Saturday, April 14 at 7:00pm

Goodrich Hall, Main Hall

The Williams College Gospel Choir will be having an AMAZING concert this Saturday, April 14 at 7 pm in Goodrich. It will be a wonderful show with some guest performances from our choir director’s family (producing an album right now!) and Williams Christian Fellowship’s Worship Team.

Refreshments will be available!

On Saturday March 3, 2012 there will be a Symposium on Asco: Elite of the Obscure, from 1:00 – 5:30 pm in Brooks Rogers. The symposium will include conversations with artists Sean Carrillo, Harry Gamboa, Jr., Willie F. Herrón III, Patssi Valdez and scholars Colin Gunckel, Amelia Jones, Amalia Mesa-Bains, and Mario Ontiveros. Moderated by co-curators C. Ondine Chavoya and Rita Gonzalez. Please click on the invitation below for an enlarged version. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to wcmareservations@gmail.com or call 413.597.4545.

On Friday March 2, 2012 there will be an opening celebration for the exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art. The celebration will begin with a curatorial walk-through of the exhibition at 4:30 pm with C. Ondine Chavoya, Associate Professor of Art and Latina/o Studies, and Rita Gonzalez, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There will then be a reception with the Artists from 5:30 to 7:00 pm.

Asco's "Slasher #9," from 1975.

Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987 is the first retrospective to present the wide-ranging work of the Chicano performance and conceptual art group Asco. Asco (1972–1987) began as a tight-knit core group of artists from East Los Angeles composed of Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón, and Patssi Valdez.

Taking their name from the forceful word for disgust and nausea in Spanish, Asco set about through performance, public art, and multimedia to respond to turbulent socio-political periods in Los Angeles and within the larger international context. The art collective remained active until the mid-1980s, contracting and expanding to include artists and performers such as Diane Gamboa, Sean Carrillo, Daniel J. Martinez, and Teddy Sandoval, among others.

The Asco exhibit will be open beginning this Saturday, February 4 through July 29, 2012. Please see the Williams College Museum of Art website here for further details. 

C. Ondine Chavoya, Associate Professor of Art and Latina/o Studies, and and Rita Gonzalez, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. photos by Suzanne Silitch

Upcoming events include:

On Friday March 2, 2012 there will be an opening celebration for the exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art. The celebration will begin with a curatorial walk-through of the exhibition at 4:30 pm with C. Ondine Chavoya, Associate Professor of Art and Latina/o Studies, and and Rita Gonzalez, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There will then be a reception with the Artists from 5:30 to 7:00 pm.

On Saturday March 3, 2012 there will be a Symposium on Asco: Elite of the Obscure, from 1:00  - 5:30 pm. The symposium will include conversations with artists Sean Carrillo, Harry Gamboa, Jr., Willie F. Herrón III, Patssi Valdez and scholars Colin Gunckel, Amelia Jones, Amalia Mesa-Bains, and Mario Ontiveros. Moderated by co-curators C. Ondine Chavoya and Rita Gonzalez.

A Lecture by Loretta Ross National Coordinator of SisterSong

In 2004, Loretta was National Co-Director of the April 25, 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history with more than one million participants. She is an expert on human rights, women’s issues, diversity issues, hate groups and right-wing organizations. The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective is a network of (eighty) local, regional and national grassroots agencies representing five primary ethnic populations/indigenous nations in the United States working towards access to health services, information and resources that are culturally and linguistically appropriate.

Goodrich Hall, Great Hall

Latin@ Heritage Month 2011: “Roots of Latinidad: Latina/o Origins at Williams College” Presents: Lecture by Carlos Ojeda Jr.

He’s been called one of the most dynamic speakers under thirty in America today and the remarkable journey of his life began in the streets of Newark, New Jersey and later to Reading, Pennsylvania where his immigrant parents saw opportunities for themselves and for their first generation Puerto Rican children. Growing up proved to be a difficult task, particularly school. Not understanding his social, economical and cultural background, many of his high school teachers told him he would never amount to anything. One teacher once called him, “the greatest piece of garbage he had ever seen.” Yet his drive, passion and dreams led him to overcome those obstacles and pursue a career of life learning and educational success, being the first person in his family to graduate from college with honors. His experiences have led him to always remind Latino youth to, “never, ever, ever let anyone tell you who you are or what you will become. That’s your destiny to fulfill, no one else’s.”

 Sponsored by: VISTA Organization, SoCA, Latino/a Studies, CUL and MinCo