Gronk

In 1996, Gronk won a Los Angeles Dramalogue Award for Set design of the Theatrical play of "La Chunga". He has collaborated with composer Joseph Julian Gonzalez on “Tormenta Cantada,” a visual/musical piece performed in 1995, and with Kronos Quartet at University of California, Los Angeles. In 2003, Gronk was in residency at University of New Mexico, as part of the Cultural Practice/Virtual Styles project. In 2011, he was Artist-in-Residence at Fullerton College. That same year, his work was exhibited in the retrospective ASCO: Elite of the Obscure at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the same venue that where Asco famously left its graffiti "tag" decades earlier in protest against the official Chicano art of "Los Four." He also curated "Altares", a small exhibition at UCLA's Hammer Museum.

Gronk has been involved with theater since his Asco days, and in 1995 he was commissioned to design sets for the Los Angeles Opera and Santa Fe Opera. His scenic work has also been featured onstage with Latino Theater Company and East West Players.

After 1984, Gronk began a series of paintings that included one of his recurring figures, La Tormenta who functions like a guide through his art. This body of work was considered more "acceptable" to the mainstream world of art.

In 1977, Gronk was one of the founders of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Gronk's involvement with LACE often involved his creation and execution of murals, many of which were considered controversial. Indeed, other artists criticized ASCO and Gronk for being too nontraditional. Gronk often clashed with founder of East LA's Self Help Graphics, Sister Karen Boccalero, who he called "the smoking nun."

Gronk was a founding member of Asco, a multi-media arts collective based in Los Angeles which was active in the 1970s and 1980s. Influenced by European film, existentialism, and literature—especially the work of Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Samuel Beckett. Gronk as a member of ASCO made "movies without film" and farcical "happenings" or street performances.

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.