While many flock to SXSW for the narrative features, the festival also has a wide selection of incredible shorts, music videos, and documentaries. One doc that premiered this year was ASCO: Without Permission, directed by Travis Gutiérrez Senger and produced by legendary Mexican actors, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna. The film tells the true story of Chicano art collective, Asco from Los Angeles. Last night the premiere dazzled audiences and left everyone inspired to make their own guerilla art.
Asco is not a name that the majority of people are familiar with, and filmmaker, Travis Gutiérrez Senger sought out to change that. Asco was an art collective from East Los Angeles who were active from 1972-1987. The group expanded over the years but originally consisted of Harry Gamboa Jr, Glugio "Gronk" Nicandro, Willie F. Herrón III, and Patssi Valdez, who all went on to be extremely successful visual artists. Before their years of permanent collections, teaching at universities, and traveling the world, the four of them worked under the name "Asco," making political guerilla art in East LA.
Living in Los Angeles during a particularly tumultuous time, their art protested a variety of subjects from Latino racism to the Vietnam War. Throughout their career, they refused to be bound by a single medium, working in live performance art, video, grafitti, and just about any possible form of expression. For the entirety of the group's existence they practiced art in obscurity, it wasn't until years later when they finally got their flowers after The Los Angeles County Museum of Art premiered a career retrospective on them in 2011.
ASCO: Without Permission is not only interesting but extremely timely. It's no secret that the United States has a history of being unkind to Chicano people, millions who came to the United States in search of a better life have been greeted with hostility from people who don't think they belong. This documentary sets out to prove that Mexican people are intelligent, creative, and worthy of your respect, Chicanos are not a monolith. ASCO: Without Permission could not have possibly come out at a more crucial time. We are living in a point in history where Mexican-Americans are under attack simply for existing, and it's important to note that these people are not just criminals scaling fences and "stealing jobs," plenty are artists, creative professionals, people who make the world a more interesting place to live in, enriching our nation's culture and history.
ASCO: Without Permission tells a story that is not only educational but also inspiring. The film centers around a group of rowdy Chicano teenagers who protested LACMA for not housing any Chicano art and years later had their own exhibit in that very museum. The film also breaks the mold of what a documentary is supposed to be, it is not 100% interviews, archival footage and re-enactments, it also features the art of contemporary Chicano artists inspired by the work of Asco. Without Permission not only recounts the past, but showcases the present and future of Chicano art at a time where it is much too often overlooked. The film features the art of San-Cha, Fabi Reyna, Maria Maea, and others.
Today, the work of Asco is fondly remembered by prominent Latino artists like Zoe Saldaña and Michael Peña, who also appear in the documentary. Hopefully this documentary succeeds at introducing a new generation to the work of Asco and empowers young Chicanos to make their own art and be proud of who they are.
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