“AFTER THE GOLDRUSH: Reflections and Postcripts on the National Chicano Moratorium of August 29, 1970" was an exhibition at The Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2011) that utilized the events of that day, the cultural and political climate from which they manifested, and the Chicano Movement as a whole to investigate larger notions of cultural identity as they related to social commentary and political protest during that era. The exhibition also considered how these same ideas commingle and function in today’s society, within newfound yet altogether similar issues.

The installation entitled My Pops (Sacrifice) included my father’s original archive from his involvement in the Chicano Movement as chairman for the Chicano Caucus and La Raza Movement in San Antonio Texas. The archive was juxtaposed with a text work reading "progress is a new disadvantage” taken from his notes on poverty and labor, and was made from his cremated ashes. The last component in this installation was a video from a cold war spy epic B movie entitled Red Boy 13. This slowed down video loop shows a villain in military like garb (played by my father) violently holding one of the film’s protagonist by the neck with a machete. Against the backdrop of this violent scene a melodic tune plays that my father also composed for the title treatment of Red Boy 13.

During the slowed down sequence, the song lyrics echo “when danger is near and far I know you’ll be with me… I’m ready for love and you will be soon”. A disrupting humorous pathos emerges between image and song as the video plays. This space of cognitive disconnection was my interest in how the symbolic image of the violent Chicano savage was portrayed by the main stream media against the solemnity of political rights and self-determination being advocated for during the Chicano civil rights movement, which were shown in the archival documents. The text piece became a reflective moment on the short-comings of self-determination in a nationalist movement while viewing the body as literally “progress” and asking the viewer to see one’s life within the lens of phantasmatic-historical time.

More Info:
Date: Sept 16th, 2011, Los Angeles, CA
Medium: Installation | Drawing | Archive | Video | Music | Performative
Archive documents from Tito Villalobos Moreno, text piece made from the ashes of Tito Villaobos Moreno, and video, dimension variable