"What does the avant-garde look and sound like when it blooms outside the hothouse of the bourgeoisie?" When Asco, the self-named Chicano art collective, first collapsed the space between graffiti and conceptual art, their streetwise institutional critique started delivering an abundance of unforgettable answers.

I recently visited the Mexican Cultural Institute in downtown Los Angeles to see the 40th anniversary commemorative exhibition on the Chicano Moratorium, an anti-war movement that organized protests in East Los Angeles from 1969-71. The protests had been marred by rioting and historically marked by the violent death of Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar, who was fatally struck in the head by a tear gas projectile that had been fired by a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff. In the exhibit, I found myself drawn to an untitled photograph by Victor Aleman. I was riveted by the personal significance of the grainy black and white image depicting several police officers and protesters on a familiar street corner in East L.A.