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WE ARE AN ACT OF PROVOCATION WE ARE A POINT OF CONTENTION WE ARE VISUAL ABRASION WE ARE ICONIC FRICTION WE ARE VISUAL PROJECTIONISTS FOR THE CHICANOS WE ARE THE PRIMORIAL ENGRAMS OF CHICANISMO WE ARE ARTISTS....C/S CON SAFO (C/S) ARTISTS: A Contingency Factor Invariably we are asked: Are you Chicano artists? The question is but the proof of the melting pot fallacy. Thus, how can we be otherwise but Chicanos. Physically, psychologically and philosophically we are viewed as outsiders and programmed to consider ourselves as such. The outcome has been disassociation through introspection and forced personal evaluation. The C/S (Con Safo) approach is based on the concept of establishing an identity through visual means. The hope is that visual congruity will in turn give us psychic harmony - a statement of our evolving condition and position as Chicanos. Artists are bound to the obligation of interpreting their environment and reacting to it. Chicano artists are duty bound to act as spokesman and give visual reality to the Chicano vision. We are iconoclasts, not by choice but by circumstances out to destroy stereotypes and demolish visual cliches. We hope, in the process, to encounter new pure forms that will act as catalysts for a visual nascence and awaken the dormant Chicano potential. Because we are Chicanos we are not anti-anglo or anti-mexicano. We are very cognizant of how they have failed us. We are pro-human and because of it we are CHICANOS. For this reason we feel the images produced by Chicano artists, to have any validity, must offer more than physical reality. The Chicano artist must be on guard against the proclivity to search for easy iconographic solutions. Chicano Art must continue to engage itself with the profound experiences of its age- this is the CHICANO AGE - and man's commitment to them. As Chicano artists we must edit our contemporary visual and psychological reactions to Chicanismo, and remember that how we handle visual space in our paintings will reflect our concept of environmental freedom. There is a resistance, from the Chicanos, against assimilation into a "pure" Mexican society and Anglo-American society. Chicanismo is the process of synthesis of these cultures in varying dosages as suits personal and group tastes. A process of cultural secession (social internalization process) must be initiated in order to allow us to begin to view ourselves with our own eyes and arrive at our own definition about our state of existence and express the nature of our concern for this state. Cultural genocide (aggression) has been inflicted upon the Chicano, however there is now a nascent awareness that has spawned a flurry of cultural activity in an attempt to resuscitate and regenerate a wounded culture.