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Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa Jr.

Harry Gamboa
Edited by Chon A. Noriega
Copyright Date: 1998
Edition: NED - New edition
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
Pages: 568
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttsgjw
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  • Book Info
    Urban Exile
    Book Description:

    Harry Gamboa Jr. has pioneered multimedia formats for nearly three decades, setting a precedent for the work of artists such as Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Daniel J. Martinez. Urban Exile gathers Gamboa’s diverse creations in a visually compelling collection that reveals a rich vein of Chicano avant-garde production reaching back to the early 1970s.

    eISBN: 978-0-8166-8866-1
    Subjects: Art & Art History

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. v-viii)
  3. Author’s Acknowledgments
    (pp. ix-xii)
  4. Editor’s Acknowledgments
    (pp. xiii-xiv)
  5. No Introduction
    (pp. 1-22)
    Chon A. Noriega

    Harry Gamboa Jr. has no alibis. He entered school speaking Spanish and left speaking English only. He graduated from Garfield High School with a 1.1 grade point average. At the time, Garfield—later the setting ofStand and Deliver(1988)—had the highest dropout rate in the nation, sending more students to Vietnam than to college. In early March 1968, Gamboa helped organize student “blowouts” protesting racist school policies and inadequate education. More than ten thousand students walked out of six East Los Angeles high schools. The action and subsequent increase in Chicano student activism marked an intensification in the...

  6. ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS
    (pp. 27-128)

    Chismearte: What is a no movie?

    Gronk: I use the three point dot system for preparation of a no movie. First: no film. Second: thinking within an 8½″ × 10″ format. Third: postal distribution. The no movie is a concept that involves the aforementioned system.

    Gamboa: It is perceiving life within a cinemagraphic context.

    Gronk: It is thinking of life before the advent of a view finder. It is projecting the real by rejecting the reel.

    Gamboa: It is a series of life events which can be edited into any number of no movie productions.

    Chismearte: How did the idea...

  7. NO MOVIES
    (pp. 131-180)

    A La Mode,1977. No Movie performance by, left to right,Gronk, Patssi Valdez, Harry Gamboa Jr. Photograph copyright Harry Gamboa Jr....

  8. PERFORMANCE
    (pp. 183-362)

    Ramon: Too much coffee. Not enough sleep.

    Ramona: That’s not why you called me. Why did you call me?

    Ramon: I’ve already told you. I can’t sleep. The caffeine’s driving me crazy.

    Ramona: No. You want me to ask you over. Well, I can’t. My daughter’s ill and besides she doesn’t like you. Isn’t there anyone else you can call?

    Ramon: You know there isn’t anyone. You know that I’m always thinking of you. Why can’t you let me spend the night with you?

    Ramona: Because I don’t want you to.

    Ramon: But why?

    Ramona: Because.

    Ramon: Because why?

    Ramona:...

  9. FICTION
    (pp. 365-506)

    Type A/high-speed ektachrome super-8:

    220 ft. daylight / high-speed ektachrome

    35mm slides: 72

    Plus-X pan film black-and-white prints: 36

    Cool white / fluorescent lamps: 4

    Daylight/fluorescent lamps: 2

    Large / doll: 1

    Ketchup (jar of catsup) mcdonald’s: 1

    Cinemagraphic torture artist / willie herrón: 1 or more

    Setting / garage, theater chair, spray paint, paper bag, and candle: 1

    Date / time: thursday 1-16-75 p.m. / friday 1-17-75 a.m

    “. . . and you wonder why I’m upset with you. It’s because you don’t know what you’re doing and don’t even care. You’re too abstract. Come down to earth, hombre...

  10. POETRY
    (pp. 509-546)

    Someone thought it clever to

    Peddle tacos from a million trucks

    No consistency to the product

    That warms your hand

    Every one hardly resembles

    The other

    Filled with brains of other species

    Altruism

    A profitable method to dispose of evidence

    It’s a problem of taste

    You salivate, it satisfies

    Drive across the city

    Another truck Onions/cilantro/salsa

    Unguarded flesh

    The worm prefers a vibrant host

    So many of the

    Missing

    Into the unknown of your bite

    Not serious about the

    Clitoris and foreskin special

    Are they?

    Tacos were a sin on the school yard

    When I ate mayonnaise on day-old white-bread...

  11. Publication Information
    (pp. 547-548)
  12. Back Matter
    (pp. 549-549)