings as marriage of civil rights politics and conceptual art, and in one long sentence near the end of the article a reference to a sizeable group of collaborators and the group's implosion due to longstanding rivalries and grudges.

Who were these collaborators? What did they do? Why couldn't everyone get along? The last time I'd heard anything significant on the topic was four years ago from then-L.A. Weekly reporter Daniel Hernandez. His lengthy piece caused some former ASCO members to spit at the very mention of his name.

Hernandez's article reported the fissures that have turned into San Andreas-sized faults between the four founding members of the group and the more numerous ASCO collaborators who joined to various degrees later. Their calzones are in a twist over credit, who deserves it and for what. Some of the artists who joined ASCO later or contributed serious work to the group feel that the founding members have erased their participation in essays and other documentary writing. Some of the founding members believe the collaborators were part of a junior varsity ASCO.

Hernandez's article may read as gossip and soap opera but on my re-reading of it four years later I find that he plays it down the middle much more than I remembered. He went out and talked to as many people as possible to get a broader picture of the story.

So, how does this LACMA art show reconcile any of the fissures? It seems like the only time all the ASCO members and collaborators will be on the same page is being on the same pages of the exhibition catalogue. The curators of the exhibition, Rita Gonzalez and C. Ondine Chavoya, told me by email that giving the collaborators credit was an important part of their curatorial work.

"The core members Valdez, Gamboa, Gronk, Herrón, and quite frequently Humberto Sandoval and Diane Gamboa, were present over the fifteen years of Asco's activity while others might have been intensely involved for two or three years (Marisela Norte, Sean Carrillo, Daniel Villarreal, Consuelo Flores, Maria Elena Gaitán, Barbara Carrasco, etc, etc). There are many artists and performers who also developed their work in conversation with Asco, such as Jerry Dreva, Louis Jacinto, Teddy Sandoval, and Ricardo Valverde. We were well aware that we could not produce the definitive or comprehensive account of the extent of all contributions to Asco by these various participants. That, we hope, is for future scholarship and through exhibitions and stagings of Asco's scripted performances."

Several members won't talk about it, to me at least. "I do not discuss anything to do with the entity called asco," is what accomplished artist and UC Irvine professor Daniel Joseph Martinez emailed me.

Diane Gamboa, sister of ASCO founder Harry Gamboa Jr., isn't happy with the current show.

"It is obvious that the macho con game in manipulating history continues. I was a significant member of Asco from 1980 to 1987, not just one of the many collaborators or groupies. The popular elite Chicano Art Culture of 2011 and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art selected to shun the Chicana / female involvement, voice and creative expression within the Asco period. Is this part of the dumbing down of society in general or is it simply sleazy?" is what Gamboa emailed me.

The catalogue is chock full of photos, oral histories, and academic evaluations of the paintings, performances, music, and happenings staged by the group over a decade and a half.

Since its founding, most of what young Chicanos knew about ASCO was piecemeal through a few group show art catalogues, second hand accounts, and a lot of myths about the East L.A. group that rocked the L.A. art house for 15 years.

Poet Consuelo Flores participated in ASCO movies and performances. She said lots of people came up to her at the LACMA opening surprised that she'd been in the group.

"Many of the artists who weren't necessarily featured in the show - or historically for that matter - are actually very well known in their own right and within their specific community - I count myself among them. The fact that a general public may not know of their participation in this group has more to do with the way the group has been promoted than it has to do with the specific work of these individuals. I understand the limitations the curators had with trying to present the entire work of this group. Would I have done it differently - yes, but I also have a vested interest in the way it would have been presented. Each person who was at some point part of ASCO served the group at that specific point in time. And for better or for worse, we each took something from that experience as well. The fact that everyone - except the original four - was less featured is because of the way the group was marketed. Perception is reality and the perception continues to be that despite what work was done by other important artists as part of ASCO, the original four were going to be the focus because that was who ASCO was," Flores told me by email.

On page 324 in the catalogue Joey Terrill's fake magazine cover screams "Homeboy Beautiful" and "Homo-Homeboys!" around the picture of a dark haired, dark mustachioed, young Latino man. It's just one of several queer collaborations that are part of the ASCO story. By email Terrill told me he saw the exhibition on opening night and liked it a lot.

the curators have done a great job in presenting as comprehensive an overview of the work generated by ASCO especially given the ephemeral and conceptual strategies that they employed which resist not just categorization but the accumulation of "art objects" usually showcased in museums. I believe the show does a pretty good job in putting their output in the context of the times both culturally and politically. I was also pleased to be present as LACMA the institution recognized the contribution of ASCO as the homegrown art phenom that it was. For years LA seemed to turn a blind eye to the creative output in their own backyard even as ASCO members (and "Chicano art" in general) received more investigation and review in other countries and cities.

The rap is that European museums and curators have been more interested in the merits of Chicano art from the get go.

Gonzalez tells me this isn't the final telling of the ASCO story. Wow. Really? What other hometown museum will put this much work and resources (Williams College of Art co-organized the show) to an exhaustive showing of the group? The contemporary art museum on Bunker Hill that will soon be exhibiting the black and white photos of Weegee's years in Los Angeles?

"We are really lucky that the Asco retrospective is happening in tandem with Pacific Standard Time. Asco and the work of their peers in Chicano art, performance art, and conceptual art, will be included in the shows at the Fowler (by the curatorial team at UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center), the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Latin American Art. Although ours might be the largest, none of the curators working with this material could ever represent the long ranging and complex history that is Asco or Chicano art history, for that matter. Looking at the exhibition walls, Ondine and I see there are so many other curatorial approaches that one could formulate out of the art works on the checklist--so many different approaches."

That's the beauty of laying it all out in black and white and with a nice cover. In the following decades the catalogue of the ASCO retrospective may reach the hands of someone with Gonzalez's sky's-the-limit attitude. After all, as the story goes, it was only 40 years ago that a LACMA curator told two young Chicanos that art by people like them didn't belong in the museum.

Poet and Journalist Adolfo Guzman-Lopez writes his column Movie Miento every week on KCET's SoCal Focus blog. It is a poetic exploration of Los Angeles history, Latino culture and the overall sense of place, darting across LA's physical and psychic borders.

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Bakersfield conservative exhibits his Chicano poster collection

[Click header to go to original article]

By Jennifer Self, Bakersfield Californian jself@bakersfield.com

This poster, a protest against Sun-Maid, is part of an exhibit at Metro Galleries to be unveiled Friday. Collector Craig Neville jokes that he thinks it might be illegal to display the poster in Fresno County.

Somewhere, Cesar Chavez is either laughing or weeping.

But the contradiction doesn't seem as blatant after a conversation with the affable collector Craig Neville, owner of Henley's Photo in downtown Bakersfield.

It seems Neville, who for years worked as a labor contractor, takes the verynarrow middle ground on what has been a bitter and protracted struggle between workers and growers.

"My political views -- I'm not strong that way,"he said over the phone Monday.

"To me, the past is the past, and we all respect each other's opinions, and I think there are beautiful pieces there that mean something to someone, and I think it's time people have access to them."

Neville means what he says about access:The 60-odd pieces he's been collecting over the last few years have been in storage until now. But Metro Galleries president Don Martin got wind of the art and persuaded Neville to display a few of the pieces at the gallery during First Friday tomorrow evening.

"I've been researching the artists and the groups that created these posters and prints for the past few weeks," Martin said. "Most were done at the height of the farm-labor movement and many of them are part of the fabric of the history of this community.

"I'm not trying to make a political statement by showing these but rather encouraging the viewer to remember or learn about this era."

The subject matter of Neville's collection -- mostly posters and drawings -- ranges from religious iconography to Chicano pride to anti-grower sloganeering to stirring calls to action directed at field workers.

Depending on one's political inclinations, some of the more provocative pieces could be dismissed as flame-throwing propaganda, created to mobilize public support for boycotts and other union action. But tying the art together into a cohesive collection are the overarching themes of social justice, empowerment and cultural identity.

Neville estimates that most of the pieces were created in the 1960s and '70s. He acquired many from a friend, whom he described as "being in the movement," though he declined to give the man's name out of respect for his privacy. Neville said much of the work bears the stamp of a Los Angeles art gallery, which he believes is a sign of its authenticity. For information on the other pieces, he consulted the reference guide "Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation."

"What they do is various people get together and analyze, review and kind of maintain the history of the Chicano movement as it pertains to the '60s and '70s," said Neville, who noted that his collection contains works by noted Mexican-American artists Salvador Roberto Torres and Jose Montoya.

The most current image, a poster made from a 2004 San Francisco billboard, depicts then-President George W. Bush with the word "LIAR" scrawled under the portrait (no hard feelings:Neville points out he voted for Bush).

But his favorite piece is probably the least political of all: a poster that features a little girl in a sweet watermelon-print summer dress.

"It would break my heart (to sell it) and, again, I don't know if I'm parting with it all," said Neville, who as of earlier this week hadn't quite settled on which, if any, of the pieces will be offered for sale.

"The big thing Friday night is putting it out there. I want to share this."

According Bakersfield resident Henry Rangel, "I sold the pieces cheap. Yes, I sold my birthright but I would like some credit."

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Conservative student to fight discipline by Fresno State

[Click image to enlarge. Click header to go to original article.]

By Heather Somerville, The Fresno Bee

Neil O'Brien arrived at Fresno State in fall 2010, and before the semester was over he had spearheaded a conservative movement aimed at driving out illegal-immigrant students and challenging what he calls radical ideas espoused by Fresno State administrators.

Now he has gone a step further. After Fresno State took disciplinary action against him for allegedly threatening two faculty members in the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department, O'Brien hired a lawyer.

And not just any lawyer -- Brian Leighton, a Clovis attorney who won a major case against the CIA in 2009 and has gained a reputation for challenging federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Claiming the college has squashed O'Brien's First Amendment rights, Leighton said he is eager to go up against Fresno State. "I don't like what Fresno State is doing," Leighton said.

O'Brien will face administrators at a judiciary hearing Sept. 13. If he and Leighton don't like the outcome, they're prepared to go to court.

O'Brien's judiciary mess started with a poem printed last May in La Voz de Aztlan, an ethnic student publication distributed with the college newspaper. O'Brien took issue with language in the student-written poem, most notably the term "white savage."

O'Brien said he wanted to know why the poem was published in a student-supported newspaper. So last May, armed with a video camera, he headed to the offices of Chicano and Latin American Studies Chair Victor Torres and teacher Maria-Aparecida Lopes to demand answers. Torres is one of the newspaper advisers.

His unannounced visit rattled the teachers, who alerted campus authorities.

In Torres' formal complaint, he wrote that O'Brien was "belligerent and loud" and that he felt threatened by O'Brien's "hostile and angry attitude" and "unwillingness to leave my office."

In a separate complaint, Lopes said she felt "threatened and vulnerable."

In a written statement, Torres said he isn't involved in newspaper editing, but that all short stories and poems "are protected by the same right that Mr. O'Brien uses to shield his own publications -- the freedom of speech and expression."

O'Brien, 28, has a website that challenges illegal immigrants and the "radical liberalism" at Fresno State.

College officials have charged O'Brien with violating the student code of conduct. He calls the accusations lies and refuses to accept the school's settlement that requires him to stay 100 feet from the Chicano and Latin American Studies department and faculty. He will contest the charges at the judiciary hearing.

Carolyn Coon, assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students, is handling the case. Federal law prevents her from speaking about O'Brien, but she said it's rare for a student to take a case this far. The school holds at most one judiciary hearing per year, and many years there are none. The hearings, Coon said, take a lot of time and resources.

In her 10 years on the job, Coon said no student has taken a disciplinary case to court.

Leighton said he would try to solve the case out of court, but he could file charges against Fresno State for violating O'Brien's freedom of speech and right to a speedy trial. Leighton is protesting college rules that prohibit him from attending the hearing.

"I don't know a bigger due process violation than that," he said.

O'Brien said being barred from the Chicano and Latin American Studies could delay his graduation. But O'Brien is a recreation administration major, and while classes in Chicano and Latin American Studies could satisfy his general education requirements, they are not required for his major.

Contact: HSOMERVILLE@FRESNOBEE.COM OR (559) 441-6412

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Asco: A Hollywood Love Affair

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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Tucson MEChA comes under scrutiny

Back in the early seventies while a student at San Jose State University, I was a member of MEChA. Today, this proud organization has come under attack. I found the article below written by Loretta Hunnicut of the Tuscon Citizen as yet another example of xenophobia coming out of Arizona.

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TUSD’s schools have MEChA chapters and not even the district’s Superintendent knows if they are sanctioned by the district. If you don’t know what MEChA is, you are among hundreds of thousands of Tucsonans, including this author, who didn’t know and didn’t care.

The group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán came under scrutiny as a result of the Tucson Unified School District’s appeal of the finding by Superintendent of Public Instruction (SOPI) that TUSD’s Mexican American Studies classes violate state law. In violation of state law, the classes are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment towards a race or class of people, and advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Not until the district’s superintendent testified at the hearing as to an email he received from Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lupita Cavazos-Garcia was much attention paid to the TUSD group in and out of the district. In the email, Dr. Garcia expressed her concerns regarding MEChA’s efforts to recruit students for an “occupied peoples” conference at which Palestinian and TUSD students would be sharing their experiences living in “occupied” territories.

Dr. Garcia wrote that at the time of Pedicone’s hiring she had expressed to him, “my deep concern” about MEChA at TUSD. She pointed out the organization’s “anti-Semitic tone and tenor on our campuses.” She went on to state that the some of the district’s students have little emotional support and “our Raza students are ripe for this kind of influence.” MEChA was originally founded for college students and is found on many college campuses, however it is only found in four high schools in the country; two in Arizona, one in New Mexico, and one in California.

Concerns arose about the conference in the district when word went out that Homeland Security would be in attendance. Some of the more responsible adults in the district questioned the wisdom of allowing TUSD students to be put in a situation in which they might innocently come under scrutiny, suspicion, or harm.

In the past MEChA has been linked to the anti-Semitic website/publication, La Voz de Aztlan which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group. According to Dr. Rudolpho Acuna, who is the subject of interviews with principles of La Voz de Aztlan and author of Occupied America, he has disavowed any connections to that group. There is some evidence that MEChA has also disavowed that organization, however others very familiar with the organization claim that La Voz de Aztlan is a conduit for information for MEChA members.

Local Raza propagandist the Three Sonorans, otherwise known as David Abie Morales, writes that some of Tucson most prominent leaders were formerly members of MEChA. He list among them controversial Congressman Raul Grijalva, who was instrumental in the Mexican American/Raza Studies class development when he was on the TUSD Governing Board. His daughter is Adelita Grijalva, who currently sits on the TUSD Governing Board. City Council member Regina Romero, who finds herself in a very close primary this year against local Tucson businessman and anti-Grijalva establishment democrat Jose Flores, and her highly controversial husband Ruben Reyes, who is a staff member of the elder Grijalva’s congressional staff, among others. It is unknown whether vocal supporter, County Supervisor Richard Elias was ever a member of MEChA, due to the fact that the private schools he attended as a young student did not offer MEChA on their campuses.

So, who is MEChA? In their own words, from their website…..

“Essentially, we are a Chicana and Chicano student movement directly linked to Aztlán. As Chicanas and Chicanos of Aztlán, we are a nationalist movement of Indigenous Gente that lay claim to the land that is ours by birthright. As a nationalist movement we seek to free our people from the exploitation of an oppressive society that occupies our land. Thus, the principle of nationalism serves to preserve the cultural traditions of La Familia de La Raza and promotes our identity as a Chicana/Chicano Gente.”

“In March of 1969, at Denver, Colorado the Crusade for Justice organized the first National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference that drafted the basic premises for the Chicana/Chicano Movement in El Plan de Aztlán.”

“The following month, in April of 1969, over 100 Chicanas/Chicanos came together at University of California, Santa Barbara to formulate a plan for higher education: El Plan de Santa Barbara. With this document they were successful in the development of two very important contributions to the Chicano Movement: Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) and Chicano Studies.”

“The adoption of the name Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan signaled a new level of political consciousness among student activists. It was the final stage in the transformation of what had been loosely organized, local student groups, into a single structure and a unified student movement.”

“Adamant rejection of the label “Mexican-American” meant rejection of the assimilation and accommodationist melting pot ideology that had guided earlier generations of activists. Chicanismo involves a crucial distinction in a political consciousness between a Mexican-American (Hispanic) and a Chicana/o mentality. El Plan de Santa Barbara speaks to such issues of identity politics by asserting:

“The Mexican-American (Hispanic) is a person who lacks respect for his/her cultural and ethnic heritage. Unsure of her/himself, she/he seeks assimilation as a way out of her/his “degraded” social status. Consequently, she/he remains politically ineffective. In contrast, Chicanismo reflects self-respect and pride on one’s ethnic and cultural background. Thus, the Chicana/o acts with confidence and with a range of alternatives in the political world. She/he is capable of developing an effective ideology through action” (El Plan de Santa Barbara).

“MEChA played an important role in the creation and implementation of Chicana/o Studies and support services programs on campus. Chicana/o Studies programs would be a relevant alternative to established curricula. Most important, the Chicana/o Studies program would be the foundation of MEChA’s political power base. Today many Chicana/os Studies Programs would have difficulty operating if it were not for the enthusiasm and dedication of Mechistas to Chicana/o Studies.”

“We, as Mechistas, see the process of Chicanismo as evolutionary. We recognize that no one is born politically Chicana or Chicano. Chicanismo results from a decision based on a political consciousness for our Raza, to dedicate oneself to building a Chicana/Chicano Nation. Chicanismo is a concept that integrates self-awareness with cultural identity, a necessary step in developing political consciousness. Therefore the term Chicano is grounded in a philosophy, not a nationality. Chicanismo does not exclude anyone, rather it includes those who acknowledge and work toward the betterment of La Raza.”

“Chicanismo involves a personal decision to reject assimilation and work towards the preservation of our cultural heritage. Recognizing that all people are potential Chicanas and Chicanos, we encourage those interested in developing a total commitment to our movement for self-determination for the people of Aztlán to join Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán.”

“Finally, as Mechistas, we vow to work for the liberation of Aztlán, leading to socioeconomic and political justice for our Gente. MEChA then, is more than a name; it is a spirit of unity by comadrismo/carnalismo, and a resolution to undertake a struggle for liberation! Tierra y Libertad!”

MEChA chapters are at Tucson High School and Pueblo High School. The following is a list of chapters:

Alta Califas Norte

California State University, Chico
California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sonoma
Chabot College
San Jose State University
Santa Rosa Junior College
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley

Alta Califas Sur

California Polytechnic University, Pomona
California State University, Fullerton
California State Univeristy, Los Angeles
California State University, Northridge
California State University, San Marcos
Central de Los Angeles County
Central de San Diego
Cerritos College
Chapman University
Cypress College
La Jolla High School
Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC)
Pasadena City College
Rio Hondo College
San Diego State University
Santa Ana College
University of California, Irvine
University of Southern California
Sur Calpulli Montañas de Norte

Colorado College
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Colorado, Denver
Centro Aztlan

Arizona State University
Central Arizona College
Northern Arizona University
Pueblo High School
Rio Grande High School
Tucson High School
University of Arizona
University of New Mexico
University of Texas, El Paso
Centro Califas

Bakersfield College
California State University, Hayward
California State University, Monterey Bay
Modesto Junior College
Sequoia College
University of California, Santa Barbara
West Hills College, Kings County
Este

Brown University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Georgetown University
Pennsylvania State University
University of Pennsylvania
Vassar College
Yale University
Massachusetts Institue of Technology (LUChA)
Mitlampa Cihuatlampa

Eastern Washington University
Seattle University
University of Washington
MidWest

St. Cloud State University
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Illinois, Chicago (MeSA)
Pacific NorthWest

Oregon State University
Pasco High School
Portland University
University of Oregon
Western Oregon University
SouthEast Tejaztlan

University of Texas, Austin
University of Houston
University of Texas, Pan American

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Artist collective, host art show in Imperial Valley

[Image: "Love is War" by Richard Jasso is one of the 52 pieces that will be on display at the Borderline Disorder art show. Click to enlarge.]

Article courtesy of Chelcey Adami of the Imperial Valley Press

Three artists from California's Imperial Valley have joined in an effort to bring more art to the Southern California area through the Imperial Valley Artist Collective.

The group was organized this summer and will have the grand opening of the group show, titled Borderline Disorder, tonight.

It will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Imperial Valley College Art Gallery and will remain on display until Sept. 9.

The exhibit features 52 art pieces by 52 artists from all over the world and includes video, photo, paintings and drawings.

Artists showing include Imperial Valley College art professors Tom Gilbertson and Carol Hagerty as well as Chicano artist Daniel Marquez.

Elizabeth M. Lopez of El Centro, along with Minerva Torres-Guzman and Alfredo Guzman, both of Holtville, went to Imperial Valley College together and then graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 2007.

When they returned to the Valley after graduation, they felt that most art activities were occurring in Mexicali. The three decided to start the collective to encourage artist collaboration and make art more accessible to the community, Torres-Guzman said.

E-mail: imperialvalleyartistcollective@gmail.com or visit the group’s Facebook page for more information.

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Stuart Ashman appointed head of Museum of Latin American Art

The Museum of Latin American Art of Long Beach, CA said that it has appointed Stuart Ashman as its new president and chief executive officer. His tenure is set to begin on Sept. 6.

Ashman assumes the museum's top post following the abrupt departure of Richard P. Townsend in January. Townsend had served as president of the museum for a little less than two years before announcing his resignation. Prior to Townsend, the position had been vacant for more than a year.

The museum received an endowment of $25 million in 2009 from the estate of its late founder, Dr. Robert Gumbiner.

Ashman has served as director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico. He was also founding director of the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in Santa Fe. Ashman served as cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs for more than seven years.

In the past year, Ashman served as an advisor for the U.S. Peace Corps, working on arts-related programs in a number of Latin American countries.

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Asco Returns Triumphant to LACMA

Max Benavidez, Huffington Post [Click header to go to original story]

When "Asco: Elite of the Obscure" opens Sept. 4 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), we will witness the closing of a 40-year-old cultural loop. During the exhibition, a famous Asco (pronounced "oss-ko") image will be seen all around L.A., as Bank of America, one of the show's sponsors, will utilize one of the art group's most compelling works, the 1974 "Instant Mural," on its ATM screens. This is an interesting juxtaposition and demonstrates how the mainstream has caught up with the Asco sensibility of simulated appropriation and hip transgression and also how commerce, art and the burgeoning Latino market are intersecting in new and innovative ways.

The LACMA show, which is part of the huge Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time (PST) series of exhibitions, is a great opportunity to formally applaud the genius of Harry Gamboa, Jr., Gronk, Pattsi Valdez and Willie Herrón, III, the founding members of Asco, for their groundbreaking body of work. "Asco" means "disgust" or "revulsion" in Spanish, and they called themselves that because their work evoked nausea in so many people. (The show's title, "Elite of the Obscure," came from Gamboa, who also coined other memorable terms, such as "urban exiles," "phantom culture" and "orphans of modernism" to refer to Asco and metropolitan Chicanos in general.)

What makes "Instant Mural" so potent is that it verges on being a photorealistic painting, but it's not. It was a spontaneously staged street event with a timeless cinematic quality that commented on the proliferation and content of Chicano murals, as well as the closed-off art world. Gronk, in a flowing, burgundy coat, is taping a dramatically posed Valdez in red bolero jacket, blue-jean shorts and black velvet high heels to a creamy, orange wall and doing it as quickly as possible, as if their lives depended on the speed of the act. It gives the image an ephemeral quality that illustrates how Asco mixed street art with performance art to create a new, expressive hybrid form of high and low: postmodern punk art. As Gronk said said about the piece, "I think one of the important things about our activities was the idea that we didn't ask for permission to do any of the work."

Aesthetic spontaneity and a cool desperado posture: that's the essence of Asco's work and its legacy. And, now, in a remarkable twist of fate, its work will be viewed on the ATM screens of one of the world's largest financial institutions.

It all began 40 years ago, deep in an East L.A. barrio, where four teenagers sitting around in a garage formed Asco. While it sounds like something out of Silicon Valley lore, it actually parallels other art movements, such as surrealism and Dada, that started in times of desperation and disillusionment. It was a time of war (Vietnam), and much of East L.A. was nearly in a state of police occupation.

The members of Asco were bored by the same old same old art they saw all around them, so they set out to execute their own unique artistic vision. They made "No Movies," which really aren't movies at all, and took the idea of the protest mural to its logical conclusion with the "Instant Mural" and the "Walking Mural." They also created daring street performances that recoded and satirized mainstream and Chicano cultures, as in "First Supper (After a Major Riot)." In the process they made history.

For the first time in American art history, a Chicano art group was working at the edge of art's boundaries, creating new paradigms, and turning both modern art and Chicano art inside out. Interestingly, and this is what makes the return trip to LACMA a historical event, Asco was working in a critical void and was virtually ignored by the mainstream art world that heralded so many other national and international artists who were working in similar veins. This was a classic case of Freud's "distortion of a text." The text, in this case, is the record of American art, and Asco and the meaning of its work was suppressed and annulled, partly through denial and partly through simple neglect and ignorance. In many ways, this circling back to LACMA is a triumph for the collective.

Beyond the kudos and acknowledgment, we also have to keep in mind that history's nightmare not only repeats itself but, as Voltaire said, "history consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions," and this show is a 21st-century imaginative invention. The truth is that the art world, like Asco, is tired of the same old same old.

The Asco circle of disruption closes quite neatly since their most famous intervention occurred in 1972 at LACMA, almost 40 years ago.

Here's what happened. They went to the big, public-funded museum, LACMA, to see if they could show a curator their art. The curator said something like this: "No, you people aren't fine artists, you're gang bangers and folk artists."

That enraged Asco so much that they sought an appropriate response, and very early one morning, they spray-painted their names on the museum and took a picture. If they were thought of as taggers, then there was no reason not to brand the whole museum as their work of art. They called it "Spray Paint LACMA." It was the most audacious piece of conceptual art ever affiliated with LACMA. It also established Asco as a truly avant-garde, conceptual art group, along the lines of other legendary collectives like Fluxus, Archigram, Guerrilla Girls and others.

During its heyday, which ran from about 1971 to 1987, Asco was a truly underground phenomenon, and the group displayed a rare sensibility. They were constantly innovating in a media vacuum on the streets of East L.A. At the same time, they also reworked contemporary urban identities for young Latinos, and, above all, they documented everything.

One of Asco's most subversive interventions was the "No Movie." These were images that the group circulated by mail in a series of satirical press kits and production stills. Hollywood barely acknowledged Chicanos and other Latinos during the height of Asco's creativity. To Asco's credit, it did something about it. It commented on this big-screen invisibility through the "No Movie" concept.

The "No Movies" imagery was enigmatic and alluring. Asco also created evocative titles, such as "A La Mode" and "No Tip," that referred to nonexistent films while constructing themselves as film stars in the process. The "No Movie" photos simultaneously denied and affirmed the viability of an alternative cinema, and in their surrealistic, often campy theatricality, they reclaimed a violent and alienating urban environment as the stage for subversive glamour. By producing "No Movies," Asco essentially countered the Hollywood film industry's negation of Latinos by emotionally compressing rage, distress and scathing commentary (that still rings true) into their imagery.

So, take a trip to LACMA and catch the work of these now-classic provocateurs, because, as the Walrus in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" said, "the time has come, my friends..." for Asco.

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