When the Whitney Museum of American Art opens its new home in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District next month, among the works featured in its first exhibition will be pieces by California State University, Northridge Chicana/o studies professor Harry Gamboa Jr.

The exhibition, “America is Hard to See,” will inlcude an unprecedented selection of works from the museum’s renowned permanent collection, including pieces by Asco (Spanish for “nausea”), the pioneering Chicano art group co-founded by Gamboa, Gronk, Willie F. Herrón III and Patssi Valdez.

“I’ll be attending the opening reception at the Whitney Museum of American Art where all Americans and the world will find it easier to see Chicano art,” Gamboa said.

“America Is Hard to See,” which opens May 1 and runs through Sept. 27, examines the themes, ideas, beliefs, visions and passions that have preoccupied and galvanized American artists over the past 115 years. Reflecting the way artists think and work, all mediums are presented together without hierarchy. Numerous pieces that have rarely, if ever, been shown before will appear alongside familiar icons, in a conscious effort to challenge assumptions about the American art canon.

When the Asco first hit the streets of Los Angeles 40 years ago, the community did not know what to make of its performance pieces, which tackled the day’s issues, including racism, head on.

The initial reaction to Asco’s work was resistant and political. Over the years, art collectors, museum curators and academics have hailed Asco and its members for presenting the realities of a community that was long ignored and provocatively translating the universality of its experience. The Smithsonian American Art Museum created a special exhibition in 2013 that includes their work, “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art.” The exhibition is currently on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City.

For the past four decades, Gamboa has documented and interpreted the contemporary urban Chicano experience through his art, whether in photographs, videos or performance pieces.

Gamboa’s work has been exhibited in museums around the world, including a show currently on display at the Princeton University Art Museum, “The City Lost and Found: Capturing New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, 1960-1980.”

Despite the international acclaim for his work, Gamboa continues to teach four classes in CSUN’s Department of Chicana/o Studies and is a faculty member in the photography and media department at California Institute of the Arts.

For more about Gamboa and his art, visit his website http://www.harrygamboa.com.

College of Humanities, Department of Chicana/o Studies, Featured