Chapter 12: JUST BEING: Claiming Radical Presence (a postmodern, postmortem manifesto.)
This
body of work is perhaps the most important and yet, most reductive I have ever
done. Just Being: LatinX is a series of unaltered documentary recorded
moments. Scenes of me just sitting or making a cup of ramen or taking a
pill, investigate and deconstruct the idea that art by artists of color must be
made for a reason, that it must jump through programmatic hoops—hoops, defined by the
expectations of others (or more precisely those that "other" us)—art, it is felt, that must be revolutionary. But this art series is about Just Being—and
it is sufficient and whole unto itself. Though, in a turn laden with irony—merely existing may end up
being the most revolutionary act of all—deconstructing and ultimately reifying the
very idea that contemporary Latinx art deserves to exist, to be here at all and
to tell its own individual stories.
Through performance, I seek to engender, enlarge and expand the conversation of what Latina/x/o art is and what it must be and in "Just Being" I investigate the (radical) idea of the (radical) act of (radically) just being a person of color and just presenting your life—not as a revolutionary act, but as is.
In
other words, if you learn nothing else from me, learn this, to thine own self
be true. This series may very well be my most important and at the same time
the most boring set of performances of all that I have ever done. In a way, the
series is all found object and finds its power in its framing as art. As Duchamp does in his (possibly not his) "Fountain" I am putting my signature on the most mundane
moments of my life and claiming them as art.
"Just Being," is a series that presents this Latinx artist doing the most quotidian, most mundane things like sleeping, taking a shit or cooking an egg—and yet, this is a series that points to the fact that individual lives of color matter and that art made by a person of color can exist merely as a representation of self.
This is an overturning. Just as I pointed out at the
beginning of the book you are holding in your hands; when I was a little boy
walking through the Chicano Art Center on Euclid Ave, I used to watch these
artists "doing their own thing" as they called it, and in this case,
during this time—doing your own thing," meant being a revolutionary, it
meant fighting for recognition and telling the stories of your people. My
Father during these years used to wear a beret angled "just right" as he stood
with his fist pumped in the air above him exclaiming, "Chicano Power!"
It was an exhilarating and pride making sight to see for a youngster like me. But looking back at those days, individuality as we understood it was completely different than it is today. Don't get me wrong, every one of those artists truly believed that they were doing their own individual work, speaking their own minds and following their own dreams—and they were—absolutely!
But those dreams
were absolutely transubstantiated through the collective and filtered through the
sensibilities of the many. Everything was seen through the needs of the group—and
the group was the individual. There was simply no separation between the two.
That was the way that it was and there was nothing wrong with it—then.
Which
is all well-and-good, but for us to be making the same artwork from fifty years
ago would be unconscionable, to make art guided by the same goals and
sensibilities would be insane. Just as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Jasper
Johns etc., made art that was a representation of their ideas, their hopes, and their fears--so must every artist of color speak their own names, without the
guilt and pressure of a society that tells us that we must subsume our desires for the sake
of the greater good—our work needs to represent our lives as we live them, to
celebrate our ideas and our desires—yes, especially our ideas--our own autobiographical ideas.
For many generations, society, culture and the hegemonies they have created have sought to make the artist of color into an artistic subaltern—always crying up to the hegemonic forces, begging for scraps, always kept busy running around in circles by a series of cultural Wizards of Oz—making us believe their lies and mesmerizing us.
For too long, too many artistic lives of color have been lost to a continual hegemonic
power-play that denies our own work, stunts our own evolutions and forces us to
represent anything other than our own individual lives' work.
Do
not think that I say this without the knowledge that most of us are not there
yet, that these words will be met with skepticism, anger and fear; but the
truth is that the subaltern has learned to speak and now that the postmodern
has been popped, stupefied and rendered ridiculous, now that the Age of Nefarious has taken hold and we have all gotten
used to the water, nothing can ever be the same and we are beginning to hear
and claim our own voices in the once chaotic din.
What
we need is a Cultural and Racial Bechdel test! What do I mean by a Racial
Bechdel Test?' What is this Lopez Litmus? It is simply this, does a POC artwork
pass the test of being made conceptually for oneself, individually and for
one's chosen audience? Or is it being made for hegemony, the larger oppressive
culture, in essence is it being made conceptually for people of no color? I
don't care who buys it, but rather what does the artwork itself buy into, is it
trying to explain itself to the hegemony or is it claiming its individuality
for all to see. That is the Lopez Litmus. Plain and simple. And the art itself can be
political. It can be activist, but it should begin by directing the artwork
to our sisters and brothers and working out from there!
Through this particular body of work; I see myself and other
contemporary Latinx artists defining how our art is to be perceived, and what form it will take in the future. I see a Latinx art defined by complexity, criticality and biographical and theoretical strength, creating a
"Latinoism" based on alliances that owes more of its form to the
Queer and Feminist programs that lead the way for identity movements than to an
essentialized Latino-ness. I seek to engender, enlarge and expand the conversation
of what Latina/x/o art is and what it can be. We live at a time in which
definitions of race, masculinity, gender and art are changing, and through
these and other performances I seek to be a voice in this change.
Flash
back to childhood. When we were still young, my father delighted in telling us
stories of Socrates and Plato and would often present us with one of life's big
questions and ask us to argue from various philosophical/Greek positions. To
this day, I can still name about half of the letters of the Greek alphabet and
know enough to realize that Plato preferred policemen to artists. During that
time several guiding principles were born, primary among those being that our
differences are merely skin deep—we are all humans and the differences that lay
between any of us--none of that actually matters. There are no important
differences between the races, sub-races, tribes, etc. etc. and so on—especially
in the ways that truly make any difference.
We
all have the same capacities of feeling, we all have the same abilities to
dream and we all hope for better lives and wish to see a better world.
Historically, all of the books we read have been filled with inventions and
discoveries by people of every race, color and creed. Humans of every kind have
created all of our photographs, paintings, sculptures, cities, books,
languages, romances, poems, movies, etc. and etc. and so on—and every single
one of these is as real and as valid for each and every one of us and is
enjoyed and understood with no difference that is affected by race, sex,
gender, religion, etc.
Wanting to Express your own life, then, to exercise your own individuality, share your own dreams and obsessions is not wanting to be white. It is, in fact, your right to claim this—all of it. As I have noted before in earlier chapters there have been many times when I was given messages that claimed the exact opposite, very often the message was quite clear, you have a Mexican last name--you must make Mexican artwork, and it came from every direction, even from those that look just like me. I have learned over and over again, that I don't want to look back on my life and realize that I wasted it playing a game that was always rigged against lives of color, stacked against us in a way that was always meant to waste our lives.
No. Wanting to express your own life is not wanting to be white--in fact wanting to live and die in any other way would be insanity. Race, itself, has never been anything more than merely cosmetic—we wear a series of hues likely having more to do with climatic effects and our ancestors’ originary locations than with any real, inherent differences in us as animals. Race is merely skin deep, and it is clear that we often confuse culture with race. Ultimately, to me, over the years it has become clear that race is in fact phantasmatic—it simply does not exist, it is a ghost—an illusion—at best, it is an illusion hidden in the pigments of our skin—it is a ghost identity. One might as well separate those that have red hair or freckles—make them feel inferior or treat them as a group of personae non gratae. Or segregate by height or hair color or eye color or penis-size. Any of these would be silly right? Unfair? Or just sheerly idiotic—right? And yet, we do separate on the basis of skin color—to this day—we still assume that people see the world differently—that based on skin color that someone might not have a soul or the same intellect as others. All of these things have been asserted at more than one time by men of intellect. In fact, damn you, Noah Webster for ensuring that even the very language that I speak is rooted in racism.
In
the "Just Being" series, we open the pages of our text to include
things that have never been seen, documented, nor claimed as performance art. A
Latinx documenting his own life, rather than what society has determined he
should create. A Latinx recording and displaying his life without narrative, without poesy, without artifice. This is not the LatinX artist as societally approved
revolutionary, as standardized stereotype, as a "Bandido with a heart of
gold," etc., but rather being true to his own vision and for once, just
being—perhaps the most revolutionary act that a person of "colors"
can claim in this day and age.
In
this project I try to just do what I would naturally do, aside from the camera
being there, unscripted, usually at the beginning of some simple act, though
that may eventually change with both random starting and stopping points—the
idea is not to achieve any level of vérité, or to even ignore the presence of
the camera, but rather to just record and see what we get. In the videos, being
aware of the camera or reacting to the camera is a valid part of "just
being" as these aren't about pretending to emulate reality, rather they
are a capturing of reality in, at least to the best of my knowledge, the best
way that I know how to do that.
Every
act, creation etc, that has been recorded before and which has left a document,
a story, a mark, by any Latino artist has been done so, in response to the
power structures of oppression. Instead of, say, just breathing. Just being.
This series, however, is an attempt at, to at least try to take things, not necessarily back, but to at least claim our presence and unwillingness to back away. This series is about radical presence--merely presenting yourself as a person of color, becomes, in fact, a wildly, radically activist act.
It became clear to me one day, while writing my bio for a grant just how many lives of color have been erased because the only acceptable way to express yourself as a person of color is as a reaction to everything else—as a reflection of the power of hegemony. It became clear to me that artists like my heroes, artists like Marcel Duchamp or Jackson Pollock were never asked to make artwork that was about their heritage or about their people or culture. They were simply asked to make art, art that reflected their ideas and their beliefs--in fact, they were never asked--they just did it.
My
father created artwork that was about religion and the struggles of being a
person of color, but I always wanted to create artwork that was about me. As an
individual. My obsessions. My ideas. My life. In the First Person, so to speak!
So to speak.
In
the "Just Being" series. You can't get more basic than
"Sleep," or drinking a glass of water, and yet, as far as I know, I
have never seen those documented before by a person of color--especially a
Latina/o. It ends up becoming, radical, it ends up becoming revolutionary and
possibly political. Perhaps, at some level it shows that in this monad of time,
that it is impossible for people of colors to represent themselves without it
being revolutionary, but along the way, almost as detritus I will also document
myself, claiming my life as an artistic gesture. That is the most important
part for me, and it is perhaps that, which is the most radical part—even just
using my Latinx body to replicate Gilbert and George or Bruce Nauman.
I
want to add that this for most, should be seen as merely a goal--it is neither prescriptive nor proscriptive. Any artist's
work can say whatever the artist wants it to say, in fact, that is the point,
not to judge yourself or others, but rather to release oneself and your praxis
from a set of invisible confines that have been set in place by hegemony to
systematically stop people of color from "singing" their own lives
and instead subsuming them onto either a predetermined visual language like the
"Day of the Dead," etc., that we forever regurgitate and which
disengages us from evolving, creating art that is endlessly acceptable to the
majority or to constantly explain ourselves to the hegemony and again to keep
ourselves wearing their prison uniforms, even remaking the same music over and
over again and telling the same stories once a year. When was the last time you
saw someone take any of the Day of the Dead imagery and do something truly
revolutionary with it? Probably never, instead it has become quotational, a
Latino shorthand, as it were. We need to start to poke at our own clichés, we
need to move forward with the knowledge that our own, individual lives are
bigger than all of this and that we are not the by-products of a bunch of
symbols and signs, no matter how comfortable those signs may feel. We must begin
to create, write and perform work that is willing to say, "This isn't
about you. Go away." We must not pander to anyone at the expense of our
own stories. And to be completely fair, many of us are already doing this, some
never will and that is okay too. The idea is to make work that is authentic to
your own experience.
At
this point, I think that it is important to add that this is not a denial of
history, of collective identity or collected symbology, “folklorico” or
otherwise, rather this is in addition to it. It is about looking at our history
not as it has been packaged and presented to us by Fritos, our parents, or even
by what galleries expect and want to see from us, it is about looking back with
a complex, critical eye and deconstructing everything, making sense of
everything and visualizing the power dynamics of history. It is about applying
feminist and queer principles and opening up history to a complex and rigorous
examining eye. It is about figuring out how your story fits into the larger
history/herstory/our story—it is not about changing yourself to better fit into
an already posted history. It is also about a complex reimagining of our
present and most of all it is about questioning everything and making something
new and exciting and yes, even, at times, mundane and boring.
Ultimately,
this is about positionality, too, and it is fiercely critical, being strongly
influenced by feminist and queer theories and especially gender theories that
begin with the body and the individual as a primary locus. It is very Latinx
and very much calls upon intersectionality as being foundational.
Intersectionality requires a center and that is what this calls upon as well,
that center being the individual identity; messy and misunderstandable, it is
the vehicle through which all intersections are navigated, and choice and
desire are two of its primary vehicles.
To
this day, I still wince, when I see my soft, fat, Latino body on a television
screen, when I see myself revealed and naked for others to grade and gauge me
in comparison to whatever models of the human body they have in their minds. I
still wince when I see a misstep in the middle of one of my performances, or a stutter when I forget the lyrics to "Mad World," though perhaps the sting hurts a little a bit less and happens just a little
less often, now as I become accustomed to the shape and substance of my body
and more sure of my message. A message that has no intention to put aside the
theoretical, even abstract tools of hegemony, even though, like bell hooks,
they will be inflected, interrogated by a new set of tools, that are less
rational, at times, more rational at others. For it always strikes me just how
reflexive the definitions of hegemony truly are in order to maintain the
illusion that they are aloof and undefined/undefinable/indefinable. They bounce
back and forth, encompassing as many positions as possible, for it is difficult
to hit a moving target. At the same time, their practitioners are more than willing to deal
with other groups as though they were simply defined, as irrational, as queer,
lazy, invisible, etc. Masculinity, especially, has the privileged location of
being all things to all men, the center—but the center cannot hold.
Art
at its very heart is hope—it fights for what it believes in and is an
expression of humanity’s greatest desires, fears and aspirations. If we are, in
fact going to be able to see our ways out of this era–if we are going to move
out to the stars and preserve this planet’s ability to contain us–it will be
artists who will have to envision these possibilities.
Just
as we were the ones who gave humans the first images of heaven and hell—just as
we created angels and aliens and all manners of monsters that no human eye has
ever seen—so will the tribes of poets, painters, sculptors, modelers,
filmmakers, writers–creators all–so will they show us the way out of these
turbulent times into the next great Renaissances of human development. So,
let’s do it now! Change those chips that hold each of us back, fake it ’til we
make it and start a brand-new day and a brand-effing-new Renaissance!
__________________________________________________________________
Photo by Ray C. Freeman III, CoCA 2024.
No comments:
Post a Comment