Puro Chingón Collective

Puro Chingón Collective is a Latinx Artist collective based out of Austin, Texas created with the intention of highlighting and providing exhibition space for a range of Latinx arts and artists in Texas. Their mission as a collective addresses the lack of representation for Latinx artists in the region and challenges what has been traditionally considered Latino art. Along with functioning as an organizing entity for Latino-centered art events, the collective creates public art installations throughout Texas and publishes the independent publication or zine ChingoZine.
== History == 
The collective was formed in 2012 by members Claudia Zapata, Claudia Aparicio-Gamundi and James Huizar while they worked at the Latino arts museum Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas. They formed the collective after creating the first edition of the DIY publication ChingoZine, a zine featuring a collection of artwork by Latinx artists. In the following years they created a range of events in the name of building community around Latino arts through exhibitions, performances, murals and festivals throughout Texas. They also created their own designer toy line ‘Chingolandia.’ 
== ChingoZine ==
The first issue of ChingoZine was created in 2012 and featured the work of six artists including work by the founders of Puro Chingón Collective. The group decided, “The zine’s objective would be to highlight work of Latino artists, but most important, it would be an informal arts space for ephemeral creations such as doodles, working sketches, and drawings. In this way the publication would serve as an alternative exhibition forum for Latino art,” Claudia Zapata says in their published essay on the beginnings of ChingoZine in the academic journal Aztlán. Many of the zine releases were also events, free and open to the public, that also functioned as community gatherings for Latinos and people of color in the arts. 
There are currently 13 published issues of ChingoZine featuring doodles, ideas, prints, images of works by Latinx artists living internationally and across the U.S. There are also special editions including one on San Antonio and an issue featuring artwork about Selena. The ChingoZine typeface graphic, a hand-drawn bubble letter style with a greyscale gradient serves as their recognizable logo, is a reference to the Lowrider (magazine). 
 
The official archive of ChingoZine is housed at the Benson Latin American Collection in Austin, Texas. The zine is also collected by various academic institutions such as the Barnard Zine Library Collection, Pratt Institute Libraries, and Texas A&M University Zine Collection among others. 
== Public Art ==
In 2013, the collective received a grant from the Downtown Austin Alliance to paint a mural outside the now closed bar Red 7. The mural was called, ‘Wonderful, Amazing, Stunning, Phenomenal, Fiesta.’ The Daily Texan newspaper reported that “the design protested the forced immigration of Mexicans in downtown Austin during the Jim Crow years.”
In 2013 and 2014, they were hired by the City of Austin to do the branding for the now defunct Pachanga Latino Music Festival— Austin’s only Latino music festival — further making their mark as Latino artists widening the range of what is deemed “Latino” imagery.
== Exhibitions ==
=== Solo ===
====2017 ====
Collective Practice: Community Building Through Zines, Hawn Gallery (Southern Methodist University), Dallas, TX
=== Group ===
==== 2019 ====
* El Zine: Contemporary Underground Archives, The Latinx Project, New York, NY
* Expresiones en Esculturas, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX
* Case Study Space, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX
==== 2018 ====
* City of San Antonio District 3 My Home My History, James A. Bode Center
==== 2016 ====
* Anything for Selenas Pop-up Art Exhibition, Oak Cliff Cultural Center, Dallas, TX
==== 2015 ====
* Reflect the Times: Visions for Social Change, Creative Action, Austin, TX
* The Zine Society Library , CentralTrak: The UT Dallas Artists Residency, Dallas, TX
* All the Signs are (T)Here: Social Iconography in Mexican and Chicano Art from Collections at the University of Texas at Austin, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX
* Gently Fried, Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin, TX
* Selections from the Contemporary Art Collection , Mexic-Arte Museum , Austin, TX
* A Variety of Art from Around the Austin Area, Austin–Bergstrom International Airport, Austin, TX
==== 2013 ====
* Zineshow, Tymutopiyapres Gallery, Lviv, Ukraine
==== 2012 ====
* Ravioli Project, Portland, Oregon