Harry Gamboa Jr. (born 1951) is a

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal an ...

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

, and

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. He was a founding member of the influential Chicano

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

collective ASCO.

Biography

The first of five children born to a working-class

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexic ...

couple, Gamboa grew up in

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles ( es, Este de Los Ángeles), or East L.A., is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 118,786, a drop of 6.1% from 2010, when it was 126,496. For statistical purpo ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, "an urban area tormented by poverty, violence, and racial conflict". Despite the "inadequacy of the East L.A. public schools", Gamboa was encouraged to value education and did fairly well in school, and he was active in community organizations and politics as a teenager. As a high-school student (graduated 1969), Gamboa was active in student government and an organizer of various student-initiated reforms, most significantly the 1968 "

East L.A. Blowouts The East Los Angeles Walkouts or Chicano Blowouts were a series of 1968 protests by Chicano students against unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. The first walkout occurred on March 5, 1968. The students who organ ...

"—a series of protests against the inferior conditions of public schools in poor, non-white areas. Already a developing artist, it was at Garfield High that Gamboa met

Gronk ''grOnk'', or GRoNK, was a Canadian literary magazine begun in 1967 by bpNichol and others (for example, David Aylward, David W. Harris (later David UU; co-editor for the first series (8 issues, 1967), and editor of most of the seventh series (5 ...

(Glugio Nicandro),

Patssi Valdez Patssi Valdez (born 1951) is an American Chicana artist. She is a founding member of the art collective, Asco. Valdez's work represents some of the finest Chicana avant-garde expressionism which includes but not limited to painting, sculpture a ...

(then known as Patsy), and

Willie Herrón Willie Herrón III (born 1951) is an American Chicano muralist, performance artist and commercial artist. Biography Born in Los Angeles, Willie Herrón III's artistic career spans over forty years of performance and conceptual art, including music ...

, three of his closest associates in his later career. After the "Blowouts" of his senior year, Gamboa dropped out of the political scene to dedicate himself to his education. Thanks to these efforts and with the help of the Equal Opportunities Program (EOP) for disadvantaged minority students, Gamboa was able to attend

California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degrees, 122 master's degrees, ...

. From this point, his career as an artist—both solo and with Gronk, Valdez, and Herrón in the art collective ASCO (Spanish for nausea) —"took off". Among other "urban interventions," Asco sprayed their names on the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 196 ...

. In 1993 Gamboa married his second wife, Chicana muralist

Barbara Carrasco Barbara Carrasco (born 1955) is a Chicana artist and activist who lives and works in Los Angeles. She is considered to be a "radical feminist" whose work critiques dominant cultural stereotypes involving socioeconomics, race, gender and sexuali ...

, after seven years of romantic and professional involvement. His work has been exhibited by museums nationally/internationally. He has taught, lectured, and/or delivered artist talks and/or panel discussions at various universities and art institutions

Publications

* ''Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa Jr.'' (1998) (ISBN 978-0816630523) * ''Rider'' (2009) (ISBN 978-1448670307) * ''Xoloitzcuintli Doppelganger and other stories'' (2018) (ISBN 978-1724629906) * ''Striking Distance'' (2020) (ISBN 979-8669765798)

References

American artists of Mexican descent American video artists 1951 births Living people American essayists {{Authority control