Asco, No Movies, and the

Subversion of the Reel

Michael Pazmino
University of California, Los Angeles
FTV 200:
Bibliography & Methods of Research in Film & Television

Pazmino

We wanted to go beyond East LA with our art. We were doing incredible things, and yet
we couldnt get Hollywood to come out of Beverly Hills.1 Gronk
In Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema, Chon
Noriega states that Ascos No Movies offered both a Chicano commentary on the role
of language and the mass media in race relations and a satirical critique of Chicano
cinema2 Drawing on Noriegas commentary about the difficulty of locating the No
Movies within a historiographical framework in film studies, this paper will focus on the
various No Movies made by the Chicano art group known as Asco in the late 70s and
examine the difficulties of situating these films vis--vis the politically-charged Chicano
cinema and the Los Angeles avant-garde film culture of the 70s. Although Ascos No
Movies were molded by the highly political environment of the Chicano Civil Rights
Movement, these films were at odds with the cultural and aesthetic authenticity posited
by Chicano cinema as well as being culturally and geographically segregated from the
booming Los Angeles avant-garde film community. In examining oral histories from
Asco, press clippings, program notes and the films themselves, it becomes clear that the
schizophrenic (no) history of Ascos No Movies continue to exist on the peripheries of
film history.
The Chicano Civil Rights Movement of the late 60s saw the unprecedented mass
mobilization of Mexican Americans who through anti-commodity cultural activities such
as prop theater and murals sought to reclaim their authentic pre-Columbian heritage.3 The
1 Carr, Elston. "Gronk Goes to LACMA." L.A. Weekly 18 Mar. 1994: 19, Box 11, Collection 95, The
Gronk Papers 1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.
2 Noriega,ChonA.ShotinAmerica:Television,theState,andtheRiseofChicanoCinema.Minneapolis:
UniversityofMinnesotaPress,2000.198.

3 Cornucpoia Chicana de Los Angeles. La Opinion, 15 July 1984, Box 48, Collection 95, The Gronk
Papers 1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.

Pazmino

mass rioting in East Los Angeles, as well as the Death of Ruben Salazar at the hands of a
L.A. County Sheriff s officer in 1970 resulted in nation-wide media coverage on the
movement, which often depicted Chicanos as savages and looting thugs.4 Amidst this
politically charged movement four Chicano artists in East Los Angeles began to
collaboratively create radical multimedia art. Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Patssi Valdez and
Willie Herron adopted the name Asco (nausea in Spanish) to both convey their general
feelings of disgust towards their surroundings and to address the response their work
generated within the community. All four founding member from Asco grew up in the
neighborhoods of East Los Angeles in this era of political turmoil and heightened police
repression, but unlike other Chicano artist emerging from the community, Asco
purposefully abandoned any association in their work with the pre-Columbian past, and
instead sought inspiration from the absurdities of contemporary popular culture to create
art.5
The earliest works created by Asco included agitational performance pieces reminiscent
of Dadaism and Surrealism.6 Their first collaborative work of art occurred on Christmas
Eve in 1971. Stations of the Cross was a Vietnam War protest piece and operated by
drawing attention to the overwhelming number of Chicano youth that were being shipped
back home in body bags. For this piece, the four young Chicanos dressed in bizarre,
androgynous attire and dragged a huge cardboard crucifix in front of various retail stores
along Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles in order to disrupt last minute Christmas
4 Muoz, Carlos. "The Rise of the Chicano Student Movement." Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano
Movement. London: Verso, 1989. 105. Print.
5 James, David E. "Hollywood Extras." The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor
Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. 62. Print.
6 Noriega, Chon A. "No Introduction." Introduction. Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa,
Jr. By Harry Gamboa, Jr. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1998. 4. Print.

Pazmino

shopping. A small crowd soon began to follow the four as they proceeded to the local
U.S. Marine recruiting station where they then used the cross to block the entrance. This
performance piece subsequently became part of many other Walking Murals that
functioned both as a means of social protest, but also directly parodied the Chicano mural
movement, which was at its height.7 This inaugural moment establishes Ascos work as
functioning against the dominant ideology of the state, but also operates as an internal
critique of Chicano art itself. Thus Ascos uncanny position within the political and
artistic realm of Los Angeles emerges out of a sense of fragmented identity.

Figure 1: Stations of the Cross (1971)

Then one evening in 1972 three of Ascos membersGamboa, Gronk and Herron
signed their name on the entrance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),

7 C. Ondine Chavoya, Social Unwest: An Interview with Harry Gamboa, Jr. Wide Angle: A Quarterly
Journal of Film History, Theory, Criticism, and Practice. Special issue on Cityscapes II: Los Angeles,
Eds. Clark Arnwine and Jesse Lerner. Ohio University School of Film/John Hopkins University Press. v.
20, n. 3, pp. 5478. July 1998.

Pazmino

claiming the public institution as their own private creation and consequently making and
exhibiting the worlds first work of Chicano art in an affluent and white neighborhood.8
The piece would be known as Spray Paint LACMA (1972) and was made to address the
Figure 2: Spray Paint LACMA (1972)

lack of Chicano art on

the gallery walls.
LACMA subsequently
had their work painted
over within a few
hours, but this event
marks Ascos
unconventional and
short-lived entrance

into the bourgeois art community of Los Angeles. David E. James notes in The Most
Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles that
publicly funded organizations such as LACMA often paid touring filmmakers to
present programs of their own work personally, giving them a source of income,
bypassing middleman distribution agencies, and also, since a good part of the audience
were themselves filmmakers, nurturing a sense of community by breaking down the
distinctions between producers and consumers.9 Institutions such as LACMA then
helped usher in a golden age of minor cinemas in 1970s Los Angeles; but in a paradoxical
manner, these same establishments also excluded artists who did not fit into their
8 Noriega, Chon A., Your Art Disgusts Me: Early Asco, 1971-1975, Afterall 19 (Fall/Winter 2008):
119.
9 James, David E. "The Era of Public Funding." The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of
Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. 227. Print.

Pazmino

particular framework and consequently, a group such as Asco had no venue to exhibit
their experimental work. Other Chicano filmmakers did not find a place within the Los
Angeles avant-garde film community either and were excluded until 1983 when Terry
Canon as part of the Los Angeles Filmforum presented the first major retrospective of
Mexican and Chicano avant-garde.10
It is apparent that Asco was excluded from the predominately Anglo art
establishments of Los Angeles for the majority of the 70s, but where did they fit within
the emerging Chicano art community of East Los Angeles? After the events of LACMA,
the group was interviewed by a Chicano community newspaper titled El Chicano and
was asked if they applied the term Chicano Art to their work. Gamboa offers an
interesting reply: I feel we are definitely Chicano in our work because everything
depicts suffering and that is where the Chicano is at. Hes constantly suffering. In
Mexico, Mexicans are constantly suffering. Here in Los Angles we suffer just as much.
That would be my explanationthis is what this whole society is: fantastically
intricate.11 In this early interview, Gamboas response refrains from using the term
Chicano art but nonetheless situates their work as emerging from the struggles of the
Chicano experience. In this manner, Asco crystalizes their status as Chicanos making art,
but does not adhere to the label of Chicano artists which would implicitly connote
various styles and conventions associated with the movement, and subsequently limit
their own creativity.
The group continued to engage in various forms of art such as street performances and
eventually their work approached the conditions of cinema, which itself began by
10 Ibid., 229.
11 Edy. A True Barrio Art. El Chicano 17 December 1972: 9, Box 48, Collection 95, The Gronk Papers
1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.

Pazmino

amalgamating easel painting and vaudeville.12 And it is in this year that Asco eventually
began to make movies. The groups foray into the cinematic realm seems to have always
been part of their trajectory. Gronk notes in an interview conducted in the early phases of
Ascos formation, Id like to do movies rather than just limit myself to drawings and
paintings. I find to expand propaganda wise, I have to get into cinema.13 From the
beginning Asco sought to expand their idiosyncratic views on the modern condition
through the use of cinema, applying the term propaganda to their work in order to
satirize the ways in which First Cinema is used to further reinforce the dominant ideology
of the state. It is clear from Ascos use of unsettling and provoking imagery that the group
functioned in a way that inherently refused notions of categorization and distinctions
and this exclusionary status became the catalysts for Ascos first films, the No Movies.
Asco proudly accepted this outsider status and began to make movies without
cameras or celluloid, movies without an audience or exhibitionthey began to make No
Movies. No Movies are works of conceptual performance art that simultaneously engage
both the cinema and Ascos exclusion from all of its dimensions.14 This concept was
crystalized in 1973 with the creation of Tumor Hats which depicts Valdez, Gronk and
Herron on a stage in an empty theater wearing flamboyant hats made out of garbage. This
first No Movie functioned as a silly enactment that parodied haute couture and the
fashion industry, but as they continued to make other No Movies, the films took on a
more politically and socially charged tone. These films encompassed many cinematic
12 James,DavidE."HollywoodExtras:OneTraditionof"AvantGarde"FilminLosAngeles."October
90(1999):19.JSTOR.Web.2Dec.2014.
13 Edy. A True Barrio Art. El Chicano 17 December 1972: 9, Box 48, Collection 95, The Gronk Papers
1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.
14 James, David E. "Hollywood Extras." The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor
Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. 62. Print.

Pazmino

modes, but at their core, most No Movies were brief scenarios (prepared by either
Gamboa or Gronk) that were performed in public places using the urban Los Angeles
landscape as their setting. Each event was recorded on several 35mm slides and when
projected both summarized and advertised a movie that did not exist. The majority of No
Movies made after 1975 depict members of Asco playing the role of cinema stars and
alluded to various film genres such as melodrama and science fiction, prompting Chon
Noriega to note that these films raised questions about the invisibility of Chicanos in
Hollywood cinema and explored the ways in which Chicano identity is mediated and
constituted through cinematic culture.15
These films were both challenged and stimulated by being so far away from the
epicenters of art production in Los Angeles and in this sense, these No Movies were able
to appropriate the spectacle of Hollywood by critiquing the absence of Chicanos in the
mass media. Surely this notion is best reflected through the example used by Gamboa
when asked about the groups relationship to Hollywood cinema, he states: You could
stand on any rooftop in East L.A. and see the Hollywood Sign, it would be like, simply
like, looking at a distant planet, the effect.16 It is in this context that the No Movies
begin to convey their complex meanings and its as if Asco used their outsider position to
(re)interpret Hollywood films that were adored and loved by mass audiences. This
outsider effect thus becomes the core component of these films as they become
instruments that project the real while rejecting the reel.17 When asked about his
15 Noriega, Chon A. "Epilogue." Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2000. 198. Print.
16 Gamboa, Harry Jr., transcript of oral history interview, 8 May. 2010, Alternative Projections: Oral
History Project, available on-line at: http://alternativeprojections.com/oral-histories/harry-gamboa-jr/
17 Gamboa, Harry Jr. "Gronk: No Movie Maker." Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa, Jr.
Ed. Chon A. Noriega. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1998. 47. Print.

Pazmino

status as a filmmaker and creator of No Movies, Gronk offers the only appropriate reply
I prefer to be known as a No Movie maker. Its like imitation of life versus imitation
of art.18
One of the groups first No Movies was titled First Super (After a Major Riot) (1974) and
displays all four member of Asco in heavy makeup and gowned in grandiloquent thrift
store clothes. They are situated around a dinner table that is decorated with nude dolls,
Figure 3: First Supper (After a Major Riot) (1974)

paintings of corpses
and mirrors on a small
traffic island on
Whittier Boulevard and
on the table is a
celebratory meal of
fresh fruit and wine.
The geographical
location of this No

Movie is particularly important because in 1970 the police had opened fire on a protest at
the exact same position where they are seated. In creating an absurdist scene of
celebration and communal gathering, First Super (After a Major Riot) publicly criticizes
the widespread police brutality in their Chicano community. But even in creating a film
that openly critiques the injustices so prevalent in their neighborhood, Asco was still
figuratively operating on the fringes of East Los Angeles as the name Asco also
accurately described the communitys reaction to them and their work.19
18 Ibid,. 48.
19 Ellis, Kirk. An East Los Angeles- based performance art collective whose works have done much to
alter peoples preconceived perceptions of the Latin community. Los Angeles Times, 5 October 1985: Part

Pazmino

10

These No Movies combined the glamour of cinematic performance, still

photography and murals in order to aesthetisize the struggles of everyday life in East Los
Angeles and also critique the idealized imagery of traditional Chicano art. No Movies
invoke a complex cinematic narrative, even though they were only materialized in a
single frame slide. The creation of No Movies also reflects Ascos remarkable ability to
utilize the scarce resources available to them to create works of art that mirrored their
distinct outsider position.20 Due to the material nature of these films, they lacked the
qualities of real movies, even those of the booming avant-garde film community.21
Hence from the start, Asco knew that these types of films would never find a venue either
within their own East Los Angeles neighborhoods, or in other art-house cinemas or
galleries in the greater Los Angeles area. Consequently No Movies paradoxically reflect
Ascos own perverse desire to be part of an elitist and exclusionary cinema, if only in a
reduced manner. Without a proper venue to project these films, Asco turned to the streets
and projected them on the walls of East Los Angeles. James notes that guerilla nature of
No Movies functioned to extend the concept of cinema and to elaborate its constituent
moments in a way that had recently been common in the avant-garde.22
Ascos subsequent No Movies alluded to European art- house cinema and Soviet
Montage films. La Dolce (1978) directed by Harry Gamboa is direct parody of Fellinis
La Dolce Vita (1960) and consists of a flamboyant reenactment of the scene where
Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg climb into the Trevi fountain. Waiting for Tickets
V, Box 48, Collection 95, The Gronk Papers 1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University
of California, Los Angeles.
20 Interview: Gronk and Gamboa. Chismeaarte I, Fall 1976: 31-33, Box 48, Collection 95, The Gronk
Papers 1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.
21 James, David E. "Hollywood Extras." The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor
Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. 63. Print.
22Ibid.

Pazmino

11

(1978) also directed by Gamboa, displays Pattsi and Gronk strewn down a row of steps,
directly referencing the Odessa Steps sequence in The Battleship Potemkin (1925). Ascos
allusions to highbrow films such as these further reflect the paradoxical nature of these
No Movies functioning both as a critique and homage to these institutionalized
films and reflecting Ascos
collective infatuation with an institution
These No

that systematically excluded them.

Movies also encompassed a ritual that parodied

the

industrys self-definition. For

short period in the 70s, an

annual award was given to the person who had made the best No Movie. In 1974, Pattsi
Figure 4: Waiting for Tickets (1978)

Valdez received the No

Movie Award for A la Mode (1974) and was awarded a No Oscar, a plastered cobra spray
painted gold.23 This parody of the Academy Awards show further displays the groups
obsession with Hollywood but is also a commentary on how even the most avant-garde
films are affected and influenced by this glamorous industry.
So it is clear from various interviews with Asco that these films never found their
appropriate venue in the 70s avant-garde community, but what about within the realm of
Chicano cinema? In his 1975 essay, Francisco X. Camplis notes that a valuable model for
the emerging Chicano cinema is the revolutionary Third cinema from Latin America.
Camplis cites Solanas and Getinos Towards a Third Cinema as an exemplary example
for Chicano filmmakers that places an emphasis on creating a counter cinema that

23 Ibid,. 66.

Pazmino

12

represents the political and social struggles of their marginalized community.24 East Los
Angeles Filmmakers such as Moctesuma Esparza and David Garcia were doing just that
by creating films that would portray the Chicano Civil Rights Movement from the
communitys point of view. Films such as Requiem-29 (1972) and Chicano Moratorium:
The Aftermath (1972) were born out of this movement and subsequently signaled the
beginning of an era of Chicano filmmakers who created films in an attempt to directly
counter the police influenced media coverage of their movement. So although Ascos No
Movies were greatly inspired by the momentum of the rapidly growing Chicano
movement, their Dadaist nature posited them as outsiders, even if they made and
exhibited these films within the Chicano community of East Los Angeles. Furthermore,
reception from members of the community further out casted Asco from the movement. It
is evident in as early as 1972 that the groups nontraditional forms of expression were not
received positively by members from their community. Their art left a bad taste on the
politically correct members of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement including students,
political organizers and artists.25 So while there is no doubt that the expressive and
absurdist quality of their work functioned in its own way as a kind of counter cinema,
the overwhelming consensus within the community suggests that they never were
considered part of the Chicano cinema movement.
It is also important to note that the filmmakers who made the first wave of
Chicano films came from very different backgrounds and experiences; but people like
24 Camplis, Francisco, X. Towards the Development of Raza Cinema in Chicanos and Film:
Representation and Resistance. Ed. Chon A. Noriega. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1992. 284-289. Print.
25 Gamboa,HarryJr."IntheCityofAngels,Chameleons,andPhantoms:Asco,aCaseStudyofChicano
ArtinUrbanTones(or,AscoWasaFourMemberWorld."UrbanExile:CollectedWritingsofHarry
Gamboa,Jr.Ed.ChonA.Noriega.Minneapolis:UofMinnesota,1998.77.Print.

Pazmino

13

Jesus Salvador Trevino, Raul Ruiz and Chicano filmmakers from UCLAs EthnoCommunications program all shared a common goal in their efforts to both accurately
represent Chicano life and overturn years of negative stereotyping of Chicanos at the
hand of the mass media. So even though No Movies are rooted in the very real struggles
of the Chicano community, it would be foolish to umbrella these films into this category
solely because Chicanos made them. Furthermore, although Asco was also functioning in
their own ways to subvert the degenerate images of Mexican American in the media, their
films were widely misunderstood and in one example, actually reinforced the negative
stereotyping of Chicanos.
The No Movie Decoy Gang War Victim (1975) which depicts a wounded Gamboa
sprawled across the asphalt of an East Los Angeles neighborhood, was presented in a
1975 live broadcast of KHJ-TV News in Los Angeles and condemned as a prime example
of the rampant Chicano gang violence in Los Angeles.26 The bizarre nature of this
broadcast seriously posits Asco in a peculiar position within the context the Chicano Civil
Rights Movement. While they functioned to subvert the very negative image of Chicanos
in the mass media, Decoy Gang War Victim actually functioned to further reinforce the
negative stereotypes of their people.
The difficulty of contextualizing Ascos No Movies within a historical framework
of both Chicano cinema and the avant-garde cinema signals the problematic nature of
their work. But the fact remains that these No Movies were in fact molded by the highly
political and volatile environment of East Los Angeles and were a direct product of the
politically charged Chicano Civil Rights movement. It is perhaps best to situate Asco as a
group who drew their inspiration from various avenues in order to create something truly
26 Ibid,. 82.

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14

unique. Shifra Goldman, in an L.A. Weekly article from the early 80s accurately
describes Asco as group who extrapolated successfully from the U.S. avant-garde in
order to make social statements.

27

Today, arguments could be made that the very same establishments that shunned
them in the 70s have institutionalized Asco.28 But the fact remains that the truly
experimental nature of their work, particularly that of their No Movies marked the group
with a very unique legacy and demonstrates how Ascos work was marked by their
rejection of cultural and aesthetic conventions associated with the politically charged
Chicano cinema, as well as inclusion into the mostly White-dominated avant-garde
community of Los Angeles at the time. Thus Ascos films interacted with, but were never
fully integrated into either scene or framework. Perhaps Gamboas own take on Ascos
legacy best describes the difficulty of historicizing the groups work:
The viewer must beware that several zombies do not constitute a living or
relevant art group. The tangible evidence that remains of Asco is supported by
hearsay and conflicting memories of plausible events. The works of Asco were
often created in transitory or easily degradable materials that crumble at the
slightest prodding and fade quickly upon exposure to any glimmer of hope. It is
unlikely that the objects, historical accuracy, or spirit of Asco will ever be
recovered.29
Indeed, these No Movies are ephemeral in nature and although various attempts have
been made to categorize them within a historiographical framework, they are best left
somewhere in the realm of No History.

27Goldman, Shifra. The World According to Gronk, L.A. Weekly, 13-19 Aug. 1982: 30, Box 48,
Collection 95, The Gronk Papers 1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of
California, Los Angeles.
28 Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 19721987 was put together by the curatorial team of
LACMA and opened in September 2011.
29 Gamboa,HarryJr."LightattheEndofTunnelVision."UrbanExile:CollectedWritingsofHarry
Gamboa,Jr.Ed.ChonA.Noriega.Minneapolis:UofMinnesota,1998.99.Print.

Pazmino

15

Bibliography
Articles
Chavoya, Ondine C. Social Unwest: An Interview with Harry Gamboa, Jr. Wide Angle:
A Quarterly Journal of Film History, Theory, Criticism, and Practice. Special
Issue on Cityscapes II: Los Angeles, Eds. Clark Arnwine and Jesse Lerner. Ohio
University School of Film/John Hopkins University Press. v. 20, n. 3, pp. 5478.
July 1998.
James,DavidE."HollywoodExtras:OneTraditionof"AvantGarde"FilminLos
Angeles."October90(1999):19.JSTOR.Web.
Noriega, Chon A.Your Art Disgusts Me: Early Asco, 1971-1975, Afterall 19
(Fall/Winter 2008): 119.
Books
Gamboa, Harry Jr. Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa, Jr. Ed. Chon A.
Noriega. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1998.
James, David E. The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor
Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: U of California, 2005.
Muoz, Carlos. Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement. London: Verso, 1989.

Pazmino

16

Noriega, Chon A. Chicanos and Film: Representation and Resistance. Minneapolis: U of

Minnesota, 1992.
Noriega, Chon A. Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano
Cinema. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2000.
Primary Sources
Carr, Elston. "Gronk Goes to LACMA." L.A. Weekly 18 Mar. 1994: 19.
Edy. A True Barrio Art. El Chicano 17 December 1972: 9.
Ellis, Kirk. An East Los Angeles- based performance art collective whose works have
done much to alter peoples preconceived perceptions of the Latin community.
Los Angeles Times, 5 October 1985: Part V.
Goldman, Shifra. The World According to Gronk, L.A. Weekly, 13-19 Aug. 1982: 30.
Harry Gamboa, Jr., transcript of oral history interview, 8 May. 2010, Alternative
Projections: Oral History Project, available on-line at:
http://alternativeprojections.com/oral-histories/harry-gamboa-jr/
. Interview: Gronk and Gamboa. Chismeaarte I, Fall 1976.
. Cornucpoia Chicana de Los Angeles. La Opinion, 15 July 1984.
Archival Holdings
The Gronk Papers 1969-2007, The Chicano Studies Research Center, University of
California, Los Angeles.