Gronk (artist)

Gronk
Gronk in the Spring of 2006
Born	Glugio Gronk Nicandro 1954 Los Angeles, CA
Nationality	American
Movement	Chicano Art

Gronk (born 1954 in East Los Angeles, California, USA) is the pseudonym of Chicano painter, printmaker, and performance artist Glugio Nicandro. His work is collected by museums around the country including the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Gronk was born in Los Angeles to Mexican-American parents and was raised mainly by his mother. He remembers that he was always making things and he felt that was what he was best at. He also remembers being influenced by popular culture on television. Another artistic influence on Gronk was his uncle who was always drawing and Gronk wanted to be able to draw like him.

Another influence on Gronk was foreign film which he generally watched in Santa Monica. He was fascinated with the larger world and concepts that many of these films from Russia, France and elsewhere brought to his imagination. At age fourteen, Gronk started writing his own plays.

One of his earliest performance plays was Cockroaches Have No Friends, which led to him meeting Patssi Valdez, Harry Gamboa, Jr, Willie Herron and Sylvia Delgado, with the first three of them becoming members of Asco later on. Gronk also worked with Mundo Meza and Cyclona on various performance pieces, especially those that pertained to gender issues.

Gronk took his education beyond what he learned in school. He was a big reader from a young age and liked to learn everything he could about a subject he was interested in. He did much of his research at the library, gaining a vast knowledge of European modern art and film. Gronk recalls that in high school that he did not fit into "the confines of compulsory heterosexuality." He states that he sat at the 'queer table' at lunch but because he was an excellent artist, students at the school didn't consider him to be gay. Bored with High School and stimulated into political action by the anti-Vietnam War and the Chicano Blowouts at East Los Angeles schools, Gronk and friends barely attended their final years in school, and may not have graduated. He took some classes at East L.A. College.