Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on four Asco performances. Two of these performances, Stations of the Cross and First Supper, parody Catholic liturgy and the other two, Walking Mural and Instant Mural, parody Mexican muralism. These performances show us a group struggling to speak against stereotypes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on four performances by Chicano/a art collective Asco along Whittier Boulevard in Los Angeles during the '70s. Two of these performances, Stations of the Cross (1971) and First Supper (After a Major Riot) (1974), parody Catholic liturgy and the other two, Walking Mural (1972) and Instant Mural (1974), parody Mexican muralism. Together, these four performances show us a group struggling to speak against stereotypes around artistic production that would seek to domesticate and folklorize them. Although preexisting scholarship on Asco explains these gestures as first and foremost "protest art" against the Vietnam War, situating these performances against the backdrop of Whittier Boulevard allows us to appreciate the radicality of Asco. A major commercial artery through the solidly Chicano/a East LA, Whittier Boulevard is overlaid over parts of El Camino Real, the "royal road" that linked the 21 missions of Alta California. By engaging with Catholic and muralist imagery, Asco draws parallels between their experience as racial minorities in the US and the history of Latin American colonialism, which helps us to appreciate the composite nature of Chicano/a identity and how artists might make site-specific work when sites themselves have histories.