Harry Gamboa Jr.

Harry Gamboa Jr. (b. 1951, Los Angeles)

Faculty, Photo/Media Program at California Institute of the Arts.

Founder and director of Troupe Non Grata (2022-present), ephemeral actions/performed portraiture.

Founder and director of Virtual Vérité (2005-2017), the international performance troupe.

Co-founder of Asco (1972-1985), the Los Angeles-based performance group.

"Harry Gamboa Jr., Creative Polymath" -- J. Paul Getty Trust (2024)

His work has been exhibited nationally/internationally :

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (2023); AltaMed Art Collection (2022); J. Paul Getty Museum (2021); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2020); Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC (2019); Autry Museum of the American West (2018); Marlborough Contemporary, New York (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016, 2015 and 1995 Biennial); De Appel, Amsterdam (2014); Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Linz, Austria (2013); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England (2013); Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. (2013); Le Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille, France (2013, 2017); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (UNAM), Mexico City (2013); Tate Liverpool, Liverpook, England (2013); Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (2011, 1981); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2011, 2010); Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne, Switzerland (2009); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2011, 2008, 2001); Fowler Museum, UC Los Angeles (2011); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2006); Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark (1996); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1994); Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (1994); LAX/CSU Los Angeles (1994); Festival de Cannes, "Mur Murs", Agnès Varda (1981); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1979); Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City (1978); Museo Alvar y Carmen T. Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (1978); Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ (1977).

His work has been featured: Los Angeles Times ("Chicano art: An emerging generation", Pulitzer Prize, 1984), The New York Times, Apollo, Spike Art Magazine, Actuel, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Frieze, Aperture, USA Today, Variety, Le Monde, Artforum, Art in America, Flash Art, DW, Terremoto, Pfeil Magazine, El Universal, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Art Monthly and El País.

He has received numerous awards: 
Stieglitz Award, Los Angeles. Center of Photography (2024); Hilda Solis, Los Angeles County Supervisor, First District, County of Los Angeles Commendation (2017); Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa , Latino Heritage Awards: Spirit of Los Angeles (2010); Rockefeller Foundation (2004); Durfee Foundation Artist Award (2001); Flintridge Foundation Visual Artist Award (2000); Gluck Foundation (1998–1999), J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts (1990), California Arts Council (1996), Art Matters, Inc. (1996), and National Endowment for the Arts (1987 and 1980).

A permanent collection of his media works/papers has been established and archived at Stanford University.

AltaMed Art Collection commissioned Harry Gamboa Jr. to create, “Neo-Nopales di Roma”, an ephemeral action/performance that explores urban spatial/architectural concerns, Italian cinematic references, and Chicano/Mexican sensibilities that resulted in a limited edition of ten photographs, Rome, Italy (2022); Lecture, Erased: Limits and Borders, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. (2018); Delivered keynote, Summer School #2 MAKING PUBLIC DOMAIN, Middelheim Museum, Antwerpen, Belgium, organized by by Nico Dockx (Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten) and Pascal Gielen/ARIA (2017); Harry Gamboa Jr. in conversation with Hugo Hopping, “From ‘No Movie’ to ‘Fake Buzzers’ and The Sixth Expanse”, SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark (2018); Artist Talk, “Asco”, Nottingham Contemporary”, Nottingham, England (2013); Delivered keynote, “La Vida/La Muerte de Arte Moderno”, Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda“ + MUAC at UNAM, Mexico City (2013); Lecture, “Walking Murals: Asco’s Performative Surfaces in the Seventies.”, Harvard Symposium in American Art, Harvard University (2004).

He is featured in two films:

ASCO Without Permission (2025)

Director: Travis Gutiérrez Senger

Executive producers: Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna

Mur Murs (1981)

Director: Agnès Varda 

The film was screened at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival

He is the author of several books including:

Gamboa, Harry Jr.; X's Party; c2024. ISBN 979-8333334251 (paperback)

Gamboa, Harry Jr.; Lennox: A Colorful Place to Land ;  East of Borneo Books, c2018. ISBN: 978-0-9982457-0-6 (paperback)

Gamboa, Harry Jr.; The Sixth Expanse ; c2018. ISBN: 152324495X (paperback)

Gamboa, Harry Jr.; Aztlángst 2 ; c2015. ISBN 1477615822 (paperback)

Gamboa, Harry Jr.; Fallen ; c2010. ISBN 1-4505-6964-1 (paperback)

Gamboa, Harry Jr.; edited by Chon A. Noriega. Urban Exile: Collected Writings of Harry Gamboa Jr. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, c1998. ISBN 0-8166-3051-8 (hardback), ISBN 0-8166-3052-6 (paperback)