Educational Media Reviews Online

This is the second collection of video art by the Latino writer and multimedia artist to be released by UCLA as part of its Chicano Cinema and Media Art Series. The first compilation, Harry Gamboa Jr.: Early Video Art, featured work from the 1980s that Gamboa made using the community access facilities of a California cable television company. Gamboa purchased his own video equipment in the 1990s, and this collection of 7 of the pieces he made during that decade (with running times from 12 to 37 minutes) features a more daring visual style than the earlier works, mixing color and black and white, manipulating the look of the image, and using techniques such as stop-motion and multiple frames.

The works also feature a greater collaboration with the performers. Although the DVD package says the videos were written as well as directed by Gamboa, most of the works have their scripts credited to the performers.

El Mundo L.A. and Fire Ants for Nothing are monologues about Latino men trying to cope with life in Los Angeles. Mañanamania features a Latina woman talking about her struggles in life while coping with men who always say they’ll do things mañana. L.A. Familia and Huevitos feature Humberto Sandoval and Barbara Carrasco, frequent performers in Gamboa videos, in dramas about dysfunctional relationships, with Diego Gamboa playing their son in L.A. Familia. Like some of the works from the 1980s, these videos feature melodrama pushed to the point of absurdity.

The other two videos take a different approach. Loner With a Gun is a mini-documentary on Luis Becerra, an artist who draws guns that he posts on fences, signposts, buildings, and walls, hoping that people will respond to this symbol of the widespread violence of modern life. Rite of Overpass has a script by Gamboa that shows people on a Los Angles overpass, their thoughts expressed in voiceovers. The provocative comments show Gamboa has a literary as well as artistic talent. (His writings are collected in the 1998 book Urban Exile.)

This DVD has the same navigation problem as the other Gamboa volume. The videos cannot be viewed consecutively. The menu comes up at the end of each video, with the first title highlighted, necessitating the use of the remote to select the next title to be viewed. And, as with the first collection, there is no extra information or footage on the DVD.

Libraries with extensive collections in video art or Latino artists will want to get both of the Gamboa DVDs. For others, 1990s Video Art is the better choice.