How the 1970s Chicano art group ASCO defied mainstream and made history highlighted in new documentary

LOS ANGELES — They met as teens, formed as young adults, and called their group “asco” — “nausea” or “disgust” in Spanish — after one of their early DIY exhibits.

Their conceptual work and performance art spoke to the exclusion of Chicanos from the mainstream art world and the systemic police brutality endured by the Mexican American community in East Los Angeles.

When filmmaker Travis Gutiérrez Senger reflects on ASCO’s legacy, he quickly notes they were more than an art group; they created a movement, one with remarkable influence on Chicano art history.

“That movement continues today, and it’s very expansive,” he says. “There’s a lot of books, films and things that will be written about ASCO over a period of time. And this was our contribution in some ways.”

He’s referring to “ASCO: Without Permission,” a documentary that chronicles the story of the 1970s art group founded by multidisciplinary artist Patssi Valdez, muralist Willie Herrón III, painter and performance artist Gronk and writer and photographer Harry Gamboa Jr.

All four founding members of ASCO became some of the most notable Chicano artists, later exhibiting works in revered museums around the United States. But in their early days, the group was denied access to the notable galleries and museums. They created their own avenues in the form of public performances, murals and more to exhibit their work, their way.

“To behave badly is the most ethical thing you can do,” said executive producer Gael García Bernal at the film’s South by Southwest film festival premiere earlier this month. “You’re building identity and questioning and unmasking the facade and the farce that exists.”

Bernal and Diego Luna executive produced the film under their production company El Corriente del Golfo. The film has yet to find distribution.

Speaking with The Associated Press, Gamboa and Valdez praised Gutiérrez Senger’s approach to their history. Both members, who appear in the documentary, saw the film for the first time with a crowd of fans and a group of young Chicano artists whose art was inspired by ASCO’s early rebellion.

“I felt the film really kind of captured the essence of all of us working together,” said Gamboa.

Valdez says it was a special moment for her, as the only woman in the founding group, to be given equal time and understanding.

“For the first time, I was given an equal voice in the group that hadn’t happened before,” she said, citing how previous stories of the group only highlighted her male collaborators.

Without permission

ASCO emerged at the height of the Chicano civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a time of heightened political and racial tension amid the East LA walkouts, protesting education inequality, and the Chicano Moratorium, an anti-Vietnam War movement during which many Mexican Americans were victims of police brutality.

Muralists and collectives popped up as Latino artists sought to process the systemic injustice taking place in their communities.

“The response to such violence was to create art,” said Gamboa Jr. He wanted to alter the mainstream perception of Chicanos and present the possibilities and avenues someone can create despite societal constraints.

For Valdez, being the only woman meant she was no stranger to a double dose of both racism in society and the sexism weaved within conservative Latino households, where young women were expected to keep quiet.

“I couldn’t stand it. So, I was able to act out these forms of censorship through the performance work in ASCO,” said Valdez who once taped herself to a public wall in a piece titled “Instant Mural,” a metaphor on feeling captive.

One of ASCO’s most known works is “Spray Paint LACMA.” Gamboa, Gronk and Herrón spray painted their names on the side of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art after Gamboa says he was told by a curator, “Chicanos are in gangs, they don’t make art.”

“There was another era when people said, ‘Latinx art, you know, doesn’t exist. It’s not a thing. It doesn’t belong. It’s not part of American art,’” said Pilar Tompkins-Rivas, the chief curator and deputy director of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

ASCO’s neighborhood performance art would often draw stares, and even crowds. In “Station of the Cross,” the group carried a large cross to the local military recruiting office to protest the Vietnam War.

In 1974, Gamboa took a photo of Gronk posed as the victim of gang violence to bring attention to the media’s sensationalist coverage of crime in East Los Angeles. In the documentary, Gamboa claims that a local news station ran the piece as an actual story.