A Dada daydream in Chicanoville, USA (Updated)

My feature on the history and legacy of Asco is published this week. When you first see an Asco piece, there's that moment where your eyes widen. It's surprise at the unusual and new, but at the same time, a feeling of recognition:

Long before flash mobs, Gamboa began perfecting the practice of the spontaneous art action when he and three other East L.A. artists formed the venerated avant-garde performance group known as Asco, named after the Spanish word for “nausea.” Here you had, in the middle of the 1970s, four style-conscious art jesters — three men, one woman — cavorting in outrageous outfits around the streets and empty lots of East L.A., making a scene, actions sprinkled with cutting social commentary, then disappearing. A Dada daydream in Chicanoville, USA.

I want to thank the many, many people I interviewed over several months for this piece, for their frankness, insight, encouragement, and help in pointing me toward crucial primary and secondary research sources. It was a very intense process.

* UPDATES: Here are transcripts of interviews Jeffrey Rangel of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art conducted with Gronk, Harry Gamboa, Patssi Valdez, and Willie Herron III between 1997 and 2000. The interviews are extensive.

Here is an image of "The Black and White Mural" by Gronk and Herron, at Estrada Courts in East L.A. I paid a visit to this site one night, and also to Herron's seminal "The Wall that Cracked Open," in an alley in City Terrace, behind a very fragrant panaderia.

One point I did not expand upon in "The Art Outlaws of East L.A." is the growing academic and curatorial consensus that Asco functionally consisted of five core members. Early on, actor Humberto Sandoval participated in many key Asco actions and films. He's collaborated with Gamboa on later films as well.

* Photo above is courtesy of Harry Gamboa Jr.

Comments

[Pretty Dicky]

look forward to reading this over a nice cup of boba - for real!

[yaoskakafka]

oh darling i cant wait to read it!!!!!!

[fabian]

Insightful. I appreciate the layering of perspectives.

[caro]

Awesome piece, dude! Thank goodness we can now take a clear-eyed look at groups like Asco, the dynamics of collectives. So much here is right on -- from the connections to a movimiento, to class distinctions, to the nasty gender politics. The complete narcissism of self-documentation is crucial, but it also means that someone becomes the self-designated purveyor of the "official story" and leaves the "losers" marginalized, erased, minimized.

[daniel olivas]

Daniel, bravo! Gronk told me that this was coming out soon. I'll make note on La Bloga.

[Daniel H.]

Thank you everyone! Any links you could spread around would be much appreciated ...

[KIKO]

thanks for you work on this. some of my thoughts/critiques.

1. first off, some great stuff in there, Daniel. Thanks.

2. fuck dada. I mean, I love dada, but, you know, that's kind of hack stuff by now to keep comparing asco to dada/surrealists/fluxus, and also, it's eurocentric. fuck dada in the sense that, asco is homegrown, east l.a., indigenous, and reflects this, even if, as Gronk points out, they didn't develop in a vacuum.

the problem is that the whole dada comparison thing always translates to a kind of, "see, chicanas/os can make good art too, we're all hip and avant-garde---like the european dadaists etc." we need to develop a new paradigm about how we talk about ourselves and our own artists and our own work that comes from our own reality/experience, not from some need to always reference euro experience as some kind of validation reference point. it's okay to note similarities and connections, which might arise from similar experiences of oppression, displacement, occupation, absurd violence and so forth, but it's a fine line that I think we should be very careful with.

3. related to this last point, there is a way in which hipster/pop aesthetic-speak can filter things down so much through the lens of sassy cynical ironic chic-speak that the deeper, more meaningful and significant dimensions of the work get glossed over and erased. like, oh, look how clever and avant garde they are in the donut shop, flash mob etc.. and then the piece shifts to a drawn out discussion of all this old chisme.

sometimes a donut is just a donut, and sometimes it's just a donut but it's also something else at the same time, you know?

at the same time there is this surface thing going on that's ephemeral and like a joke, not taking itself seriously, there are also other elements and dimensions at work, ceremony, ritual, transformation, political subversion, and so on, that I think should be respected and fully understood.

3. at the end of the piece, you say,

"You can’t help but imagine what could have been if the creative energy of Asco could have been somehow sustained. If Spraypaint LACMA weren’t a creative climax but a prologue of things to come.

Then again, why relive the past?"

that's kind of problematic, no? I mean, are you really suggesting that the creative climax for asco, as well as the individuals in asco, was in 1972? 19 years before they officially "split" up?

and also, talk about reliving the past, man--the whole piece is a long drawn out chisme-fest telenovela rehashing the past. all of these artists are still very active and engaged in important, effective work. right now. in the present. you know?

so yeah, exactly why SHOULD we relive the past? unless we are looking at things from a kind of nostalgic lens that's focused on coulda shoulda woulda kind of thinking, on digging up old stuff, on ignoring what's going on right now--which is exactly what happened to them in the 70s, you know? I mean, back then, what they were doing was being ignored as it happened. now, what they're doing as it happens is being ignored, to a certain extent, by this insistent focus on the past and glossing over of the present. kind of ironic.

and again, with regard to the telenovela thing, I think this contributes to the hipster glossing over thing I was talking about. I think it's brilliant to bring this in to the discussion and explore it, the whole sense of telenovela drama and so forth, but again, I think it's something that is best done with care and compassion, with a full awareness that the hipster kids sitting in silver lake reading this thing might chuckle at the references to telenovelas but they won't GET it, not really, you know?

and to me, that's a problem, because telenovelas are funny and comical and stupid but there is also something about them that is tragic and really messed up, especially how so many of us and our loved ones get hypnotized and mesmerized into handing over so much of our own frustrated lives to vicariously watching some other (white, hetero, "beautiful") people's lives unfold. there's more to it, but you know what I mean? yes it's funny and silly and sad but it actually MEANS something to us, even if we laugh at it and use it in our art. but it means NOTHING to them, except some kitschy shit to laugh at and nothing more.

I guess what I'm getting at is that one of the dangers in talking about something like ASCO is that because they made fun of everything, including themselves, and on the surface took nothing seriously, and presented this facade of absurdist reality, it can be easy to forget that the things they were dealing with and talking about were dead serious--colonization, white supremacy, genocide, homophobia, sexism, state violence against our communities, violence against women, gentrification, erasure of our languages and ways of being, etc. (none of which shows up in the Weekly piece).

and I think this is what's really at stake, and what all those art historians and others might want to keep in mind about all this stuff. while we're focusing on the chisme of who documented what and who contributed what exactly and who's not talking to who and esto y la otra, the history is getting appropriated and assimilated into the spectacle machine, neutralized, made safe for consumption while we're distracted. and we, as young historians and documentarians, have to be always alert to the question of whether we are contributing to this appropriation or not.

again, overall, I think this was a really great, thought-provoking piece, Daniel, just some problems and things it made me think about.

take care,
K

[chimatli]

This article is causing quite the buzz around town, heard lots of people talking about it this weekend.

[Linda Gamboa]

Daniel,

I really don't understand what you were thinking when deciding to take the article on Asco to the level a low blow pubescent chisme fest.

You had an incredible opportunity here to showcase your talent and do a service to the Chicano community but instead opted to toss it all down the toilet -- and for what? To apease the non Chicano readership. To make favor with the 'Harry Gamboa Jr Haters Club.' Whatever the reason I hope it was worth it.

What irritates me the most is knowing you sought out and profiled the few individuals who have a reputation of holding on to grudges and playing out their anger in childish acts of vengeance.

My brother Harry Gamboa Jr did not deserve to be singled out as the primary cause for Asco's demise. As I mentioned to you during my interview there were four people invloved with four egos -- some larger than others.

Had I known the article was to read the way it did I never would have agreed to meet with you. You really screwed up.

Linda Gamboa

[tempestad]

you took the easy route - sensationalism. too bad really and disappointing. Expected more than tabloid-like tactics...