Asco was a Chicano arts collective based in East Los Angeles in the seventies and eighties. The four original members--Harry Gamboa Jr, Patsi Valdes, Willie Herron and Gronk (a.k.a. Glugio Gronk Nicandro) began their work as artists and activists while still attending Garfield High School. They initially collaborated on the periodical Regeneracion, beginning in 1971, and worked independently and collaboratively on photographs, murals, performances, super 8 films, video, public art and conceptual art projects, often in collaboration with Humberto Sandoval, Cyclona (Robert Legorreta) and others. Their guerrilla art interventions in public space, such as Spray Paint LACMA (1972), Walking Mural (1972), Decoy Gang War Victim (1974), Instant Mural (1974), and others reflected the members' investments in the Chicano civil rights movement as well as the concurrent efforts within the art world to move beyond the more traditional media and the creation of objects that might be bought and sold as commodities. The members of Asco also worked individually and in pairs on projects including the mural paintings The Wall that Cracked Open (1972) and Moratorium: The Black and White Mural (Gronk and Herron, 1973). In the early 1980s the group's membership grew to include Marisela Norte, Diane Gamboa, Daniel J. Martinez, Sean Carrillo, Jerry Dreva, Juan Garza, and others. The group dissolved around 1987. All four original members remain active participants in the Los Angeles art scene. In the fall of 2011 the collective will be the subject of an exhibition entitled Asco: The Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972-1987, held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and subsequently traveling to the Williams College Museum of Art.

[Source: Jesse Lerner]