A few lines of text cannot justly portray the ongoing legacy of Harry Gamboa Jr. (b. 1951), the multi-disciplinary artist whose work often transcends the reality he perceives into a surreal realm that serves as a lucid gateway to alternative realities, challenging the dominant domains of art and cultural institutions, political agencies, and media outlets. Born and raised in East LA, Gamboa manifests his keen takes on complexities of Chicano politics through the bold lens of his original and idiosyncratic storytelling.

His creative styles and techniques are eccentric and innovative, often employed in the radical and metaphorical performative pieces featured in his photography and video works. Through the mixture of these media, he not only redefines the stereotyped Chicano identities that were constructed by external factors of society, but also continuously challenges and re-evaluates the establishment of the conceptual or avant-garde art practice, which, since the beginning of his own practice, has belligerently excluded artists of color like himself.

His short videos from the 1980s, programmed in this series, consist of his collaborative works with the members of Asco, the Los Angeles-based performance group (Harry Gamboa Jr., Willie Herrón, Glugio “Gronk” Nicandro, Patssi Valdez) co-founded by Gamboa. Captivating, dynamic, daring, and humorous, these videos are a series of mesmerizing creative forces, generated by the invigorating investigations of artists who stay inquisitive and consistently search for new artistic language and perspective.