READING DIARY: NOVEMBER 2022- TT SESSION 22: NEW YORK
THURSDAY 17 NOV 2022
ENGAGING INDECENCIA- WITH NICOLÁS DUMIT ESTÉVEZ RAFUL ESPEJO OVALLES…
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER IN PREPARATION:
What does indecencia/indecency mean to you? GD: OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOR
How do you usually experience art in a gallery context? GD: I SEE IT, FEEL IT, OFTEN IN PERSONAL/AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TERMS…AND I CONTEXTUALIZE IT, TYPICALLY IN ART HISTORICAL TERMS. AND I WOULD SAY, IN THAT ORDER.
How do you hope others experience your work? GD: PERSONALLY, SPIRITUALLY, EMOTIONALLY AND INTELLECTUALLY.
What is indecent about your work or artistic praxis? GD: IT IS ABSTRACT, AND OFTEN, SUBCONSCIOUSLY IT ENDS UP HAVING A PLAYFUL, PSYCHO-SEXUAL ASPECT OR OPEN-ENDED READING THAT SUGGESTS PSYCHO-SEXUAL CONTENT. WHILE I DO NOT THINK OF IT AS INDECENT, I HAVE RECEIVED SUCH FEEDBACK.
How do you engage indecency out in the world? GD: I LIVE IN NYC, SO A MORE APT QUESTION MIGHT BE, HOW DO I NOT ENGAGE IT? :)
**Bring a journal or notebook (any size), as well as pencil or pen for writing exercises. GD: HOPE THAT USING MY “NOTES” APP IS OK.
Please consider wearing comfortable shoes. GD: AS IN, FOR DANCING? I WILL LIKELY WEAR COMFORTABLE LACE-UP BOOTS, BUT THEY ARE TOO HEAVY FOR DANCING OR MOVEMENT WORK.
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SOME OF MY THOUGHTS ON THE SUGGESTED READINGS:
NOV 22- READING 1: Ivan Monforte and Nicolas: Office Hours & the Museum as a Testing Ground
Nicolas: Can you please describe the specifics of your piece? Ivan Monforte: There But For The Grace Of God Go I consists of creating a space in a gallery or a museum to provide free and confidential rapid HIV screenings and referrals to visitors and the general public during scheduled dates and hours. All tests and referrals are provided by a local community-based organization whose mission is to provide this testing to the local area… The project takes its title from the disco-era song of the same name by the group Machine… For me it often became an opportunity to talk about art, public health, activism, and AIDS, and their relationship to each other, as well as educate people about HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. I was a sort of HIV Dr. Ruth.
GD: MY FIRST THOUGHT IS THA THIS IS A SUCH A POWERFUL PREMISE FOR A SOCIAL PRACTICE PIECE…“There But For The Grace Of God Go “ IS A FITTING, MOVING and HUMBLE TITLE. AND HAHA ON HIS HAVING BEEN THE “HIV DR. RUTH”.
NDE: What were the reactions that your presence at Longwood Art Gallery generated at an institutional level? For those not familiar with this space, the gallery is hosted by Hostos Community College, a two-year program mostly attended by new immigrants to New York City.
IM: On an institutional level, I received full support from Longwood’s director, Edwin Ramoran. Edwin allowed me to conduct the testing in the gallery’s kitchen, since it had a door and could provide the most privacy. The first time the work was performed everything went smoothly…
GD: I TEACH IN THE BRONX AT LEHMAN COLLEGE…ANOTHER CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK-CUNY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION. MOST OF MY STUDENTS TRANSFER FROM HOSTOS AND BRONX COMMUNITY COLLEGE, SO I KNOW THIS SYSTEM, THESE STUDENTS AND THE REALITIES OF BRONX LIFE IN THE 21st CENTURY. RIGHT OFF THE BAT, FOR ME, LITERALLY HITTING HOME. AND IVAN MONFORTE’S CREATIVE MOTIVATIONS, ARTISTIC VISION, AND CHOICE OF EXECUTION ARE RELATABLE.
NDE: I am fully aware of the anxiety that waiting for the results of an HIV test can impose on one. Did you offered any post-intervention support or counseling to those who participated in your action? Were people who participated in your intervention entitled to a follow up?
IM:…I personally have had horrifying experiences getting tested—particularly when accessing services from the New York City’s Department of Health. In 2004, I tested at a DOH center in upper Manhattan and was told by the doctor examining me that I probably should’ve gone to the center in Chelsea because they were “better equipped to deal with gay men,” and was also forced to sit and watch Tom Hanks die of AIDS-related complications in the waiting room as they played the film Philadelphia on the television for everyone who was anxiously waiting for their results. Needless to say, I was personally invested and determined to create an environment that was friendly, welcoming, and private.
GD: WOW
…NDE: The medical treatments and political responses to HIV and AIDS have been evolving since you presented There But For The Grace Of God Go I. There are new drugs that buy health for those with economic means or living in the “First World.” … How would you respond to this reality as a social worker and as an artist? I can’t help it, but it is in moments like these when I say to myself “to hell with Art.”
GD: OF COURSE, NDE IS AN EMPATH BEFORE THEY ARE AN ARTIST OR A SOCIAL WORKER.
IM: As a social worker I face this reality every day. I have had young men come into my office and ask me to list the benefits they will be eligible for if they contract HIV, and have had to explain to them that outside of ADAP (emergency health care that is not really comprehensive health insurance) they do not qualify for any other services as an HIV-positive individual… I currently conduct HIV screenings at Streetwork Project, where I manage a community level HIV prevention intervention with and for homeless and runaway gay, bisexual, and transgender adolescents. I think it would in some ways truly break down all the walls between life and art. Which is exactly where I feel the most at home…
GD: WHAT A REALLY IMPRESSIVE INTERSECTION OF PASSIONS (SOCIAL WORK AND ART) IVAN MONFORTE HAS… AND THEY’VE WOVEN THEM TOGETHER PRETTY SEAMLESSLY.
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NOV 22- READING 2: Amor Raro and Other Heart-Shaped Islands
A conversation between Nicolás Dumit Estévez (NDE) and Arthur Avilés (AA)
NDE: I am excited about engaging in a dialogue in which dance is our focal point. Would you be up for allowing this topic to be the spirit moving our thoughts and shaping our words during this exchange?
AA: Yes. I love to talk about dance even though sometimes for me it can be a tough topic to pin down in language. I love the challenge of working at that.
…
NDE: Who are you? I know that this sound like a generic existential question. What I am driving at are the public performances of sexualities, and notions of Puertorriqueñidad and Nuyoricanidad that your choreographies push one to grapple with.
AA: Yes! I will come at this simply and say that I am a gay New York-Rican who loves to dance and I run a performance space open to the community and I enjoy living in the Bronx. I feel that all my works have that spirit running through them.
NDE: My connection to dance comes from my upbringing in the Dominican Republic. Music is part of almost every activity people do on a daily basis. Dance is in my blood tissue. What about you?
AA: I think we grew up in similar cultures and feel the same way. When I went to Bard College I learned of a choreographer named Merce Cunningham and he explored dance as parallel to sound/music. The dances he creates are intentionally not created with music in mind. To a certain extent I have brought that philosophy in my work at times. I have heard it expressed that when one comes out of the womb one moves/dances, then one will cry/music as one enters the world.
GD: UP TO THE POINT WHERE AA DISCUSSES ATTENDING BARD AND BEING INFLUENCED BY MERCE CUNNINGHAM’S WORK (WITH JOHN CAGE…THEY WORKED INDEPENDENTLY WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY COLLABORATING), I WAS ORIENTED. THIS INFORMATION REORIENTS MY FOCUS FROM THEIR AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC CONVERSATION TO THE VERY SPECIFICALLY 20th C. AMERICAN US-BASED CONCEPTUAL ART…IN ALL FORMATS. IT RE-CONTEXTUALIZES MY UNDERSTANDING OF AA. IT ESTABLISHES COMMON GROUND, COMMON ARTISTIC HISTORY…VIA US 20th C. ART HISTORY, BUT ALSO MAKES ME WONDER IF AT BARD THEIR BRAIN WAS “WHITEWASHED”? I.E. PAUL GILROY’S IDEA OF CONTEMPORARY RACISM… “BLACK, WELL, IN AAs CASE, BROWN IS THE BODY, WHITE IS THE MIND”?
NDE: Where is the Island, Puerto Rico, in your work, metaphorically speaking?
AA: The Island in my work is this sense of freedom and safeness I get when I am expressing the true essence of how I feel.
NDE: Your sexual identity is of key importance to your artistic practice. Has this been a strategic move to garner attention on pressing issues involving LGTBQI communities? If so, as a man of Puerto Rican background living in the South Bronx, how do you negotiate gayness with gay white, middle-class men who may not want to be associated with some of our trans or rara/o (my own non-academic interpretation of queer) neighbors?
AA: Thank you for the challenge of these statements and questions. What you propose here has a pretty provocative edge to it and I hope this answer can do it some kind of justice. As far as issues are concerned in my work, I stick to what is personal. I think that helps me to be in touch with my own reasons for creating a work of art. I happen to be a Queer Puerto Rican who lives in the Bronx and hope that I can stay aware of a truth you speak about, as it relates to that. I hope my awareness helps to calm my frustrations with power sects in the world…
GD: AA SPEAKS TO THE POWER OF THE CREATIVE RESEARCH METHOD OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
NDE: A black friend and colleague asked the other day: Why is it that our bodies are targeted? Is it something we have that threatens whiteness? What is it? You have been using dance to spew back beauty to the outbound ugliness that threatens our communities: economic oppression (usually called material poverty), health issues, and political neglect, among others. How do you do that?
AA: What you are saying is so important and possibly not as complicated as others make it out to be. I think dance is a moment of vibrant peace and no matter what we are saying with the body when it moves, we know we are alive, regardless of personal circumstances and politics…
GD: THIS IS THE MOST POWERFUL EXCHANGE AND STATEMENT MADE OF THE CONVERSATION. AA SPEAKS ON THE RIGHT TO EMBODIMENT, IN ANY SIZE, SHAPE, COLOR,, WITH ANY SEXUAL ORIENTATION, IN ANY KIND OF BODY ONE CREATES FOR OURSELVES. THIS FUNDAMENTAL FACT OF EXISTENCE
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NOV 22- READING 3: BLOOM Welcomes Viewers Into the Vaginal Imaginary
“If you have ever had the fortune to hear Nao Bustamante chat about her artistic process, you would know that for the Los Angeles-based Latina artist, a project’s genesis is often a constant burr in her brain. In other words, an idea for a work of art pops into her head where she ruminates on it for some time and, if the burring does not go away, it is time to take action and bring it into being, whether that “it” is a performance, a film, an installation, a combination of any of these, or maybe even something else. Such is the case with BLOOM, Bustamante’s latest multimedia research-based art project where she is re-imagining the speculum that is traditionally used in pelvic exams for cis-women. After yet another uncomfortable pelvic examination in 2011, Bustamante thought that there must be a tool that would not be so uncomfortable and painful and began to imagine such a device, a new speculum named Bloom, inspired by a flower with blooming soft petals and much less intrusive than the duck-billed opening ones of the traditional tool…
…The gynecological examination table hanging from the skylight with chains on pulleys is such a pronounced commendation of that dark history. Bustamante entitled this vintage found object from the 19th century Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy in order to connect the “father of modern gynecology” James Marion Sims, whose abhorrent research practices on enslaved Black women, three of whom were named Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy, to the development of the duck-billed speculum that is still widely used today during pelvic examinations.”"
GD: … JESUS
“In addition to this critique, which was made more evident during the opening night’s performance, Bustamante adds the following wall text, somewhere between the framed series BLOOM mentioned previously and the suspended table: “Drape across the knees- curtain rising dividing front stage from backstage, while the spotlight shines on the spectacle in the pelvic proscenium.” …Bustamante (pace Kapsalis) understands the pelvic examination as a performative, and thus, through BLOOM, not only the new examination tool she is developing, but all of the parts that constitute the exhibit, she is seeking to deconstruct the examination and open up possibilities to help us not only experience it differently and with a gentler tool, but in general for all of us to also reconnect with our vagina, even when it may be an imagined one. Or, as the artist quips, for us to enter the vaginal imaginary.”
GD: NAO BUSTAMANTE MAINTAINS SUCH A STRONGLY STAKED OUT, UN-APPOLOGETIC FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE AND POSITION. READING THIS CRITIQUE, I AM REPEATEDLY REMINDED OF CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN’S WORK, OF HER “INTERIOR SCROLL”, AND OF HANNAH WILKE’S WORK, I.E., “S.O.S. STARIFICATION OBJECT SERIES”, 1974-82, AND I HAVE THE FEELING THAT “BLOOM” IS A SYNTHESIS OF THESE IDEAS PLUS RACHEL WHITEREAD’S WORK…BECAUSE BLOOM DEALS WITH THE FILLING THE NEGATIVE SPACE OF THE VAGINA SO TO SPEAK.
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NOV 22- READING 4: Arantxa Araujo, Interior Beauty Salon in Motion
“On February 28, 2021, LUX culminated a 28 -day journey with a half-hour virtual practice, and a participatory performance live-streamed through Zoom and YouTube from The Leslie-Lohman Museum. LUX invited us to show up and immerse ourselves in an audiovisual oasis of consciousness, and to allow visualization and meditation to expand our awareness and to dissolve any duality between subject/object.
The Performance was followed by conversation about our shared experiences. This involved Arantxa Araujo, Gabriel Chakarji, Mariana Uribe, Anna Costa e Silva, and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo.”
GD: AFTER WATCHING ARANTXA ARAUJO’S VIDEOS, I AM AWARE OF HOW VISUALLY CONSISTENT THEIR VISION IS. PLAYING MULTIPLE VIDEOS SIMULTANEOUSLY IS PARTICULARLY RICH IN TERMS OF MUSICAL ORCHESTRATION. THE SOUND/MUSIC WORKS BETTER WHEN MULTIPLE TRACKS ARE PLAYING. HER TITLES UNDERSCORE AT HER STILLNESS PRACTICE, INCLUDE:
“DAY 1: 02-01-21 / Allow yourself to observe and listen. Be.”
“DAY 2: 02-02-21 / Notice the noise. Let the chatter go. Find stillness.”
“Day 3: 02-03-21 / From stillness, the movement is easily perceived. What causes this movement. Stillness.”
“Day 4: 02-04-21 / Notice how you perceive the outside. Without judgment or expectation. How is it?”
…
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NOV 22: READING 5- Yo soy mi padre: Carlos Leppe’s Transgressive Masculinities
Text / Joseph Shaikewitz
On the night of October 19, 2000, some 10 years after the fall of Chile’s military dictatorship, artist Carlos Leppe pulled up to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, shuttled in the rear of a taxicab. A soft waltz hummed on the car’s radio as he emerged from the back seat, the phrase “Yo soy mi padre” (“I am my father”) scrawled on a chalkboard fastened around his neck. With dogged determination, Leppe dropped to his knees, then to all fours, and crawled into the museum, followed closely by a transfixed audience…
GD: MY IMPRESSION OF CARLOS LEPPE’S TRANSGRESSIVE MASCULINITIES IS THAT IT IS, THEY ARE, VERY DRAMATIC, VERY POLITICAL, VERY EMOTIONAL AND POWERFUL.
