By Keith Walsh
“Stock Footage And Outakes: A Selection Of Works By Gronk” at Cerritos College is curated by Professor James MacDevitt as part of the SUR:Biennial Series, now in its seventh year. MacDevitt says it was a daunting task to choose from the thousands of artworks available from Gronk’s body of work for the show. “Stock Footage And Outakes: A Selection Of Works By Gronk” runs through October 6 with a special presentation of Tormenta, 1985, a play by Froylan Cabuto, based loosely on Gronk’s life, featuring music, dance and paintings, on September 30.
Popular Culture Beat: Considering all the hype around Chicano Art and the new Cheech Marin Museum, how does Southern California measure up to the rest of the art world?
James MacDevitt: I think we’re the center of the art world, aren’t we? No, there is no center of the art world. But we’re lucky that we have such a cosmopolitan community here in Southern California, and that’s represented in the wonderful diversity of the artists who are here.
Popular Culture Beat: What can the average person get from art and painting?
I don’t know, take one of my classes! I mean, artists are like anyone else. They’re living in the world, so they’re responding to the world, sometimes that means reacting to what’s around them, and sometimes that means, as Gronk was doing in the 1960s, that means pushing back against the world, making statements.
Popular Culture Beat: And it’s difficult to make (political) statements explicitly, so they put them in art.
James MacDevitt: I wouldn’t go that far – I’m not that exclusive. I think that some people respond with film, some people respond with writing, and some people respond with visual art – and some people do all three and everything else.
Popular Culture Beat: Any thoughts on the Cheech Marin Museum?
James MacDevitt: The Cheech Marin Museum is wonderful. At the moment its collection is rather specific, I mean it’s specific to the interest of one individual. He really focuses very heavily on painting, so that’s what’s represented in the collection. Chicano Art has been muralism, it’s been printmaking, it’s been performance art, it’s been all these things…and that’s why I think the SUR:Biennial that we’re doing is so important — it revisits these ideas every two years to get a taste of what is happening now, in the moment.
SUR:Biennial 2023
Gronk Collection at Cerritos College
Gronk At Popular Culture Beat
Gronk On Instagram
Cerritos College Art And Design Dot Edu
Cheech Marin Center For Chicano Art And Culture
Gronk On Artnet Dot Com
Gronk At UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
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