tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14967856101896392482024-03-12T18:52:20.100-07:00Xavier : A Place for my ArtXavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.comBlogger193125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-76143929568294583822020-09-17T23:34:00.009-07:002020-09-18T20:11:28.698-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance Art #27: Just Being: Dematerialized (Can you have a performance with no body present) #1. 2020<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uK_PNUIL4Q4/X2VbDlX4wXI/AAAAAAAAZbc/cUCSxdm4NYQE3ZCbHHYvP2SyijudDtnXACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Material1_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="249" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uK_PNUIL4Q4/X2VbDlX4wXI/AAAAAAAAZbc/cUCSxdm4NYQE3ZCbHHYvP2SyijudDtnXACLcBGAsYHQ/w443-h249/Material1_1.jpg" width="443" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This Performance begins to answer the question "Can you have a performance with no body present," in this first answer to the question the camera--essentially the audience's eye is turned outward through a window, away from the artist, who in this first tentative step is still mostly present through a reflection, spoken description and presence behind the camera.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LWGeDpQqyGw/X2VbabJREPI/AAAAAAAAZbo/JSt21vpTbQcdUZMPDHQA5bjSRfP2G4b9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Material1_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LWGeDpQqyGw/X2VbabJREPI/AAAAAAAAZbo/JSt21vpTbQcdUZMPDHQA5bjSRfP2G4b9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Material1_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the Queen of Hearts attempted to teach a Modernist Alice--when Alice haughtily opined that one could not actually believe the impossible . "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen , "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice just hadn't had the proper practice, growing up in Victorian England as she did--but in the 100+ years since then, we have all had that practice. Modernism with its heavy reliance on "truth," the manifesto, the "universal," the phallus, masculinity, God, hegemony and so many "isms" "it would make a shy, bald, Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder," turned very quickly into absurdism, nihilism and went absolutely berserk when they discovered that God had died somewhere on the way to the forum. i<a href="file:///C:/Users/xlope/Desktop/Performance%20Art/4.2%20Soft%20cyborg%20article/Subaltern%20has%20teeth.docx#_edn1">x</a> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This was replaced by a football field of vying positions all questioning the supreme hegemony/ies, until it became necessary to bring out the phallus and take away the toys of identity before this post-modernist "play-time" could get out of hand and become a polymorphously perverse, identity orgy. Little did anyone know that when the phallus finally did blow that it would not be a fun, sexual or liberating event (I mean, Freud must have had a sense of that, though-- right?). -Instead, it erupted into a terrified/terrifying, manic, paranoid, madness--at least so it seems--these really are early days so far.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WbOCz28giq4/X2VbaXUSfII/AAAAAAAAZbk/Wr286yA_lZY79Gtk0XyGJFknYkh8hwfugCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Material1_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WbOCz28giq4/X2VbaXUSfII/AAAAAAAAZbk/Wr286yA_lZY79Gtk0XyGJFknYkh8hwfugCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Material1_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Historically, even when post-modernism sought to deconstruct things, it was still with the faith that what would arise was some sort of deeper truth, even when that truth was ironic, or presented ironically, the result was still filled with hope and faith. There was still the idea that if you took the truth to the top of the mountain and shouted it to the people, that everyone would recognize it, act accordingly and do the right thing. Before this, the funny thing was that in the modern era, this same mountain was the space from which you received, interfaced and interacted with the "Kierkegaardian God " of Enlightenment, then tried to figure out how much of that truth you could keep in your unworthy, little head. Well, nowadays--that mountain has been blown up and strip-mined for the last bits of helium on the planet, no one believes in truth today. Even if you did receive any wisdom from the experience, as soon as you tweeted it you would get a thousand people all coming from so many different points of view that the original "truth" would be completely lost. Then scientists would tell you that we probably live in a giant hologram anyway, so what is the point?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fGbYm8vTBcY/X2VbaVZ-ZyI/AAAAAAAAZbs/xdB8S_w3F54oRlr8pvktdsjwKCAMXi-XgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Material1_4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fGbYm8vTBcY/X2VbaVZ-ZyI/AAAAAAAAZbs/xdB8S_w3F54oRlr8pvktdsjwKCAMXi-XgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Material1_4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps this really is the Age of Nefarious--the culmination of DADA and the completion of its agenda. It is an era where reality has met "the Real" head on, and the only ones with any faith are the ones that are trying like crazy not to go completely, irreducibly insane. Luckily, however, this is all just theory and has no real basis in reality--Right? Right. Maybe. Because if it did, then that would be absolute madness, right? Right. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8NqahhHuNIA" width="320" youtube-src-id="8NqahhHuNIA"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Just Being: Dematerialized (Can you have a performance with no body present) #1</div> <p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-26512789300261853552020-09-17T16:56:00.007-07:002020-09-17T23:33:34.000-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance Art #26: Fountain (Soft, Brown-body Remix) After Nauman. Photo: Xavier Lopez Jr. 2020. (During the Pandemic of 2020.)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vHB_ErgYAjw/X2Pw6rh23OI/AAAAAAAAZaw/JKAmUgJTU6I7YBhOZ2qvJv1RWc_niSPKwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/naumanfinal23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1631" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vHB_ErgYAjw/X2Pw6rh23OI/AAAAAAAAZaw/JKAmUgJTU6I7YBhOZ2qvJv1RWc_niSPKwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/naumanfinal23.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Fountain (Soft, Brown-body Remix) After Nauman. Photo: Xavier Lopez Jr. 2020. (During the Pandemic of 2020.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Jo8qbuXR9Y/X2P7_mfiCsI/AAAAAAAAZbI/vB2LleLrbOcDymRrisxnGjlY3zL-OCQlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/naumanfinalversion21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1723" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Jo8qbuXR9Y/X2P7_mfiCsI/AAAAAAAAZbI/vB2LleLrbOcDymRrisxnGjlY3zL-OCQlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/naumanfinalversion21.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1. Who are you and where are you from? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My name is Xavier Lopez ; I was born in Southern California, half-way between Hollywood and Disneyland. My first memory is of the warmth of the California sun on my cheeks and visions of the bright blue sky overhead as the song "A Theme From a Summer Place" played all around me in the background of the car radio. From birth, when it came to telling the difference between what was real and what was make-believe--I never stood a chance! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I came from a family of three siblings and when we were kids we used be left alone at the Hollywood Wax Museum and auto museum and would spend literally days staring at the Batmobile, Bat-cycle and full-sized wax models of old Hollywood stars. When we got home we would make Batman and Robin costumes and fight invisible bad guys until sundown. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Disneyland was such a prevalent part of my childhood that I actually remember nightmares of the Haunted Mansion before I even remember having been old enough to make sense of the ride. My father used to taunt us by saying, "You're nothing but a nothing, you're nothing but a nothing..." which was a song from some scary Disney cartoon. He would also take our stuffed animals and trick us into believing that they were alive--though my brother who was always much smarter than I was never fooled. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2. What message do you want people to receive from your artwork? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are many layers to my work, I want people to see my work as a questioning of reality, of culture, and of traditional ideas of gender and race. I am absolutely obsessed with the moment in all media when Pinocchio comes to life--the moment when the inanimate becomes animate. That for me is the true moment of magic. At the same time, I tend to think of life as a giant horror movie--grisly and visceral. I tend toward Lacan, Bakhtin and Balzac--rather than Kant, Hegel and Disney--though I understand their places in normative culture--and how we navigate the world. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the same time--even when I am employing elements which may seem to be very painterly or Pop--I am still always a conceptualist at heart. I think that historically, at this point in time, we are actually post-pop (once again)--and that that is an amazingly generative space for an artist to be in and to work from. I don't like things to be clean, pure and delineated and it is my goal to marry all of the various strands of my own work--the performance art, sculpture and the pop together into something new--something that we might not have ever seen before. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pop, itself is amazingly important because it has always had the ability to make even the hardest ideas easier to take and I do have lots of very complicated, dark, happy, manic, beautiful and ugly things to examine and say in the work. Also, because pop has the ability to make the strongest of medicines go down, I don't think that it will ever completely leave my work--but will rather take its place alongside the more minimalist and conceptual aspects of my work in a working mix and become another tool in my toolkit. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Do you remember your first artwork, when you knew that you where an artist? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There have been several moments in which art has saved my life--in which it has reminded me that there never really was any other choice for me. Any true artist knows that they really can't do anything else--I'm pretty much not good at anything else-really. As far as the first moment--it might have gone all the way back to watching my dad painting murals in Hollywood, standing atop a ladder with a crowd of people complaining that what he was painting wasn't art. He looked down at them, paintbrush in hand and said in a very thick Chicano brogue--"Thees, thees is not just art--this is revolution!" </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I still have the very first drawing I ever did--it was of a train and it is probably better than anything I have ever done since. Maybe. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Who are your favorite artists and inspirations? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My favorite artist is Marcel Duchamp--he took art out of the realm of the purely retinal into the conceptual. He ended the primacy of the eye and handed it over to the mind. All art that has gone after Duchamp has been inflected by Duchamp. I would not be an artist without him. I could not be an artist after him. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Robert Rauschenberg was my first favorite artist who didn't illustrate comic books and Mark Ryden took me on a trip for awhile that I am still dealing with. I love Bruce Nauman and did my graduate work at UCDavis--where he attended classes and did performance work. I used to sneak into classes that were taught by late first wave Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud and I really think that you can see the effect that his classes had on my brushwork. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What tools do you use, to create clean paintings and murals. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Honestly, I tend to use whatever materials I need to in order to communicate what I am trying to communicate. For the murals its usually a lot of paint and brushes, for the performances it is often latex, masks, costumes, cereal, music, etc.--for the mixed media sculpture--it's all over the map! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't think that I really have any allegiance to any particular set of tools. I use what I need to use in order to say what I want to say! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Where can we see more of your art? What other places has your work been published? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have a book coming out in the summer that will be available on Amazon and my work will be in the next issue of Studio Visit Magazine. I always have some sort of drawing or painting in the books printed by Raven Above Press--and I have even had work in Mad Magazine. I continue to do "Live Painting," and performative work with the awesome folks over at the Seattle Art Museum, alongside fellow muralist Ryan "Henry" Ward and he and I have a few projects set for the future that will definitely get people talking. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As far as collaborative work goes, look out for at least three performance art performances this year, the first will be a musical love story-- based on Marcel Duchamp's glass and mixed media piece, "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelor's, Even," and two which are based on characters of mine--the "Dum-Dum Boy" and the "Sorcerer's Apprentice." </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My work is always available at Echo Echo Gallery in the Greenwood Collective-- and online at my terminally "under construction" website at xavierlopezjr.com. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What do you see yourself doing in 20 years? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Honestly--I just want to do more and more of what I am doing--take things to their limits and grow--I want to see where all these directions lead and how they connect and dissect. I used to think that the Pop stuff I have been doing for the last several years where a break for me --that they had nothing to do with the previous work. That is until I actually looked at the older work and saw that all of the same obsessions were there, the same connections, the same tropes and contradictions and that they were all connected through me. It was a transformative realization and one which continues to surprise me --I want to surprise myself continuously and always continue to piss off exactly just the right people! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you could work on an art project with anyone in the world from any period in time who would it be? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I would love to work on a performance with Joseph Beuys--of all the artists throughout history--his is the one that I seem to come back to the most--visually, we share some striking similarities--which is odd--because for both of us the performance work is extremely personal, autobiographical and anecdotal. I'm sure that Beuys himself would say it has something to do with a kind of post-Jungian--artistic collective mind--but all of that is just a little too new agey for me--though I love Beuys for being so out there and for being so willing to go out on a limb for what he believed--no matter what! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Any last words you would like to say to the Section 8 Magazine readers worldwide? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Be true to yourself. Even when everything seems to go against you--because that is when you will find out who you truly are. Too Zen? Too “New Agey?” Yeah, you're right--I am nothing if not a jumble of contradictions!</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DbeboSx1JiI/X2PxPLp5reI/AAAAAAAAZa4/GfD_CF0YM7gKmkB2RCTmms6QniTCVacogCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/70-50-9_nauman_imageprimacy_640.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DbeboSx1JiI/X2PxPLp5reI/AAAAAAAAZa4/GfD_CF0YM7gKmkB2RCTmms6QniTCVacogCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/70-50-9_nauman_imageprimacy_640.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxjfZFjk0g1Tos1nZywkB41_7QdZj-0BPwCm6WOL9EdqoFhqr9YXVfDGhuBpb6WyGrJlshDsC_Xf2truEB1HQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-12547144539797300842020-09-16T22:43:00.003-07:002020-09-16T23:14:38.692-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance Art #25: Performance From the Foot of my Bed #1: Dada Death - Song From the Heart. 2020.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nxYVPfGL-jk/X2L2cm6oEDI/AAAAAAAAZZs/WnxTwsySS3UKzZnVkYGycobTrxS9zzgngCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/DADADEATHSONG1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nxYVPfGL-jk/X2L2cm6oEDI/AAAAAAAAZZs/WnxTwsySS3UKzZnVkYGycobTrxS9zzgngCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/DADADEATHSONG1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Performance From the Foot of my Bed #1: Dada Death - Song From the Heart.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the time I became aware of Marcel Duchamp as an undergraduate art student at the University of Nevada-Reno, his bones had long disintegrated, but not his memory, which far from being forgotten and obliterated by time and disuse--had turned to gold--he had become what only the best martyrs are allowed (the 1% of martyrs, if you will)--he had achieved sainthood--but then again, perhaps not. Perhaps, as his 1959 sculptural piece "With My Tongue in my Cheek" suggests--perhaps --Duchamp didn't actually give one single shit what we came away from his work with--and maybe that was his greatest strength after--all. Marcel was Dada. All art is Dada and all artists are Dada. But then as Thierry de Duve told me--maybe I am completely missing the point (which is not only possible--but almost certainly likely.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i7kDURZwRuM/X2L2hYjxmII/AAAAAAAAZZ8/oEyHPAP7qeQISok-eZIzmjPfMj3C3rzQACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dferres.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i7kDURZwRuM/X2L2hYjxmII/AAAAAAAAZZ8/oEyHPAP7qeQISok-eZIzmjPfMj3C3rzQACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/dferres.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Whether he went by the name Marcel Duchamp, Rrose Selavy or Richard Mutt--a modernist understanding of authorship and of authorial intent is always very important to any understanding of Marcel Duchamp's oeuvre. Let us look at just a few instances where authorship is central to his work and especially where he very specifically highlights authorship by frustrating it. His character of Rrose Selavy--which features prominently in a series of images and products presents the artist in drag emblazoned with the tag Rrose Selavy (eros c'est la vie--eros is life.) And especially in Fountain, wherein Duchamp signs the--nearly one-of-a kind urinal with the name R. Mutt--are both conspicuous because of the artist's absence--in them, the artist has taken on a character--an impersonation. In Rrose--a very bad drag queen or an unconvincing woman is outrageously played by Duchamp. In the Fountain, however this is taken one giant step further and the artist is missing altogether. But what are we being told by these misperformances of identity? What does it mean when an artist signs his/her work with someone else's name? What does it mean when the artist employs varying levels of misidentification or misdirection of identity. In the Rrose pieces we know that these are Duchamp's artworks because the artist is ultimately there--even if he is in costume, in drag, misidentifying his gender and his identity. But a very interesting thing occurs. Because we see Marcel--because the misdirection is not meant to fool anyone and because it is signed--Rrose becomes an almost translation of the name Marcel Duchamp--a near translation or a badly tuned pronunciation. Almost as if Rrose Selavy is Marcel Duchamp in Russian, Spanish or more likely --as if it means the same thing in the language of art--the language of Dada.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTgNaTQTYlE/X2L2hSiwFpI/AAAAAAAAZaA/coQGfWoXpd86ZFr6WrFOXaOE6qymkDZGQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/fggffdd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" height="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTgNaTQTYlE/X2L2hSiwFpI/AAAAAAAAZaA/coQGfWoXpd86ZFr6WrFOXaOE6qymkDZGQCLcBGAsYHQ/w391-h220/fggffdd.jpg" width="391" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the Fountain, on the other hand the artist is never present. We only find out that it was made by Duchamp third hand because Duchamp comes to its rescue and then claims the urinal indirectly via a letter he writes in the Dada publication "The Blind Man." Interestingly, it is not even in the letter that Duchamp claims authorship of the sculpture and the letter itself acts as a misdirection of a misdirection. He ultimately, later uses traditionally non-artistic modes in order to claim the fountain--after the fact-- in interviews and conversations--via word of mouth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It becomes clear that Duchamp is working with issues of authorship and here it is is also important to realize that, while Duchamp will one day lead us all to the ironic stance that will allow many artists to claim a position of non-identity--we have to remember that Duchamp was not a post-modernist, he was a very talented, forward thinking modernist--but a modern all the same. All of these instances of misdirected authorship, of misperformance of identity, whether convoluted and tricky are nonetheless, ultimately meant to lead us back to the artist--in this case, all roads lead us back to Marcel Duchamp.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-751mFNvfARI/X2L2dj29lGI/AAAAAAAAZZw/auIdAsM29PwtfPsQh4vtKCOwh4FxiWnzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/fists.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="227" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-751mFNvfARI/X2L2dj29lGI/AAAAAAAAZZw/auIdAsM29PwtfPsQh4vtKCOwh4FxiWnzgCLcBGAsYHQ/w404-h227/fists.jpg" width="404" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before I move on, I want to speak a bit about how authorial intent plays out for the Dadas and for Duchamp in particular in response to Duchamp's best known, masterpiece--the Large Glass (The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelor's, even)--and especially in Duchamp's definition of chance. In the large glass sculpture, Duchamp employs many examples of what he termed "Canned Chance," as he put it--“This experiment was made in 1913 to imprison and preserve forms obtained through chance, through my chance.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"...Through my chance." This is an amazing sentence--a revelatory and very important distinction and one which is paramount to understanding what the Dada's felt about chance and authorship. The words "my chance" are odd ones because we tend to think of chance as something that occurs to us--outside of us--something over which we have absolutely no control. People often speak of bad luck, or lucky stars--even lucky people have no control over how and when their luck will run out. But for the Dadas and especially Marcel--luck was another tool of the artist--ultimately an extension of authorial intent--luck is always under the control of the artist in a way that was governed by the laws of Dada logic--which was a truly modernist undertaking and could be quite magical. The powers of the author--for the Dadas and later, even for the Surrealists was something, which to us, now, as post-post moderns must at times seem almost ludicrous, fantastical or outlandish--but which nonetheless were considered part of the general powers of an artist like Marcel Duchamp. In fact, similar attitudinal examples can even be seen in the ways that the Abstract Expressionists--especially Jackson Pollack saw themselves and the control of their environments as well. In fact it was this same supra-human authorship and "claiming" of chance that allowed Marcel Duchamp to assert that the Large Glass was finally finished when it came out of storage with a large series of cracks--that would have caused most petulant artists to break down and claim that their work had been ruined by bad luck!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWMZB5jywkc/X2L2fxtudKI/AAAAAAAAZZ0/59KgFufMdf0Gz4mCPUt2NMF4H2JHnKSuACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/irony.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWMZB5jywkc/X2L2fxtudKI/AAAAAAAAZZ0/59KgFufMdf0Gz4mCPUt2NMF4H2JHnKSuACLcBGAsYHQ/w425-h239/irony.jpg" width="425" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In his talk at SAM, according to de Duve--the most interesting aspect of what Duchamp's work (as exemplified in the urinal) was, is that it meant that everything could be art and that anyone could be an artist. De Duve claims that this is the main idea that the artists of the sixties came away with when they were presented with his work, but I very humbly want to say that this is a misapprehension on the part of de Duve--that the dual ideas that anything can be art and anybody can be an artist were in fact, not the most interesting, most important, longest-lasting aspects of the Frenchman's work--and that this is in fact a misreading of what the work--especially Fountain even had to teach.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the years, Duchamp's relationship to Fountain became a complex--at times prickly one. He, himself claimed that artists of the sixties misunderstood the work--and not just Joseph Beuys as de Duve points out. He was quite concerned that his revolutionary act of "Anti-art" would be reintroduced into the realm of the "Retinal"--which he saw as a travesty. For Duchamp, himself--and I argue for the most important artists of the periods that followed him--artists like Jackson Pollock, the artists of Fluxus, all the conceptual artists of the sixties and seventies, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, John Cage and Merce Cunningham etc., what Fountain brought us was not the idea that anything could be art--but rather that art had now been forever extricated from the realm of the retinal to the realm of the conceptual. De Duve's misapprehension is mistaking the press's reaction, the popular reaction--the most visceral reaction to Fountain with what practicing artists felt was his most important revelation--and especially with what was the importance of Duchamp's impact on the history of art.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvhGpFEfn4U/X2L2hN9ALwI/AAAAAAAAZZ4/8EH45PX8__o5-N2arNJfRmFS0pNr0vSHgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/jazzhands.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvhGpFEfn4U/X2L2hN9ALwI/AAAAAAAAZZ4/8EH45PX8__o5-N2arNJfRmFS0pNr0vSHgCLcBGAsYHQ/w455-h256/jazzhands.jpg" width="455" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This popular view of Duchamp's oeuvre is sadly the most obvious and superficial layer of what Duchamp's work brought to the world. It is tantamount to Jackson Pollock's being called "Jack the Dripper" and Andy Warhol being called the "Campbell Soup guy." These are all true claims--but they are essentially irrelevant to any actual understanding of each artist's place in history. Duchamp's Fountain does continue to be one of the most important objects and moments in art history--and his work is seminal to all art (even the retinal) that has been made and continues to be made ever since--but the idea that this importance has anything to do with de Duve's syllogism is in itself the product of a formal/formalist and retinal reaction to an object that spoke past that directly to the conceptual--in fact giving birth to an art that exists in and of the mind and which continues to drive formalists absolutely nuts!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a misunderstanding of the idea of the urinal--in favor of a formalist understanding of the piece as a sculpture. It is a backward look at something that is looking and moving forward in very much the same way that Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase marked the end of Cubism--Mr. Mutt's Fountain was moving art into something completely different--and gave birth to performance art, conceptual art--any art whose basis was thinking before seeing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What the artists of the sixties took from his urinal--what continues to be Duchamp's most generative gift--and therefor the most important, was his debasement of the retinal from its perch as the highest form of art--in favor of the conceptual. The favoring of the mind over the eye. In fact, this would prove to be far more radical--far more revolutionary than claiming all things to be art (which, in fact, in the final analysis Duchamp never claimed after all)--and in it we find the birth of everything that art is today. It is the break that de Duve is searching for. The Fountain, in the final analysis becomes nothing more than a decoy--on one hand it is something shocking enough to stick in our minds--something to shock us into a new mindset--a slap to the back of our heads, and secondly it is something used to lead us away from what Duchamp--in his guise of a Dadaist--is really attempting--something all the Dadas were working toward. That was the desire to create a space for what linguists call the breakdown in the vraissemblance of any system--it is the creation of an ideological fatigue--wherein art cannot recognize itself. Where it breaks down and something else--something new arises.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="345" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6E3QOYvPFI8" width="415" youtube-src-id="6E3QOYvPFI8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Duchamp once complained that he gave us a urinal--basically a pot to piss in and we found the Madonna--or was it the Mona Lisa--The Surrealists knew that if we came to an intersection between a skeleton and an operating table that we would bend over backwards in an effort to contrive a story that we could make sense of--and that is exactly what popular history and de Duve have attempted to do with Fountain.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Duchamp gave us the purest, most minimalist piece of Dada ever created and we contorted logic into every conceivable shape to have it make sense to us again--even searching for a formal answer to something that was only ever meant to be a completely conceptual ghost. Madness--the void--illogic and Dada are like that--they make us pine for the comforting, for the sensical, for the beautiful--it makes complete sense that Surrealism followed Dada--followed Duchamp (who never became a Surrealist--though he always was one) because the mind needs to return to succor and safety after looking too long and too hard at the opposite of art. In the end--perhaps the syllogism of the break between these two eras may actually be more like this: Marcel was Dada. All art is Dada and all artists are Dada--though not all artists are Dadaists. Magic is in the air--but not all artists are magicians (magi chiens.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xavier, out.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-16515967753501579482020-09-16T22:37:00.002-07:002020-09-16T22:37:40.913-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance Art #24: Pandaemic Theatre Presents: The Crimson Phantom Presents--Ghost Stories. 2020<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LClsvhXuIYU/X2L0gHJvMKI/AAAAAAAAZZY/b-_LyAFavQ4Dso7Nt9nkplPUuTVVTl7qwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/hatbox%2BXavier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LClsvhXuIYU/X2L0gHJvMKI/AAAAAAAAZZY/b-_LyAFavQ4Dso7Nt9nkplPUuTVVTl7qwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/hatbox%2BXavier.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pandaemic Theatre Presents: The Crimson Phantom Presents--Ghost Stories</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGvzQePmtS8/X2L0xczhivI/AAAAAAAAZZg/PsZ3TWBYKQQd2eIuR-U6NLbAAJr7ydbigCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Hatbox2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGvzQePmtS8/X2L0xczhivI/AAAAAAAAZZg/PsZ3TWBYKQQd2eIuR-U6NLbAAJr7ydbigCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/Hatbox2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This one really isn't performance art in the strictest sense, but rather reading a favorite story from childhood during the pandemic. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o97WdI4V3wc" width="320" youtube-src-id="o97WdI4V3wc"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pandaemic Theatre Presents: The Crimson Phantom Presents--Ghost Stories</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Roboto, Noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robert Bright Ghost Story-Music by Haunted Me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-47802984071246158732020-09-11T17:13:00.005-07:002020-09-11T17:46:08.930-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance Art # 23: Return of the Dum Dum Boy: "I'm Dying. Shortened Version for Roger Corman" 2020.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1LrleH-M-CU/X1wRlVTJZDI/AAAAAAAAZYE/LcN3_XZvEwkn7TQuZ8OE1WH1rmcYOMfYACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumdum1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1LrleH-M-CU/X1wRlVTJZDI/AAAAAAAAZYE/LcN3_XZvEwkn7TQuZ8OE1WH1rmcYOMfYACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Shorter version made for Roger Corman's Quarantine Film contest.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-csRdgmyz1x0/X1wRmVAKZmI/AAAAAAAAZYM/RJV5DPIDCVAKAr-m94du20ePNjscZDTcACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumdum2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-csRdgmyz1x0/X1wRmVAKZmI/AAAAAAAAZYM/RJV5DPIDCVAKAr-m94du20ePNjscZDTcACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ROrxAAGRC2g/X1wRmWIlLGI/AAAAAAAAZYQ/zgDM9089lOs2cFoaZ1P_zIPpnOtthCa5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumdum3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ROrxAAGRC2g/X1wRmWIlLGI/AAAAAAAAZYQ/zgDM9089lOs2cFoaZ1P_zIPpnOtthCa5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-coDKYgw0hoo/X1wRm0fr59I/AAAAAAAAZYU/u2EC0OPRebsQMj7O5cl1wNukFoQtMLqOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumdum4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-coDKYgw0hoo/X1wRm0fr59I/AAAAAAAAZYU/u2EC0OPRebsQMj7O5cl1wNukFoQtMLqOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hG_NKkZfBUo/X1wRnJF8R-I/AAAAAAAAZYY/Vapwc3JTLbMdMLffi0prh875Fn_iAFx1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hG_NKkZfBUo/X1wRnJF8R-I/AAAAAAAAZYY/Vapwc3JTLbMdMLffi0prh875Fn_iAFx1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LlbLj4qikEs/X1wRnOBx3uI/AAAAAAAAZYc/VSgwEN8oo34hd4vHxehVrETmZWu1heMCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LlbLj4qikEs/X1wRnOBx3uI/AAAAAAAAZYc/VSgwEN8oo34hd4vHxehVrETmZWu1heMCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-netIaoEBcoA/X1wRnZ2hyPI/AAAAAAAAZYg/ViePpMIo88Arb54K-kQ3tkSW_X4dxxKewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-netIaoEBcoA/X1wRnZ2hyPI/AAAAAAAAZYg/ViePpMIo88Arb54K-kQ3tkSW_X4dxxKewCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2zsbzy1ocbA/X1wRneukKqI/AAAAAAAAZYk/8yX6raw3_LI7aetu8FLkMGZX23eYiGhTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1318/dumdum8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1318" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2zsbzy1ocbA/X1wRneukKqI/AAAAAAAAZYk/8yX6raw3_LI7aetu8FLkMGZX23eYiGhTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_LqAdYTs778/X1wRntiFExI/AAAAAAAAZYo/kLsDaeBI524GvntKZdiXET2VRA-1QInWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_LqAdYTs778/X1wRntiFExI/AAAAAAAAZYo/kLsDaeBI524GvntKZdiXET2VRA-1QInWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UHYrudSqzsI/X1wRlXynDmI/AAAAAAAAZYA/LogKjC_9cFEpCHlSli57xt7n5vrvIEhhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UHYrudSqzsI/X1wRlXynDmI/AAAAAAAAZYA/LogKjC_9cFEpCHlSli57xt7n5vrvIEhhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QBXrCjrO8fI/X1wRlCmZhyI/AAAAAAAAZX8/XDLOssIvhGAx2lORp3d95Scb6inpYInjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QBXrCjrO8fI/X1wRlCmZhyI/AAAAAAAAZX8/XDLOssIvhGAx2lORp3d95Scb6inpYInjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--qDiEPmfgSo/X1wRlpUITwI/AAAAAAAAZYI/1Ie349FGPpgmBOn5q9sqjCe5jN8VLVrpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/dumdum12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="1500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--qDiEPmfgSo/X1wRlpUITwI/AAAAAAAAZYI/1Ie349FGPpgmBOn5q9sqjCe5jN8VLVrpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dumdum12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mr6drEfCu-A" width="320" youtube-src-id="mr6drEfCu-A"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Shorter version made for Roger Corman's Quarantine Film contest.</div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-85838601093996766032020-09-10T21:13:00.022-07:002020-09-11T17:14:09.467-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance Art # 22: Performance From the Foot of my bed #2: Return of the Dum Dum Boy: "I'm Dying." 2020.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YDfhhU16GNs/X1rYFxyAIRI/AAAAAAAAZTc/svrXNlNior8X4l0FY8TBSCZySpWEbNzNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2100/DumDum2020red.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="2100" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YDfhhU16GNs/X1rYFxyAIRI/AAAAAAAAZTc/svrXNlNior8X4l0FY8TBSCZySpWEbNzNQCLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h239/DumDum2020red.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps my darkest and most personal performance so far, ressurecting the DUM DUM BOY, a character from my very first performance done way back in the 90's during one of the presentation night of Robert Morrison's Sculpture Class at the University of Nevada, Reno. The Dum Dum Boy is pure ID with no superego to keep him in check. In this performance the Dum Dum Boy expresses the fear that we are all undergoing at this point in time.</div> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WwCyb_pqPYs/X1rn0yLDwtI/AAAAAAAAZUA/wd43Ciqy3tEkbhdl4bgE_aBljtNQ-UfBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/61.%2Bxlj107.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1275" data-original-width="2048" height="249" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WwCyb_pqPYs/X1rn0yLDwtI/AAAAAAAAZUA/wd43Ciqy3tEkbhdl4bgE_aBljtNQ-UfBgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h249/61.%2Bxlj107.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">I know that I had been reading about Gilbert and George and I'm pretty sure that I had discovered Joseph Beuys by this point. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PUpHE0w__Ko/X1rvPJVqinI/AAAAAAAAZV4/OzoSRHlq1iEw3ZsWUzLPiTZDLGR69pOiwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/56.%2Bxlj126.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1344" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PUpHE0w__Ko/X1rvPJVqinI/AAAAAAAAZV4/OzoSRHlq1iEw3ZsWUzLPiTZDLGR69pOiwCLcBGAsYHQ/w329-h500/56.%2Bxlj126.jpg" width="329" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Joseph Beuys inspired sculpture from this same period. Artistic theory, especially of those who were influenced by Marcel Duchamp was flowing through my work at this point, experimenting more and more with how to express my ideas through language, sculpture and performance!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GDTVwAlwpIQ/X1rwFtYRjaI/AAAAAAAAZWA/TJj4cQKJZ-gP09CPPIWnMrUTRhw_PpWogCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/50.%2Bxlj112.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1427" data-original-width="2048" height="279" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GDTVwAlwpIQ/X1rwFtYRjaI/AAAAAAAAZWA/TJj4cQKJZ-gP09CPPIWnMrUTRhw_PpWogCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h279/50.%2Bxlj112.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This sculpture, I think it was called St. George and the Dragon: Christ and Satan, included references to Disney films and a painting lifted from a Gilbert and George book I had at the time. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHpokLhI9jI/X1roF_m3L8I/AAAAAAAAZUI/taOv0w7mxos-YYDM4564H72_jAeW-I2zACLcBGAsYHQ/s1256/dumdumboy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1256" data-original-width="916" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHpokLhI9jI/X1roF_m3L8I/AAAAAAAAZUI/taOv0w7mxos-YYDM4564H72_jAeW-I2zACLcBGAsYHQ/w364-h500/dumdumboy.jpg" width="364" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This drawing showed plans I have since the 2000's to reintroduce the Dum Dum Boy into my performances. This one included trying to find a mask that approximated the one that I used at UNR, but which got destroyed making a sculpture in graduate school at UC Davis. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fowL2axlMmw/X1rxyMC7nWI/AAAAAAAAZWM/s6N8x4Nm9RoiFtyubDLod-5n43TZ-vkbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/72.%2Bxlj036.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1329" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fowL2axlMmw/X1rxyMC7nWI/AAAAAAAAZWM/s6N8x4Nm9RoiFtyubDLod-5n43TZ-vkbgCLcBGAsYHQ/w325-h500/72.%2Bxlj036.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The original mask from the Dum Dum Boy performance in 1991/2, was turned into this standing sculpture in graduate school. </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LX444mrSdcM/X1roTfBDmOI/AAAAAAAAZUM/RSJDFCuZB0khWkdFVEA3FuRfYt3CkFwjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DUMDUMBOY2006.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2025" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LX444mrSdcM/X1roTfBDmOI/AAAAAAAAZUM/RSJDFCuZB0khWkdFVEA3FuRfYt3CkFwjQCLcBGAsYHQ/w395-h400/DUMDUMBOY2006.jpg" width="395" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This proposal for an especially embarrasing moment for the Dum Dum Boy has yet to be performed.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XwqgS6VSQno/X1rof9GKH9I/AAAAAAAAZUU/wAAUAHYNsuAtErtDqhEELpQxaF2Uw_wRgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumlogo2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1590" data-original-width="2048" height="310" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XwqgS6VSQno/X1rof9GKH9I/AAAAAAAAZUU/wAAUAHYNsuAtErtDqhEELpQxaF2Uw_wRgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h310/dumlogo2.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Logo for the Dum Dum Boy 1992/2020.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6-FdXR2rnyo/X1rop_h1TGI/AAAAAAAAZUc/PBEg9EgaglAC3Z8gcZmwKPqXG9jHiTOKwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/book_dyslexic%2Bdum-20-0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1582" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6-FdXR2rnyo/X1rop_h1TGI/AAAAAAAAZUc/PBEg9EgaglAC3Z8gcZmwKPqXG9jHiTOKwCLcBGAsYHQ/w386-h500/book_dyslexic%2Bdum-20-0.jpg" width="386" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Poster for Installation at UNR from April 1995.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCJ6v4v9ty8/X1rpCfTy8SI/AAAAAAAAZUo/vXNC73sGbFcBW5s1aug4ELorEfAdVx9owCLcBGAsYHQ/s2680/Dum_Dum%2BBoy20201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2680" data-original-width="1174" height="781" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCJ6v4v9ty8/X1rpCfTy8SI/AAAAAAAAZUo/vXNC73sGbFcBW5s1aug4ELorEfAdVx9owCLcBGAsYHQ/w343-h781/Dum_Dum%2BBoy20201.jpg" width="343" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Comparison between 1992 and 2020 Dum Dums.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0LOwOaEbYuU/X1rpctkwj8I/AAAAAAAAZUw/s_c_2G7qziEbmqyTDyuAiIP-V_ZBxO3hwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumdum2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="281" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0LOwOaEbYuU/X1rpctkwj8I/AAAAAAAAZUw/s_c_2G7qziEbmqyTDyuAiIP-V_ZBxO3hwCLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h281/dumdum2020.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Alternate, unmasked Dum Dum Boy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-56QC9h7jUyc/X1rpkuYgPSI/AAAAAAAAZU0/iwl8QthiIgwoVTG6YrpQQ8rFJyxPVSyWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2799/DUMDUM%2BBOY%2B2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2799" data-original-width="1123" height="781" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-56QC9h7jUyc/X1rpkuYgPSI/AAAAAAAAZU0/iwl8QthiIgwoVTG6YrpQQ8rFJyxPVSyWQCLcBGAsYHQ/w313-h781/DUMDUM%2BBOY%2B2020.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Standing Dum Dum Boy 2020.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YEmeTtXKdGE/X1rpvXkoxkI/AAAAAAAAZU8/0jXhTrr8lcE7daI7AIbb8ZFddCTXhsHgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dumdumboy2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1425" height="500" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YEmeTtXKdGE/X1rpvXkoxkI/AAAAAAAAZU8/0jXhTrr8lcE7daI7AIbb8ZFddCTXhsHgwCLcBGAsYHQ/w349-h500/dumdumboy2020.jpg" width="349" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Close-up of Dum Dum Boy version 1 2020.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vZk4GcbbJUY/X1rp4279-nI/AAAAAAAAZVE/MsyjzpE6JHwyCYU87DqYpZ2tGZHCgs4CQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2100/DumDum2020red.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="2100" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vZk4GcbbJUY/X1rp4279-nI/AAAAAAAAZVE/MsyjzpE6JHwyCYU87DqYpZ2tGZHCgs4CQCLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h239/DumDum2020red.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Scene from Performance From the Foot of my bed #2: Return of the Dum Dum Boy: "I'm Dying."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-yBMHHNhxA/X1rqN4jzofI/AAAAAAAAZVU/md3rvUBKihESFWM6rbmaP0xETgcIe3CSACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DumDumscary.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="281" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K-yBMHHNhxA/X1rqN4jzofI/AAAAAAAAZVU/md3rvUBKihESFWM6rbmaP0xETgcIe3CSACLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h281/DumDumscary.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">Scene from Performance From the Foot of my bed #2: Return of the Dum Dum Boy: "I'm Dying."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gewGIK8lccQ/X1rqVjyM2jI/AAAAAAAAZVc/nlbxPazV2XkngRYK73Tu-tgaLy1Yp5BAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ghost_sheeted.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1150" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gewGIK8lccQ/X1rqVjyM2jI/AAAAAAAAZVc/nlbxPazV2XkngRYK73Tu-tgaLy1Yp5BAQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/ghost_sheeted.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Planning notes for 2020 performance.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_rBQ3gvBeBQ/X1rqfj3kSwI/AAAAAAAAZVg/2PormyX8VFMXmPARF-4Ae6e_r-5DcAVwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/MX-2616N_20190305_174712.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_rBQ3gvBeBQ/X1rqfj3kSwI/AAAAAAAAZVg/2PormyX8VFMXmPARF-4Ae6e_r-5DcAVwgCLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h266/MX-2616N_20190305_174712.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Like many performances this one ended up being a mix of more than one idea. In this case the Dum Dum Boy mixed with another performance "I'm Dying," in which I was to repeat those words over and over, but which initially had nothing to do with the Dum Dum Boy. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kp2P6yiylVw" width="320" youtube-src-id="Kp2P6yiylVw"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)" face="Roboto, Noto, sans-serif" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Performance From the Foot of my bed #2: Return of the Dum Dum Boy: "I'm Dying."</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-39508278425854183892020-09-07T09:35:00.012-07:002020-09-10T18:15:37.736-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #21C: Part 3 - Oracion Al Borde del Apocalipsis (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse.) 2019. Featuring Christina Montilla.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzx4VH3_y9Q/X1hhJ-Yo1rI/AAAAAAAAZTM/r7NxMrcJNS8UkdpnOGQC_NxPdvSPBzjDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/desktop1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzx4VH3_y9Q/X1hhJ-Yo1rI/AAAAAAAAZTM/r7NxMrcJNS8UkdpnOGQC_NxPdvSPBzjDgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/desktop1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Performance at King Street Station: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Gus was a Mexican Ghost/Ghost Walk/Prayer at the Edge of the Apocvalypse </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">December 5th, 2019</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qXbPq2fkepY/X1ZbBw6gADI/AAAAAAAAZNs/GZu8nGfX7lU209HgyfODeyl9jQr1ghNgACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191206_022701.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1762" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qXbPq2fkepY/X1ZbBw6gADI/AAAAAAAAZNs/GZu8nGfX7lU209HgyfODeyl9jQr1ghNgACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20191206_022701.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The performance “Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis” ( Prayer at the Edge of the Apocalypse) begins with a pre-performance piece entitled “Gus Was a Mexican Ghost,” which is a children’s book from the 1970’s about a ghost, who goes to Mexico. The book was one of my favorites as a child. This performance is an extended prayer for all of those that have migrated to this country or whose descendants travelled to these lands from somewhere else, which is to say everyone but this land’s indigenous peoples—everyone else is a guest here. This is a performance that deals directly with the looming threat that many immigrants to our country and perhaps all “people of colors” (my term, chosen because it speaks to all the different colors that we are,) feel acutely, today, in the “land of the free.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bB8Ty79Nsxk/X1ZbO1gIwNI/AAAAAAAAZNw/BHLzadIqHFo8KWR2P96hUfJDz6__eVhlACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawling.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1533" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bB8Ty79Nsxk/X1ZbO1gIwNI/AAAAAAAAZNw/BHLzadIqHFo8KWR2P96hUfJDz6__eVhlACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/crawling.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xavier Lopez is a contemporary, Latino/x, conceptual, mixed media artist. Lopez received his MFA from the University of California, Davis, where he created the theoretical/artistic thesis of the "Soft Cyborg" and the Latinx artistic form of “Putoh,” which takes Butoh as its inspiration. As a "Post-Pop Artist," he is part of a young group of artists who are seeking to move beyond contemporary mainstream ideas, becoming post genre, mixing sculpture, performance art, theory, painting and anything else they can get their hands on to create something exciting and new. In 2016, allied with La Sala--a leading Latino Arts organization in Seattle, Washington, Xavier Lopez and Lauren Davis put together the very first Latinx Performance Art Festival. (The sequel is planned for June 2020, here at King Street Station.) In 2017, Xavier Lopez was cited in the Routledge critical theoretical textbook "Performance; A Critical Introduction--by Marvin Carlson, Third Edition, as a leading voice in the Latinx Performance Art movement, something for which he is extremely proud. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8nKcCqUV48Y/X1gBPGYpp2I/AAAAAAAAZPM/YyoOdNf9GgE1Vv69loQkIbFty5IPdl-owCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawling2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8nKcCqUV48Y/X1gBPGYpp2I/AAAAAAAAZPM/YyoOdNf9GgE1Vv69loQkIbFty5IPdl-owCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawling2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez is part of a new breed of Latinx artists for whom art-making, while still personal and autobiographical in the broadest sense, eschews the obvious tropes of masculinity, hegemony and race with very little regard for the overbearing visual, cultural history that has proven to be overpowering for so many artists of this age. Instead, as an Hispanic artist, it has become clear to Lopez over the course of his thirty-plus year career that his work has focused on a more personal kind of conceptualism, centering on autobiography and his own set of obsessions, hopes and fears.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3M4Z1Jv1b5c/X1gD6PbN4MI/AAAAAAAAZPg/2jPWDT6yEisDUOwtY4nq2gR4Wvi1xBVCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawl3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3M4Z1Jv1b5c/X1gD6PbN4MI/AAAAAAAAZPg/2jPWDT6yEisDUOwtY4nq2gR4Wvi1xBVCwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawl3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez has shown artwork on both American coasts as well as in Germany, England and France, and he has come to be known for his own brand of lush, conceptual, post post-modern sculpture, especially his "sheet ghost" installations, flower Rorschachs, tin foil mountains and performance art.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2MXoQ7weQnw/X1gHCsykJLI/AAAAAAAAZP4/kHaflxUNj0M7jhuDGTUYumU_3Ae8SFA8ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2653/crawl6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="2653" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2MXoQ7weQnw/X1gHCsykJLI/AAAAAAAAZP4/kHaflxUNj0M7jhuDGTUYumU_3Ae8SFA8ACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h179/crawl6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a child in the seventies, before Lopez even knew what art was, his father was in the Chicano Art Movement in Los Angeles and the younger Lopez would tag along to the "Mechicano" Art Centers of Southern California mentally devouring the exciting scenes of Chicano artists making political and historical work, expressing first-hand what it meant to be a "Chicano" in the seventies. Days would pass as he watched his father paint murals, all the while, day-dreaming of his own future. Lopez' parents often took their three children to the Los Angeles Museum of Art, where he saw Warhol's Brillo Boxes, his first conceptual sculptures and Joseph Beuys’ performances.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPPDrxiYuyQ/X1gIAZH67-I/AAAAAAAAZQA/0mcf9xUDvw8f8GoVepNP2OOR8vQR95t6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawl%2B7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UPPDrxiYuyQ/X1gIAZH67-I/AAAAAAAAZQA/0mcf9xUDvw8f8GoVepNP2OOR8vQR95t6wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawl%2B7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>It was also at university that he began to notice a big difference between how his heroes made art and how he was expected to make art. When a Duchamp or a Beuys made their work it was about ideas, it was about their ideas and it reflected the way that they saw the world. With this realization, Lopez decided that he would take a stand and make art that came from his own personal experiences, that he would make work that was unique to his own, singular viewpoint and that above all else it would be art that was about ideas. From then on Lopez sought to make his own way as an individual artist, seeking to express his own view of the universe and to speak of his own personal issues, obsessions and desires. This has become a very important stance of liberation, which in and of itself is powerful and revolutionary.<div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I9LeQ1tGgXY/X1gJLyujVqI/AAAAAAAAZQM/mHmDrA7Txp8SRKjEwROkJPTq2pnbAfWvwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawl%2B8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1516" data-original-width="2048" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I9LeQ1tGgXY/X1gJLyujVqI/AAAAAAAAZQM/mHmDrA7Txp8SRKjEwROkJPTq2pnbAfWvwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h296/crawl%2B8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez career is a journey and a complex intellectual investigation--at the same time, however, it is not a refutation of difference, history or culture--as that is also a very important part of Lopez' (hi(s)tory--rather, Lopez work is about those areas where we come together, aware that we are not post-race and that his work is not either.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IH7LG8nZkSg/X1gKECV0bHI/AAAAAAAAZQU/d_tcdPOypOkCK1TkAYJ_D3VqB0W34NQHACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawwl%2B9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IH7LG8nZkSg/X1gKECV0bHI/AAAAAAAAZQU/d_tcdPOypOkCK1TkAYJ_D3VqB0W34NQHACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawwl%2B9.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As an artist, Lopez' career has been multivalent, mixing sculpture, performance art, theory and painting, creating a body of work that is experimental and fierce--with the power of a slap to the back of the head. Lopez has been part of several high-profile art events at the Seattle Art Museum, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts & Culture and most recently he has worked with the Seattle LatinX organization "La Sala" for their "La Cocina" project where he put together and performed in the first ever night of all LatinX performance art. He is a recipient of the prestigious 2016 Artist Up Grant Lab Award as well as several other grants, fellowships and commissions from various American cities.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3wznCJ6eBaY/X1gLFVbkcnI/AAAAAAAAZQg/XCktZEear1M2KxR0_YIailxiwfKUW-3qwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/crawl10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3wznCJ6eBaY/X1gLFVbkcnI/AAAAAAAAZQg/XCktZEear1M2KxR0_YIailxiwfKUW-3qwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawl10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Xavier Lopez Jr. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Music by D. Alexis Lopez </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Featuring Christina Montilla</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LPlUrfS3bKQ/X1gN_DhIhHI/AAAAAAAAZQ0/kUwGzM7T7HovzPBx_9T56EE6K2nQpU7xgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/gnossiene1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1692" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LPlUrfS3bKQ/X1gN_DhIhHI/AAAAAAAAZQ0/kUwGzM7T7HovzPBx_9T56EE6K2nQpU7xgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/gnossiene1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br />Performance: December 5th 2019 <br /><br />3:00 Xavier arrives at the space to make sure everything is fine, to do soundcheck, etc. <br /><br />5:00 Alexis and Christina arrive <br /><br />6:00 pre-show set-up begins—we bring out props, etc.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7VkX5UCoTHQ/X1gPjMuCXwI/AAAAAAAAZRA/47HYtMO2uFA0Xlr8czQWwOh3jREvDkpWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawl11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7VkX5UCoTHQ/X1gPjMuCXwI/AAAAAAAAZRA/47HYtMO2uFA0Xlr8czQWwOh3jREvDkpWQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawl11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">6:45 Xavier and Christina walk to their stages, both dressed as ghosts. Christina is dressed as a pink ghost carrying the children’s book, “Gus was a Mexican Ghost.” She walks up very slowly to the chair/rocking chair and sits down and rocks slowly back and forth, whispering undiscernible words that sound like the remnants of memories gone by—every once in a while you can make out the words “Agelito de mi guarda, de mi dulce compania.”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_0XrzDena1U/X1hWYAkMpHI/AAAAAAAAZRY/z1x0-hTE4gETBP-qNgc8_qmvCrmgPdZfACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawl17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_0XrzDena1U/X1hWYAkMpHI/AAAAAAAAZRY/z1x0-hTE4gETBP-qNgc8_qmvCrmgPdZfACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/crawl17.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br />At the same time, I walk up to the second stage space surrounded by luggage and begin to play with toys—the scene is very reminiscent of a mother and child enjoying time together. <br /><br />7:00-7:05 Alexis’ music begins and I put away the toys and tie the luggage together and carry them over my shoulder and Christina picks up the rocking chair and slowly walks toward the green room.<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzDCoIzt9Wk/X1hUDwrGu6I/AAAAAAAAZRM/1bUPeCCEzDk2WouaXULf7IsXXpQ_fsb5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/crawl13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzDCoIzt9Wk/X1hUDwrGu6I/AAAAAAAAZRM/1bUPeCCEzDk2WouaXULf7IsXXpQ_fsb5ACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawl13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">7:05-7:12 The music changes and I kneel walk around the gallery space and head back to the space that was once occupied by Christina and the rocking chair—but they are gone. This whole time I have been whispering, “Angelito de mi guarda,” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jLejXt5fh-s/X1hYC8SmF1I/AAAAAAAAZRk/jquFT6MwjVoGdIoxyBrD640VBXDmRSRzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/crawl18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jLejXt5fh-s/X1hYC8SmF1I/AAAAAAAAZRk/jquFT6MwjVoGdIoxyBrD640VBXDmRSRzQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/crawl18.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">7:12-end: The music becomes a little faster, more like a chant as I pull out candles and place them in a circle around me, followed by the toys that I was playing with earlier and finally the circle/border is completed by flowers as I place each flower I am saying “Angelita de mi guarda” and slowly, more of the prayer comes out and I begin chanting it and Christina, now a part of the audience begins to chant it again and hopefully others will join us, as we approach a kind of crescendo, I begin to toss the flowers in the air, symbolically destroying the border, then collapse on the ground—the end of the performance. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kkm85b5X1a0/X1hZc0tBm8I/AAAAAAAAZRw/_q70ZSVVuYczjAxp0nDECe6iO7LBs8MUACLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/flowers1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kkm85b5X1a0/X1hZc0tBm8I/AAAAAAAAZRw/_q70ZSVVuYczjAxp0nDECe6iO7LBs8MUACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/flowers1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Performance at King Street Station: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Gus/Ghost Walk/Prayer </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">December 5th, 2019</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2_BsK-yEmI/X1hal-_ZULI/AAAAAAAAZR4/CkkPQmpJRFs3KjiAWo_JjXaS1y8JtV1SgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/flowers2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2_BsK-yEmI/X1hal-_ZULI/AAAAAAAAZR4/CkkPQmpJRFs3KjiAWo_JjXaS1y8JtV1SgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/flowers2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The performance “Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis” ( Prayer at the Edge of the Apocalypse) begins with a pre-performance piece entitled “Gus Was a Mexican Ghost,” which is a children’s book from the 1970’s about a ghost in a sheet, who goes to Mexico and then believes that he can become a “Mexican Ghost” simply by adopting the clothes and customs of Mexico. The book was one of my favorites as a child, though, it is, of course a good-natured, liberal attempt at inclusivity, which fails due to unperceived biases and invisible assumptions arising from the author’s own position of privilege. But for this performance the audience need only understand that there is only one way for a Mexican to become a ghost. This is a piece that deals directly with the looming threat that many immigrants to our country and perhaps all people of colors (my term, chosen because it speaks to all the different colors that we are, and takes away the primacy of white vs. all else,) who live in America are being threatened with today in the “land of the free.”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iJE2DXE1hJA/X1hbQzu9SnI/AAAAAAAAZSE/7KeflMg4uBsdKQzJr8Z4JsT3tXCFxqrCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/flowers3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iJE2DXE1hJA/X1hbQzu9SnI/AAAAAAAAZSE/7KeflMg4uBsdKQzJr8Z4JsT3tXCFxqrCgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/flowers3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>In this pre-performance—I walk out half-an-hour before the main performance to a pre-chosen spot of the KSS will already have a rocking chair and two pieces of luggage. I sit in the rocking chair reading the book until, the house lights go down… <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NjESqDc7qGM/X1hcfwRmCAI/AAAAAAAAZSM/i47bmtTMkXcKhiUdoMImbSLZ6o93DlZOACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/throw1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NjESqDc7qGM/X1hcfwRmCAI/AAAAAAAAZSM/i47bmtTMkXcKhiUdoMImbSLZ6o93DlZOACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/throw1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ghost Walk:… and a musical piece created by my brother comes on, creating a theatrical space. I put down the book, pick up the two pieces of luggage and walk the perimeter of the space-this is the second part of the performance, entitled “Ghost Walk.” This segment is dedicated to and refers to all those that have come to our country, seeking the promise of safety, security and freedom, carrying everything they own with them, braving all of their fears, filled with hope and promise.</div></div><div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FoAsKBFH0Bw/X1hcqUSrQdI/AAAAAAAAZSQ/9ns6LlQknpsBNgE7TjUqFk9q6sEs13KJACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/throw2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1703" data-original-width="2048" height="333" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FoAsKBFH0Bw/X1hcqUSrQdI/AAAAAAAAZSQ/9ns6LlQknpsBNgE7TjUqFk9q6sEs13KJACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h333/throw2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Prayer: At a predetermined spot, easily watched by everyone, the prayer begins. Symbolizing the prison that many have been placed into under the Trump administration, I, still dressed as a ghost, open up the two containers filled with candles, flowers and toys and create a border around me. The performance ends when I kneel in the middle of the circle and say a silent prayer based on the prayers that my mother taught me in Spanish and English when I was a small child.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2ZWgfDEqehY/X1hdiVnxM1I/AAAAAAAAZSc/EXE8C7zoFyQDYSbpgMUAa0W6tdEQNaq0wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/throw3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2ZWgfDEqehY/X1hdiVnxM1I/AAAAAAAAZSc/EXE8C7zoFyQDYSbpgMUAa0W6tdEQNaq0wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/throw3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What I would need from KSS, is the two spaces that will be used for performance, the ability to have someone dim the house lights during performance, someone to play the pre-recorded music, created by my brother to be put on CD (either overhead through KSS speakers or I have stereo players) and the okay to light up 14 candles on bases to represent the 14 States in America that are holding 10,000 immigrant children in 100 shelters.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cgbboH5Y3NA/X1hePyZmitI/AAAAAAAAZSo/x6p_2QS1leAgxADTkpssKZBuB8YWVA4ywCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/end1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cgbboH5Y3NA/X1hePyZmitI/AAAAAAAAZSo/x6p_2QS1leAgxADTkpssKZBuB8YWVA4ywCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/end1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br />For the pre <br />Description of entire : <br />Pre-performance: Gus was a Mexican Ghost <br />Materials <br />Ghost costume, 2 pieces of luggage <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MobWMjoRUTA/X1hez83iW-I/AAAAAAAAZSw/j8uy2QrcDmYUGrqp1bzG_07vCsHELkmZACLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/thing1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MobWMjoRUTA/X1hez83iW-I/AAAAAAAAZSw/j8uy2QrcDmYUGrqp1bzG_07vCsHELkmZACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/thing1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Performance at King Street Station: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Gus was a Mexican Ghost/Ghost Walk/Prayer at the Edge of the Apocvalypse </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">December 5th, 2019</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WQm0B4yX3Xs/X1hf0tizw2I/AAAAAAAAZS8/L4VBH7j6PvkmpMmMZoUJ0iUjr2kRjuUKACLcBGAsYHQ/s1500/thing2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WQm0B4yX3Xs/X1hf0tizw2I/AAAAAAAAZS8/L4VBH7j6PvkmpMmMZoUJ0iUjr2kRjuUKACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/thing2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xavier Lopez, Oración al Borde del Apocalipsis, December 5, 2019, Seattle, Washington</div><div style="text-align: justify;">December 7, 2019</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Alum Xavier Lopez (MFA 1998) performed “Oración al Borde del Apocalipsis” (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse) in the exhibition ”Brighter Future: To be heard. To be seen. To be free” at the ARTS at King Street Station in Seattle on December 5.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lSPriYpIGEU/X1hgYQWl-MI/AAAAAAAAZTE/9LFkcedOZ8gEZb6F8rQBsGUMjIcGcMy_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/filial.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lSPriYpIGEU/X1hgYQWl-MI/AAAAAAAAZTE/9LFkcedOZ8gEZb6F8rQBsGUMjIcGcMy_wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/filial.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez, along with fellow artist Lauren Davis, is also collaborating on the Latinx Performance Art Festival in Seattle with La Sala, a Seattle based Latino Arts organization.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-85527161414243814722020-09-06T09:30:00.026-07:002020-09-10T19:57:12.207-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #21B: Part 2 - Oracion Al Borde del Apocalipsis (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse.) 2019. Featuring Christina Montilla. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q4KMP5CYXyQ/X1UOe8ckXtI/AAAAAAAAZLw/aC1R2WuskRIu4FHG7tzKHiU06_CSZUN0wCLcBGAsYHQ/s516/USER_SCOPED_TEMP_DATA_media_upload1_1575828322528%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="516" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q4KMP5CYXyQ/X1UOe8ckXtI/AAAAAAAAZLw/aC1R2WuskRIu4FHG7tzKHiU06_CSZUN0wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/USER_SCOPED_TEMP_DATA_media_upload1_1575828322528%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>December 2019 performance at King Street Station in Seattle, WA. Starring Xavier Lopez and Christina Montilla in performance at King Street Station! — at Office of Arts & Culture Seattle.<div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hhOw6wLBBBo/X1UPbZwOpJI/AAAAAAAAZMA/0ilrs3m28oI1eaNDeDeoo31wFX6ME-r3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/duo2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1548" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hhOw6wLBBBo/X1UPbZwOpJI/AAAAAAAAZMA/0ilrs3m28oI1eaNDeDeoo31wFX6ME-r3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/duo2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div>Performance at King Street Station: </div><div><br /></div><div>Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis </div><div><br /></div><div>Gus/Ghost Walk/Prayer </div><div><br /></div><div>December 5th, 2019</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-llE9FQvshuk/X1UPr8mfupI/AAAAAAAAZMI/ltSKn8U7GeQ5FYhtsS7sR5jAyX9uqGM4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/duo3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1541" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-llE9FQvshuk/X1UPr8mfupI/AAAAAAAAZMI/ltSKn8U7GeQ5FYhtsS7sR5jAyX9uqGM4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/duo3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;">In this pre-performance—I walk out half-an-hour before the main performance to a pre-chosen spot of the KSS will already have a rocking chair and two pieces of luggage. I sit in the rocking chair reading the book until, the house lights go down…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sKs6wQImCtE/X1UP5qBiYuI/AAAAAAAAZMM/bGFoR5gVzVEE_f-1rzib-cb5DnEQceC5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/duo4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1545" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sKs6wQImCtE/X1UP5qBiYuI/AAAAAAAAZMM/bGFoR5gVzVEE_f-1rzib-cb5DnEQceC5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/duo4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Ghost Walk:… and a musical piece created by my brother comes on, creating a theatrical space. I put down the book, pick up the two pieces of luggage and walk the perimeter of the space-this is the second part of the performance, entitled “Ghost Walk.” This segment is dedicated to and refers to all those that have come to our country, seeking the promise of safety, security and freedom, carrying everything they own with them, braving all of their fears, filled with hope and promise.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CHtuORaulIg/X1UQHuXYSRI/AAAAAAAAZMU/w8UHbg1xMlwA4tcl0Bajd-Sl9nLfgYitACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/egola.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CHtuORaulIg/X1UQHuXYSRI/AAAAAAAAZMU/w8UHbg1xMlwA4tcl0Bajd-Sl9nLfgYitACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/egola.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Prayer: At a predetermined spot, easily watched by everyone, the prayer begins. Symbolizing the prison that many have been placed into under the Trump administration, I, still dressed as a ghost, open up the two containers filled with candles, flowers and toys and create a border around me. The performance ends when I kneel in the middle of the circle and say a silent prayer based on the prayers that my mother taught me in Spanish and English when I was a small child.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EDke8m4kbUo/X1UQY2-LHVI/AAAAAAAAZMg/cObR4hTiEIgA6x5DVh5zmC4wwR8WcrTwQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/payer1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1533" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EDke8m4kbUo/X1UQY2-LHVI/AAAAAAAAZMg/cObR4hTiEIgA6x5DVh5zmC4wwR8WcrTwQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/payer1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The performance “Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis” ( Prayer at the Edge of the Apocalypse) begins with a pre-performance piece entitled “Gus Was a Mexican Ghost,” which is a children’s book from the 1970’s about a ghost, who goes to Mexico. The book was one of my favorites as a child. This performance is an extended prayer for all of those that have migrated to this country or whose descendants travelled to these lands from somewhere else, which is to say everyone but this land’s indigenous peoples—everyone else is a guest here.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oKPhFTjBtTg/X1UQmy1v1eI/AAAAAAAAZMk/QecrhVFlfj8TYehBR0aTw-kWCkbln1Z6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayerred1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oKPhFTjBtTg/X1UQmy1v1eI/AAAAAAAAZMk/QecrhVFlfj8TYehBR0aTw-kWCkbln1Z6wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/prayerred1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xavier Lopez is a contemporary, Latino/x, conceptual, mixed media artist. Lopez received his MFA from the University of California, Davis, where he created the theoretical/artistic thesis of the "Soft Cyborg" and the Latinx artistic form of “Putoh,” which takes Butoh as its inspiration. As a "Post-Pop Artist," he is part of a young group of artists who are seeking to move beyond contemporary mainstream ideas, becoming post genre, mixing sculpture, performance art, theory, painting and anything else they can get their hands on to create something exciting and new. In 2016, allied with La Sala--a leading Latino Arts organization in Seattle, Washington, Xavier Lopez and Lauren Davis put together the very first Latinx Performance Art Festival. In 2017, Xavier Lopez was cited in the Routledge critical theoretical textbook "Performance; A Critical Introduction--by Marvin Carlson, Third Edition, as a leading voice in the Latinx Performance Art movement, something for which he is extremely proud.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Na2fsUMsxto/X1UQyYROk0I/AAAAAAAAZMo/4_z_6Xsg1-8pktM3oWd8xeeL9JXjRF7zACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayerred2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Na2fsUMsxto/X1UQyYROk0I/AAAAAAAAZMo/4_z_6Xsg1-8pktM3oWd8xeeL9JXjRF7zACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/prayerred2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez is part of a new breed of Latinx artists for whom art-making, while still personal and autobiographical in the broadest sense, eschews the obvious tropes of masculinity, hegemony and race with very little regard for the overbearing visual, cultural history that has proven to be overpowering for so many artists of this age. Instead, as an Hispanic artist, it has become clear to Lopez over the course of his thirty-plus year career that his work has focused on a more personal kind of conceptualism, centering on autobiography and his own set of obsessions, hopes and fears.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BiThF8Yfc4s/X1UQ-7DTO7I/AAAAAAAAZMw/EbN6p6M0B-IM-27Mn7tgElZBzUuCcItbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/packing.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1673" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BiThF8Yfc4s/X1UQ-7DTO7I/AAAAAAAAZMw/EbN6p6M0B-IM-27Mn7tgElZBzUuCcItbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/packing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez has shown artwork on both American coasts as well as in Germany, England and France, and he has come to be known for his own brand of lush, conceptual, post post-modern sculpture, especially his "sheet ghost" installations, flower Rorschachs, tin foil mountains and performance art.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vy62Xzeb5gw/X1URQag9DUI/AAAAAAAAZM8/Iuw6tZ45764Cb8XaHVQXub8rVMhyK1cJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191205_190631.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vy62Xzeb5gw/X1URQag9DUI/AAAAAAAAZM8/Iuw6tZ45764Cb8XaHVQXub8rVMhyK1cJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20191205_190631.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a child in the seventies, before Lopez even knew what art was, his father was in the Chicano Art Movement in Los Angeles and the younger Lopez would tag along to the "Mechicano" Art Centers of Southern California mentally devouring the exciting scenes of Chicano artists making political and historical work, expressing first-hand what it meant to be a "Chicano" in the seventies. Days would pass as he watched his father paint murals, all the while, day-dreaming of his own future. Lopez' parents often took their three children to the Los Angeles Museum of Art, where he saw Warhol's Brillo Boxes, his first conceptual sculptures and Joseph Beuys’ performances.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4s9STWoRx7I/X1URuOjIBWI/AAAAAAAAZNI/fVVGlVEk8_MATgzLvbr0ccZ4CQ1tNkq-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayerred3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4s9STWoRx7I/X1URuOjIBWI/AAAAAAAAZNI/fVVGlVEk8_MATgzLvbr0ccZ4CQ1tNkq-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/prayerred3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was also at university that he began to notice a big difference between how his heroes made art and how he was expected to make art. When a Duchamp or a Beuys made their work it was about ideas, it was about their ideas and it reflected the way that they saw the world. With this realization, Lopez decided that he would take a stand and make art that came from his own personal experiences, that he would make work that was unique to his own, singular viewpoint and that above all else it would be art that was about ideas. From then on Lopez sought to make his own way as an individual artist, seeking to express his own view of the universe and to speak of his own personal issues, obsessions and desires. This has become a very important stance of liberation, which in and of itself is powerful and revolutionary.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1518" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gK176oH_vq0/X1URcdho4wI/AAAAAAAAZNA/RYrmroZoOXQhldDvUqQSR5cyCvbqS5QwACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/away.jpg" style="text-align: left;" width="320" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez career is a journey and a complex intellectual investigation--at the same time, however, it is not a refutation of difference, history or culture--as that is also a very important part of Lopez' (hi(s)tory--rather, Lopez work is about those areas where we come together, aware that we are not post-race and that his work is not either.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nY5MR2HDPI4/X1URuPhg3xI/AAAAAAAAZNM/TV4G4PxUapcMIZyMXBfmq2FCL82SgQa8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayerred4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nY5MR2HDPI4/X1URuPhg3xI/AAAAAAAAZNM/TV4G4PxUapcMIZyMXBfmq2FCL82SgQa8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/prayerred4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As an artist, Lopez' career has been multivalent, mixing sculpture, performance art, theory and painting, creating a body of work that is experimental and fierce--with the power of a slap to the back of the head. Lopez has been part of several high-profile art events at the Seattle Art Museum, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts & Culture and most recently he has worked with the Seattle LatinX organization "La Sala" for their "La Cocina" project where he put together and performed in the first ever night of all LatinX performance art. He is a recipient of the prestigious 2016 Artist Up Grant Lab Award as well as several other grants, fellowships and commissions from various American cities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3qrp_H6BNts/X1URybrxN4I/AAAAAAAAZNQ/6Vk9Gyc2k-48ardW6ESTFBhxSp91ltUhgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/pull2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1542" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3qrp_H6BNts/X1URybrxN4I/AAAAAAAAZNQ/6Vk9Gyc2k-48ardW6ESTFBhxSp91ltUhgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/pull2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div>Xavier Lopez Jr. </div><div><br /></div><div>Music by D. Alexis Lopez </div><div><br /></div><div>Featuring Christina Montilla</div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uaZMnc4ZwI4/X1URzn7AJLI/AAAAAAAAZNY/BwXWTwbD38k1ZJOEZWuOKayfjO8d21dxwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/pulling.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1545" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uaZMnc4ZwI4/X1URzn7AJLI/AAAAAAAAZNY/BwXWTwbD38k1ZJOEZWuOKayfjO8d21dxwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/pulling.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: left;">Performance: December 5th 2019 </div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">3:00 Xavier arrives at the space to make sure everything is fine, to do soundcheck, etc. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">5:00 Alexis and Christina arrive </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">6:00 pre-show set-up begins—we bring out props, etc.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mrfi-Qk_sFE/X1URzdJ-KdI/AAAAAAAAZNU/8xyhbTCeACsH7DwKoOYlmD1wfD7SS-hdgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/walken1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mrfi-Qk_sFE/X1URzdJ-KdI/AAAAAAAAZNU/8xyhbTCeACsH7DwKoOYlmD1wfD7SS-hdgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/walken1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></a><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XRQBVs9LjQk/X1rnBx78JTI/AAAAAAAAZT4/SbmEgjIpr-UIl8BHouxzkUkkUy7oQdP5wCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4551" data-original-width="691" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XRQBVs9LjQk/X1rnBx78JTI/AAAAAAAAZT4/SbmEgjIpr-UIl8BHouxzkUkkUy7oQdP5wCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">6:45 Xavier and Christina walk to their stages, both dressed as ghosts. Christina is dressed as a pink ghost carrying the children’s book, “Gus was a Mexican Ghost.” She walks up very slowly to the chair/rocking chair and sits down and rocks slowly back and forth, whispering undiscernible words that sound like the remnants of memories gone by—every once in a while you can make out the words “Angelito de mi guarda, de mi dulce compania.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CZvDuhyQeKY/X1f7nhA5_vI/AAAAAAAAZOA/bSa4E-ud5ugw-lV4K1fx4py5UO69Oi00wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/crawling.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1533" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CZvDuhyQeKY/X1f7nhA5_vI/AAAAAAAAZOA/bSa4E-ud5ugw-lV4K1fx4py5UO69Oi00wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/crawling.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At the same time, I walk up to the second stage space surrounded by luggage and begin to play with toys—the scene is very reminiscent of a mother and child enjoying time together. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">7:00-7:05 Alexis’ music begins and I put away the toys and tie the luggage together and carry them over my shoulder and Christina picks up the rocking chair and slowly walks toward the green room. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">7:05-7:12 The music changes and I kneel walk around the gallery space and head back to the space that was once occupied by Christina and the rocking chair—but they are gone. This whole time I have been whispering, “Angelito de mi guarda,” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">7:12-end: The music becomes a little faster, more like a chant as I pull out candles and place them in a circle around me, followed by the toys that I was playing with earlier and finally the circle/border is completed by flowers as I place each flower I am saying “Angelita de mi guarda” and slowly, more of the prayer comes out and I begin chanting it and Christina, now a part of the audience begins to chant it again and hopefully others will join us, as we approach a kind of crescendo, I begin to toss the flowers in the air, symbolically destroying the border, then collapse on the ground—the end of the performance. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/50jBKUYfZhc" width="320" youtube-src-id="50jBKUYfZhc"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second part of performance at King Street Station. Christina Montilla and Xavier Lopez Art in performance at King Street Station! — at Office of Arts & Culture Seattle.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-80025059586981894712020-09-02T22:07:00.015-07:002020-09-02T23:42:33.620-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #21A: Part 1 - Oracion Al Borde del Apocalipsis (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse.) 2019. Featuring Christina Montilla. <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6nnx71Lb1Fs/X1CAqHORDSI/AAAAAAAAZK4/JyvrrM3UKIUJRXbAoPznWWZX30Jyt5MwACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/2ghosts.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="307" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6nnx71Lb1Fs/X1CAqHORDSI/AAAAAAAAZK4/JyvrrM3UKIUJRXbAoPznWWZX30Jyt5MwACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h307/2ghosts.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">December 2019 performance at King Street Station in Seattle, WA. Starring Xavier Lopez and Christina Montilla in performance at King Street Station! — at Office of Arts & Culture Seattle.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dk6NnEzb6Cg/X1BbYruBdmI/AAAAAAAAZI0/MsL6BToKnm4aLETkFITBMATMcsJFqaBYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/cats.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1407" data-original-width="2048" height="282" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dk6NnEzb6Cg/X1BbYruBdmI/AAAAAAAAZI0/MsL6BToKnm4aLETkFITBMATMcsJFqaBYwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h282/cats.jpg" width="410" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Performance at King Street Station: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Gus/Ghost Walk/Prayer </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">December 5th, 2019</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXqQUlc8HMk/X1Bb_9kb2aI/AAAAAAAAZI8/-WbPP9Gp8WojsjsO-mBYiDfh_S6wwL2BwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191205_151039%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXqQUlc8HMk/X1Bb_9kb2aI/AAAAAAAAZI8/-WbPP9Gp8WojsjsO-mBYiDfh_S6wwL2BwCLcBGAsYHQ/w288-h512/20191205_151039%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this pre-performance—I walk out half-an-hour before the main performance to a pre-chosen spot of the KSS will already have a rocking chair and two pieces of luggage. I sit in the rocking chair reading the book until, the house lights go down…</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1o5zBhLIqL8/X1BcVy4feSI/AAAAAAAAZJE/oE6l7scYmwM7x53mR2xlRoLUCoYX9x0oQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191205_153105%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1o5zBhLIqL8/X1BcVy4feSI/AAAAAAAAZJE/oE6l7scYmwM7x53mR2xlRoLUCoYX9x0oQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20191205_153105%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ghost Walk:… and a musical piece created by my brother comes on, creating a theatrical space. I put down the book, pick up the two pieces of luggage and walk the perimeter of the space-this is the second part of the performance, entitled “Ghost Walk.” This segment is dedicated to and refers to all those that have come to our country, seeking the promise of safety, security and freedom, carrying everything they own with them, braving all of their fears, filled with hope and promise.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TcwtD-_r75I/X1Bh92IszTI/AAAAAAAAZJQ/2qeB4cwK1Ukq5VjZ4qbtMxzIrjo2s3dAACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TcwtD-_r75I/X1Bh92IszTI/AAAAAAAAZJQ/2qeB4cwK1Ukq5VjZ4qbtMxzIrjo2s3dAACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/prayer1.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Prayer: At a predetermined spot, easily watched by everyone, the prayer begins. Symbolizing the prison that many have been placed into under the Trump administration, I, still dressed as a ghost, open up the two containers filled with candles, flowers and toys and create a border around me. The performance ends when I kneel in the middle of the circle and say a silent prayer based on the prayers that my mother taught me in Spanish and English when I was a small child.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f4aLlYJ7Hmo/X1BjWTdvrBI/AAAAAAAAZJY/hvtoVkq0q_YK5hrvv1ZQed44_NLvH9Z_gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2048" height="302" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f4aLlYJ7Hmo/X1BjWTdvrBI/AAAAAAAAZJY/hvtoVkq0q_YK5hrvv1ZQed44_NLvH9Z_gCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h302/prayer2.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The performance “Oracion al Borde del Apocalipsis” ( Prayer at the Edge of the Apocalypse) begins with a pre-performance piece entitled “Gus Was a Mexican Ghost,” which is a children’s book from the 1970’s about a ghost, who goes to Mexico. The book was one of my favorites as a child. This performance is an extended prayer for all of those that have migrated to this country or whose descendants travelled to these lands from somewhere else, which is to say everyone but this land’s indigenous peoples—everyone else is a guest here. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4FrtsofieuU/X1BkunxlrvI/AAAAAAAAZJg/F1AJFUZonFYWfHbdrO3GrJBttsl3JXTDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1393" data-original-width="2048" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4FrtsofieuU/X1BkunxlrvI/AAAAAAAAZJg/F1AJFUZonFYWfHbdrO3GrJBttsl3JXTDgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h278/prayer3.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xavier Lopez is a contemporary, Latino/x, conceptual, mixed media artist. Lopez received his MFA from the University of California, Davis, where he created the theoretical/artistic thesis of the "Soft Cyborg" and the Latinx artistic form of “Putoh,” which takes Butoh as its inspiration. As a "Post-Pop Artist," he is part of a young group of artists who are seeking to move beyond contemporary mainstream ideas, becoming post genre, mixing sculpture, performance art, theory, painting and anything else they can get their hands on to create something exciting and new. In 2016, allied with La Sala--a leading Latino Arts organization in Seattle, Washington, Xavier Lopez and Lauren Davis put together the very first Latinx Performance Art Festival. In 2017, Xavier Lopez was cited in the Routledge critical theoretical textbook "Performance; A Critical Introduction--by Marvin Carlson, Third Edition, as a leading voice in the Latinx Performance Art movement, something for which he is extremely proud.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w7yt7-fGRyU/X1Bm6OkMKKI/AAAAAAAAZJs/mNiEv0gY1H0Oi_xX8VAkOiVDVeCMQodzACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w7yt7-fGRyU/X1Bm6OkMKKI/AAAAAAAAZJs/mNiEv0gY1H0Oi_xX8VAkOiVDVeCMQodzACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/prayer4.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez is part of a new breed of Latinx artists for whom art-making, while still personal and autobiographical in the broadest sense, eschews the obvious tropes of masculinity, hegemony and race with very little regard for the overbearing visual, cultural history that has proven to be overpowering for so many artists of this age. Instead, as an Hispanic artist, it has become clear to Lopez over the course of his thirty-plus year career that his work has focused on a more personal kind of conceptualism, centering on autobiography and his own set of obsessions, hopes and fears.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hOIh3to2mRE/X1B2TJRkx-I/AAAAAAAAZJ4/pbHhri0fEPwTlTrKZdrisVe9sam-jEeuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer2.5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1535" data-original-width="2048" height="307" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hOIh3to2mRE/X1B2TJRkx-I/AAAAAAAAZJ4/pbHhri0fEPwTlTrKZdrisVe9sam-jEeuwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h307/prayer2.5.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez has shown artwork on both American coasts as well as in Germany, England and France, and he has come to be known for his own brand of lush, conceptual, post post-modern sculpture, especially his "sheet ghost" installations, flower Rorschachs, tin foil mountains and performance art.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7z2lWL-wnfM/X1B5-YEiGuI/AAAAAAAAZKE/SEeZgPXGyqMdaa0bebxSj0HwtK6-l59KQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="2048" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7z2lWL-wnfM/X1B5-YEiGuI/AAAAAAAAZKE/SEeZgPXGyqMdaa0bebxSj0HwtK6-l59KQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h208/prayer7.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a child in the seventies, before Lopez even knew what art was, his father was in the Chicano Art Movement in Los Angeles and the younger Lopez would tag along to the "Mechicano" Art Centers of Southern California mentally devouring the exciting scenes of Chicano artists making political and historical work, expressing first-hand what it meant to be a "Chicano" in the seventies. Days would pass as he watched his father paint murals, all the while, day-dreaming of his own future. Lopez' parents often took their three children to the Los Angeles Museum of Art, where he saw Warhol's Brillo Boxes, his first conceptual sculptures and Joseph Beuys’ performances.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N-Gcmq96Rkg/X1B7XqQwkxI/AAAAAAAAZKM/MYoFrlz33OYE3LhiF7CoFnzXGlysk9tsQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="2048" height="232" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N-Gcmq96Rkg/X1B7XqQwkxI/AAAAAAAAZKM/MYoFrlz33OYE3LhiF7CoFnzXGlysk9tsQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h232/prayer8.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was also at university that he began to notice a big difference between how his heroes made art and how he was expected to make art. When a Duchamp or a Beuys made their work it was about ideas, it was about their ideas and it reflected the way that they saw the world. With this realization, Lopez decided that he would take a stand and make art that came from his own personal experiences, that he would make work that was unique to his own, singular viewpoint and that above all else it would be art that was about ideas. From then on Lopez sought to make his own way as an individual artist, seeking to express his own view of the universe and to speak of his own personal issues, obsessions and desires. This has become a very important stance of liberation, which in and of itself is powerful and revolutionary.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C6zTkxlFbew/X1B9Ya6V21I/AAAAAAAAZKc/4_wbHL97nHIgJ_AUfnhI_d_0b2n5muK1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C6zTkxlFbew/X1B9Ya6V21I/AAAAAAAAZKc/4_wbHL97nHIgJ_AUfnhI_d_0b2n5muK1wCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/prayer9.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lopez career is a journey and a complex intellectual investigation--at the same time, however, it is not a refutation of difference, history or culture--as that is also a very important part of Lopez' (hi(s)tory--rather, Lopez work is about those areas where we come together, aware that we are not post-race and that his work is not either.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qeiqt0xmxTY/X1B-q3ADh0I/AAAAAAAAZKk/f2SWq0xSySUQ2HNGwJ1RSfDS4kH_fdVjACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="2048" height="231" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qeiqt0xmxTY/X1B-q3ADh0I/AAAAAAAAZKk/f2SWq0xSySUQ2HNGwJ1RSfDS4kH_fdVjACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h231/prayer10.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As an artist, Lopez' career has been multivalent, mixing sculpture, performance art, theory and painting, creating a body of work that is experimental and fierce--with the power of a slap to the back of the head. Lopez has been part of several high-profile art events at the Seattle Art Museum, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts & Culture and most recently he has worked with the Seattle LatinX organization "La Sala" for their "La Cocina" project where he put together and performed in the first ever night of all LatinX performance art. He is a recipient of the prestigious 2016 Artist Up Grant Lab Award as well as several other grants, fellowships and commissions from various American cities.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--STWshNGSGw/X1CAaWYXCjI/AAAAAAAAZKw/GSM-cEp3M6s5vtHJ-yaKsTILkuLycNC5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1163" data-original-width="2048" height="232" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--STWshNGSGw/X1CAaWYXCjI/AAAAAAAAZKw/GSM-cEp3M6s5vtHJ-yaKsTILkuLycNC5gCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h232/prayer11.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Xavier Lopez Jr. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Music by D. Alexis Lopez </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Featuring Christina Montilla</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zEnzYFK9Was/X1CDOfxLTeI/AAAAAAAAZLE/rnaIglQxF4sCJ2m23gd4_i9sA2xVBMrKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/prayer12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1141" data-original-width="2048" height="229" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zEnzYFK9Was/X1CDOfxLTeI/AAAAAAAAZLE/rnaIglQxF4sCJ2m23gd4_i9sA2xVBMrKgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h229/prayer12.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Performance: December 5th 2019 </div><br />3:00 Xavier arrives at the space to make sure everything is fine, to do soundcheck, etc. <br /><br />5:00 Alexis and Christina arrive <br /><br />6:00 pre-show set-up begins—we bring out props, etc. <br /><br />6:45 Xavier and Christina walk to their stages, both dressed as ghosts. Christina is dressed as a pink ghost carrying the children’s book, “Gus was a Mexican Ghost.” She walks up very slowly to the chair/rocking chair and sits down and rocks slowly back and forth, whispering undiscernible words that sound like the remnants of memories gone by—every once in a while you can make out the words “Agelito de mi guarda, de mi dulce compania.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />At the same time, I walk up to the second stage space surrounded by luggage and begin to play with toys—the scene is very reminiscent of a mother and child enjoying time together. <br /><br />7:00-7:05 Alexis’ music begins and I put away the toys and tie the luggage together and carry them over my shoulder and Christina picks up the rocking chair and slowly walks toward the green room. <br /><br />7:05-7:12 The music changes and I kneel walk around the gallery space and head back to the space that was once occupied by Christina and the rocking chair—but they are gone. This whole time I have been whispering, “Angelito de mi guarda,” <br /><br />7:12-end: The music becomes a little faster, more like a chant as I pull out candles and place them in a circle around me, followed by the toys that I was playing with earlier and finally the circle/border is completed by flowers as I place each flower I am saying “Angelita de mi guarda” and slowly, more of the prayer comes out and I begin chanting it and Christina, now a part of the audience begins to chant it again and hopefully others will join us, as we approach a kind of crescendo, I begin to toss the flowers in the air, symbolically destroying the border, then collapse on the ground—the end of the performance. <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xpI_L9z9pLc" width="320" youtube-src-id="xpI_L9z9pLc"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">December 2019 performance at King Street Station in Seattle, WA. Starring Xavier Lopez and Christina Montilla in performance at King Street Station! — at Office of Arts & Culture Seattle.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-59524979674231866162020-08-31T21:40:00.010-07:002020-09-01T00:12:36.331-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #21 General: Oracion Al Borde del Apocalipsis (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse.) 2019.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Er40PawvX-g/X03KwoddY6I/AAAAAAAAZG0/_-qqFEX_j0gIbMOqU0HeaDCDgs_cYASEACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/MX-2616N_20200218_140755.tif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1583" data-original-width="2048" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Er40PawvX-g/X03KwoddY6I/AAAAAAAAZG0/_-qqFEX_j0gIbMOqU0HeaDCDgs_cYASEACLcBGAsYHQ/w328-h254/MX-2616N_20200218_140755.tif" width="328" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Flyer for Oracion Al Borde del Apocalipsis (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse), front and back cover.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7S1a-UBF9as/X03LH73StwI/AAAAAAAAZG8/vCijLUjNfbMz1LCP_hz4DLz-J-iTjC0rACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/MX-2616N_20200218_140646.tif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1583" data-original-width="2048" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7S1a-UBF9as/X03LH73StwI/AAAAAAAAZG8/vCijLUjNfbMz1LCP_hz4DLz-J-iTjC0rACLcBGAsYHQ/w328-h254/MX-2616N_20200218_140646.tif" width="328" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Flyer for Oracion Al Borde del Apocalipsis (Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse), inside.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z29hUk2DpNU/X03NuHAVNvI/AAAAAAAAZHI/ht8B0wHQ6m4EtEi1v--F3XyAlg17Asy0gCLcBGAsYHQ/s864/original-image001.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="608" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z29hUk2DpNU/X03NuHAVNvI/AAAAAAAAZHI/ht8B0wHQ6m4EtEi1v--F3XyAlg17Asy0gCLcBGAsYHQ/w360-h512/original-image001.png" width="360" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The performance was part of the three-month exhibition: Brighter Future--To be heard. To be seen. To be free. I had some paintings in the exhibition, but was much more excited to have been asked to do a performance. At this point, we did not yet know about Covid, and I do remember thinking at the time that the title that I gave to the performance seemed kind of over-the-top and yet. There was a feeling that something was happening. There was a feeling that something was coming and that it wasn't good.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I knew that this piece needed to be a prayer, my favorite prayer, one in Spanish that I was taught when I was very young by my mother and remember to this day. I have also been wanting to do a crawling ghost piece, originally planned to circle the Seattle Art Museum--I still hope to do a ghost performance there sometime this year. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5I7PyzqcQU8/X03N_2Fe-JI/AAAAAAAAZHQ/-iUJeeqnTugFfwPLM3cEI4k_1W2uKRINACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191122_114221.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5I7PyzqcQU8/X03N_2Fe-JI/AAAAAAAAZHQ/-iUJeeqnTugFfwPLM3cEI4k_1W2uKRINACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20191122_114221.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">List of artists who were part of this exhibition. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9qoRDFNkkB4/X03OcVXhtkI/AAAAAAAAZHc/JhATx2WlLd0_0NGvtXvGAj6h6STLVFe-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191122_114128%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9qoRDFNkkB4/X03OcVXhtkI/AAAAAAAAZHc/JhATx2WlLd0_0NGvtXvGAj6h6STLVFe-ACLcBGAsYHQ/w288-h512/20191122_114128%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LJJ91U1jGms/X03OuI4hspI/AAAAAAAAZHo/D59SPVAntgQuIYGiAtBFdEtSCa2bnP1OgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20191122_114201%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LJJ91U1jGms/X03OuI4hspI/AAAAAAAAZHo/D59SPVAntgQuIYGiAtBFdEtSCa2bnP1OgCLcBGAsYHQ/w288-h512/20191122_114201%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-27wsXaFVKjI/X03PFl-5ImI/AAAAAAAAZHw/kWcYjqtIrN0DrKfsD2lqp85H9rxJ_9BFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20190906_135820%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-27wsXaFVKjI/X03PFl-5ImI/AAAAAAAAZHw/kWcYjqtIrN0DrKfsD2lqp85H9rxJ_9BFwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20190906_135820%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Our team for the upcoming "On The Edge: Second Latinx [erformance Art Festival, postponed, at this point, indefinitely, but actually 'til sometime in 2021. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xl2BVRgTC4Y/X03Pp7K05yI/AAAAAAAAZH8/7aMYe_PWSOUbVgfDPZsqiQv_awjAZhZdwCLcBGAsYHQ/s720/FB_IMG_1575525082968%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xl2BVRgTC4Y/X03Pp7K05yI/AAAAAAAAZH8/7aMYe_PWSOUbVgfDPZsqiQv_awjAZhZdwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/FB_IMG_1575525082968%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Photo taken before the event at the historic King Street Station. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zOjU5km1Gek/X03Py6ul9hI/AAAAAAAAZIE/jOoCAWm8uyktXOZBMeQ26SuW8f-3q9IWgCLcBGAsYHQ/s720/FB_IMG_1575525078307%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="720" height="473" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zOjU5km1Gek/X03Py6ul9hI/AAAAAAAAZIE/jOoCAWm8uyktXOZBMeQ26SuW8f-3q9IWgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h473/FB_IMG_1575525078307%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Announcement on the Arts & Culture, Seattle WA Gov page. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--6wa_1M9qaQ/X03QF_RSoeI/AAAAAAAAZIQ/3WVQDCi9efMapf0M997eTqG-j9PS3aIBwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/redghostkss1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="2048" height="218" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--6wa_1M9qaQ/X03QF_RSoeI/AAAAAAAAZIQ/3WVQDCi9efMapf0M997eTqG-j9PS3aIBwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h218/redghostkss1.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Ghost at the King Street Station.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XUejSeh_sf4/X03QSSfMFHI/AAAAAAAAZIU/Bqv6-BVDPn41TH7uMUim9z9HFWt9knMqQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/redbirge.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XUejSeh_sf4/X03QSSfMFHI/AAAAAAAAZIU/Bqv6-BVDPn41TH7uMUim9z9HFWt9knMqQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/redbirge.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Prayer at the Edge of Apocalypse is a continuation of the sheet ghost performances and sculptures that began in the 80's. </div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-10783284757018247232020-08-31T19:45:00.018-07:002020-08-31T20:32:34.754-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance # 20: Masking Tape. 2019.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CFI28ue_RRw/X02vqqKO5NI/AAAAAAAAZF4/vYvCI7f-OlUKF78HdLyjcL-r7IQCxALPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20190621_123152.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CFI28ue_RRw/X02vqqKO5NI/AAAAAAAAZF4/vYvCI7f-OlUKF78HdLyjcL-r7IQCxALPQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20190621_123152.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Performance: Masking Tape (2019).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making a mask out of masking tape, what could be more natural. This performance marks the beginning of the Dematerialization/Denial/Disintegration series of works. I am at the beginning of this series and excited to see as it progresses.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sAzAEcfwB-k/X021rFyPP8I/AAAAAAAAZGQ/TNYL45DzrRUOXMZJyPaAeM45gLXPsR8lQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/titlemaskingtape.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sAzAEcfwB-k/X021rFyPP8I/AAAAAAAAZGQ/TNYL45DzrRUOXMZJyPaAeM45gLXPsR8lQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/titlemaskingtape.jpg" width="410" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><h2 style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid </h2><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid that it is cancer. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid this is a dream. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid my teeth are rotting </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid I need to scream. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid that it's not nice. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid that it's no good. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid the aliens are coming, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid we're all alone. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid there is no heaven </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and we're never going home. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid I have no money </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and I'm lost in all this debt. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fkDCSWRTCqg/X021V_SSGZI/AAAAAAAAZGE/3bVqBKMz9Vo9qvhZdmr3m0-xEqVkAjlFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/mask4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1572" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fkDCSWRTCqg/X021V_SSGZI/AAAAAAAAZGE/3bVqBKMz9Vo9qvhZdmr3m0-xEqVkAjlFwCLcBGAsYHQ/w393-h512/mask4.jpg" width="393" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid that we're all dying </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and it hasn't sunk in just yet. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid this diabetes </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">will take my eyesight, legs and art. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid there is no forever </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and no reason to even start. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of those who hate me </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and those that love me more. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of domestic terror, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">airborne viruses, killer wasps and war. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm especially afraid of thermonuclear devices </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and I'm afraid of Russians, Arabs and the Chinese. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">But then again, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm not half as afraid of them as I am of </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">my own government, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and this American disease. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uuIzQDae9-0/X021ho-8T9I/AAAAAAAAZGI/Rw6DccHRoqwu8AVccR2dgUqBdzyz-vNBwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/maskfinale.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uuIzQDae9-0/X021ho-8T9I/AAAAAAAAZGI/Rw6DccHRoqwu8AVccR2dgUqBdzyz-vNBwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/maskfinale.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid that this is all just a complex hologram. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of cosmic rays, solar flares and asteroids. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">of floods and hurricanes, earthquakes and famine. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and I'm afraid of the second coming, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">my parents sure as damned hell made certain of that. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of getting old. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of being hit by a car. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of flying in a plane. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">And I'm too afraid to learn to drive. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid that we're all in hell, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I mean that this is actually hell, right here and now. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dot9O_0SW48/X02123VD46I/AAAAAAAAZGY/zlwzQjAeeeUQa-nlSYGkJNi6LbEwBcGJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/mask3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="2048" height="293" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dot9O_0SW48/X02123VD46I/AAAAAAAAZGY/zlwzQjAeeeUQa-nlSYGkJNi6LbEwBcGJQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h293/mask3.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Not a personal hell, but a very real fear. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of all this honesty. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of your lies as well. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of the void </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and of disintegration </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">of becoming nothingness. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v9m21Yvrsv8/X03AwaYu8EI/AAAAAAAAZGo/2DF3w6_8qCEEeJEti-Iv2CYNx2kEuF8MACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20190621_123142.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v9m21Yvrsv8/X03AwaYu8EI/AAAAAAAAZGo/2DF3w6_8qCEEeJEti-Iv2CYNx2kEuF8MACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20190621_123142.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">And I guess, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm afraid of losing my mind, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">it seems </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and forgetting all I've ever done, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">all I've ever created, dreamed and pined for, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">of losing all the things that matter at all to me, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">the people, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">the times </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and the memories of making love </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">to you. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Of having it all go away. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">And it's a terror that I can't really understand, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">can't actually wrap my head around, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">can't really imagine... </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and the only thing that gets me through any of it </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">the only thing that makes any of this at all... </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">bearable </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">is knowing that </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I am not the only one </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">going through all of this...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">That </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">am not. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Alone.</div><div style="text-align: right;">--Xavier Lopez 2018</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n-CG2GFUAaA" width="320" youtube-src-id="n-CG2GFUAaA"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span color="" face="" style="font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><br /><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-66481202772674087272020-08-30T23:51:00.011-07:002020-08-31T00:51:59.489-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #19: Ghost Walk #1. 2019. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hxtljU_aS-c/X0yPp5bhG9I/AAAAAAAAZEQ/e0LvPny08EAYsxq3PazIATXgJIDCtu0vACLcBGAsYHQ/s1137/FB_IMG_1547913764924.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1137" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hxtljU_aS-c/X0yPp5bhG9I/AAAAAAAAZEQ/e0LvPny08EAYsxq3PazIATXgJIDCtu0vACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/FB_IMG_1547913764924.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ghost Walk #1. Directed by Xavier Lopez Jr. Videography by Girlgoth. SOUNDTRACK: Cue 1a - Sad-Beautiful-Emotive-Echo-Ghostly guitar alone (Something Broken Somewhere-Ascendent Remix) Soularflair. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-olMzrqECE5A/X0yWXI_5xRI/AAAAAAAAZEc/BHxnRfHcKP85rcaNGOwwgnmFuClq-tzYgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ghost%2Bsong%2Bcopy%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-olMzrqECE5A/X0yWXI_5xRI/AAAAAAAAZEc/BHxnRfHcKP85rcaNGOwwgnmFuClq-tzYgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/ghost%2Bsong%2Bcopy%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>I love my ghosts!<br /><br /><div><b>Me too </b><br /><br />Wait til you see the flying bear! He's huge! I feel like I am so on a roll! <br /><br /><b>What will you do with him? </b><br /><br />Many, many things. One will be a performance called Jesus Christ Sugarbear! Where he sings I'm alive by ELO! <br /><br /><b>Yes!! </b><br /><br />Another is called, I can fly and he'll be held up by strings, wearing a little red cape. That's next month. <br />I'll wear him in a few performances. And he'll also be a freestanding sculpture with a microphone stand telling stories. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CcYKIt43ZDE/X0ylEKtJ_1I/AAAAAAAAZFM/UqqLH2WYQ1keZ23UMW9TDC00m_6SBRn_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20150409_194611.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CcYKIt43ZDE/X0ylEKtJ_1I/AAAAAAAAZFM/UqqLH2WYQ1keZ23UMW9TDC00m_6SBRn_wCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/20150409_194611.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /><b>Funny! You've really got your creative juices flowing! </b><br /><br />Basically, he's me. If I was cute and cuddly and everyone immediately loved me. Me if I was a teddy bear, or even a ghost! I love the fact that I am doing all the things I was always meant to do! <br /><br /><b>Yes. That's very important! Big thoughts! You have to follow your heart and dreams! </b><br /><br />Yes ma'am! The coolest thing about conceptual art is envisioning it exactly how it turns out and purely making ideas concrete. It's closer to magic than painting. <br /><br /><b>Yeah. That's true! </b><br /><br />And it confuses people because it looks so easy--and sometimes it is really easy to make, but it ies the processes of thinking that lays underneath. <br /><br /><b>You have alot of thoughts running around in that big brain </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-px84jAIJ2Nk/X0yrkHNXG4I/AAAAAAAAZFY/aKT2-Hq1JycO5NEKivd6zkTACRqm1AIcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ghostwalk3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1099" data-original-width="2048" height="274" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-px84jAIJ2Nk/X0yrkHNXG4I/AAAAAAAAZFY/aKT2-Hq1JycO5NEKivd6zkTACRqm1AIcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h274/ghostwalk3.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><br />A bit like what lies underneath the sheet of a ghost. <br /><br />It is the temptation of looking up a woman's skirt when you are a young boy, you don't know what's up in there, but you really want to find out. <br /><br /><b>Haha..good way to put it </b><br /><br />That's the attraction of the ghost, a mystery, a terror and a desire at the same time. <br /><br /><b>It will be interesting to see people's reactions. </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kcoCK3PhNh8/X0ysA1mOWTI/AAAAAAAAZFg/-tg47YK2qPMgVvWk5tB3cah8103Al033gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Closerunder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1094" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kcoCK3PhNh8/X0ysA1mOWTI/AAAAAAAAZFg/-tg47YK2qPMgVvWk5tB3cah8103Al033gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Closerunder.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><br />I wonder if they will give it the time, mentally, or whether they will just stay with their immediate reaction. I like the way that these sculptures are also truly pop. But also take things into conceptual territory. A mix of high and low. Like Banksy at his best. <br /><br /><b>I like that you are truly engaged with your pieces, and invoke responses. </b><br /><br />Thank you, I really see them as forms of communication. But I have always hated just telling stories, I'm more interested in sharing ideas. <br /><br /><b>Mr Lopez, what do you feel are barriers to the type of art you like to make? </b><br /><br />At this point I don't actually see any barriers, what do you mean? <br /><br /><b>I wasn't sure if you had any ideas floating around that you cannot make come to fruition at the moment.. Be it financial, or the Seattle Art scene, etc..</b><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BmK3tc4Hx-U/X0yYAgiSfEI/AAAAAAAAZEo/edsJYr39M6oyVxuYr6R6DeYPYMY4014nACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/FB_IMG_1547913775814.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BmK3tc4Hx-U/X0yYAgiSfEI/AAAAAAAAZEo/edsJYr39M6oyVxuYr6R6DeYPYMY4014nACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h384/FB_IMG_1547913775814.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the last twenty years I have been working with Sheet Ghost installations, performances and sculpture. Beginning first with "performance art" in 1993, wherein I first used the "sheet ghost" in a significant way--I find the "ghost" to be an amazingly expressive means of dealing with many issues ranging from the extremely personal to themes of isolation and even more abstract ideas as was the case in the most recent installation I did for the Seattle Office Arts & Culture's "Dialogues in Art" series, wherein I dealt with issues of homelessness. In Hope/Home, the first installation with multiple figures, the sheet ghosts became stand-ins for my family as we dealt with a period of homelessness that we experienced when I was still very young. Over the course of several installations I have seen my process become increasingly narrative and more and more theatrical.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oVJfj5q2EHY/X0yY3shZl_I/AAAAAAAAZE4/U-tPEEiF3kYHrCMx5YtMo0Jm3J7GF15FQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/redbridge.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oVJfj5q2EHY/X0yY3shZl_I/AAAAAAAAZE4/U-tPEEiF3kYHrCMx5YtMo0Jm3J7GF15FQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/redbridge.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ghost Walk #1 was the first of these more cinematic performances. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8-bqb1Rogl0/X0yZNMVEUiI/AAAAAAAAZFA/hxbF-5kD7HIe85NkqZ5v_ZNoWCX33jO_QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ghostwalker.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8-bqb1Rogl0/X0yZNMVEUiI/AAAAAAAAZFA/hxbF-5kD7HIe85NkqZ5v_ZNoWCX33jO_QCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/ghostwalker.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iugqJl-TH1k" width="320" youtube-src-id="iugqJl-TH1k"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-1034730284314786342020-08-29T00:06:00.008-07:002020-08-29T00:18:55.923-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #18: Traveling Ghosts--Continuing series. <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-557bLkDuJLk/X0n85mkmW-I/AAAAAAAAZDQ/FM1B571ClukSnmr7DT7SGgw4yskvrg2DQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/gusman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1463" data-original-width="2048" height="293" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-557bLkDuJLk/X0n85mkmW-I/AAAAAAAAZDQ/FM1B571ClukSnmr7DT7SGgw4yskvrg2DQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h293/gusman.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">A continuing series of performance sketches and ideas, pretty much to be used in full performances and testing ideas. In this case, "Gus was a Mexican Ghost," which would later become part of a performance at King Street Station in 2019. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NavhjHsO4_k/X0n9JIbkY0I/AAAAAAAAZDU/SukhvAosW_wzlyFbAzTdrRHDdZ69Sd4gQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2514/ghoststanding.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2514" data-original-width="1251" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NavhjHsO4_k/X0n9JIbkY0I/AAAAAAAAZDU/SukhvAosW_wzlyFbAzTdrRHDdZ69Sd4gQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/ghoststanding.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Flower Ghost." 2020. A sketch during the Pandemic, still looking for a ful performance.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WQMAt6QbZNs/X0n9SKBeZhI/AAAAAAAAZDc/xywknA8dXNEDXdmGSYbU_JrnoXUZBhItACLcBGAsYHQ/s800/39265751-10212961140491753-1403773300072513536-o_orig.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WQMAt6QbZNs/X0n9SKBeZhI/AAAAAAAAZDc/xywknA8dXNEDXdmGSYbU_JrnoXUZBhItACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h410/39265751-10212961140491753-1403773300072513536-o_orig.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sheet Ghost for "Save the Show Box." Seattle. 2018. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cNmE4kjMUEU/X0n97pTkrRI/AAAAAAAAZDw/MCSV3-dsU50nqa5ZDe6Pfdb6fsy4i6e_ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20180721_194924%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cNmE4kjMUEU/X0n97pTkrRI/AAAAAAAAZDw/MCSV3-dsU50nqa5ZDe6Pfdb6fsy4i6e_ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20180721_194924%2B%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ghost at an exhibition. Seattle. 2019.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBc8yh41f4I/X0n-WuJgvlI/AAAAAAAAZD8/vszcFSGAX2gWSWCHtKn9xWUtk1u8LsgDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/20180807_230806_capture%25280%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBc8yh41f4I/X0n-WuJgvlI/AAAAAAAAZD8/vszcFSGAX2gWSWCHtKn9xWUtk1u8LsgDQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20180807_230806_capture%25280%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ghost dancing at the Mercury, Goth Dance Club. Seattle. 2018.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-47527023223673684172020-08-28T17:22:00.010-07:002020-08-28T23:37:26.212-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance # 17: Performance: A Critical Introduction (Inclusion + Putoh, Katherine Adamenko) 2017. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q38FHwggdVs/X0mnHAg-YPI/AAAAAAAAZCs/ncrZnG_zPx8EjPwMpFDcAyyZBkiSKMe7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/apekilledape.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1710" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q38FHwggdVs/X0mnHAg-YPI/AAAAAAAAZCs/ncrZnG_zPx8EjPwMpFDcAyyZBkiSKMe7ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/apekilledape.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a Latinx performance artist, I knew our 2016 event was unique and vital to the Seattle community, showcasing Latina/x/o artists' identity and genre-expanding work. But none of us could imagine that our event would become part of worldwide university curricula inspiring a new generation of Latina/x/o artists. Academic performance historian Marvin Carlson wrote in Routledge's textbook "Performance: A Critical Introduction,” “There is a growing body of...artists who specifically identify themselves as Latinx, headed by...Xavier Lopez...featured in the first festival of Latinx performance, held at the Good Arts center...in Seattle... Latinx represents an important orientation in modern performance... concern(ed) with developing more inclusive and flexible attitudes toward designations of gender, race, and ethnicity...addressing this major reorientation of the field."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This entry was later updated to:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hOdT51c-_UA/X0nVh6oIOFI/AAAAAAAAZDE/QdTY80LHhncIIzs3TMeiHRAzbHwN1vITACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/performance%2Bcarlsonlopez.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1573" data-original-width="2048" height="315" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hOdT51c-_UA/X0nVh6oIOFI/AAAAAAAAZDE/QdTY80LHhncIIzs3TMeiHRAzbHwN1vITACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h315/performance%2Bcarlsonlopez.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the final wording for the book until then, straight from the pen of Marvin Carlson "...and there is a growing body of theatre artists who specifically identify themselves as Latinx, headed by Xavier Lopez Jr. and Vicente Montanez. Lopez created the first festival of Latinx performance, held at the Good Arts center for experimental theatre in Seattle in 2016, in which Montanez performed. Lopez is also co-creator, with performance artist Katherine Adamenko of New York City, of Putoh performance, a melding of Chicano performance art and contemporary art inspired by Butoh."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IETM475Up3Q/X0nTbY7st6I/AAAAAAAAZC4/xBEr-Xf-knYKZmZ7jXpAomxvQqCHR-ErACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/lopezbib.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1575" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IETM475Up3Q/X0nTbY7st6I/AAAAAAAAZC4/xBEr-Xf-knYKZmZ7jXpAomxvQqCHR-ErACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/lopezbib.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a child, before I even knew what art was, I would watch my father paint murals as part of the Los Angeles Chicano Art Movement, where I would tag along to the Mechicano Art Center on Whittier Blvd mentally devouring the exciting scenes of Latino artists expressing what it meant to be Chicano back then! Days passed as I watched my father paint his expressionist, politically charged murals, day-dreaming of my own future. Every month my parents would take us to the LA Museums and galleries, where we would see Warhol's “Brillo Boxes,” conceptual sculptures and the films of Joseph Beuys and Gilbert and George. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Later, in college, at the University of Nevada Reno and UCDavis, my mind was blown away by the work of Marcel Duchamp and the Dadas, who influenced my now, mixed media performances. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was also during this time that I began to perceived an unspoken difference between how my heroes made art and how I--as a young Latino artist--was expected to. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let me tell you a story. As a young artist, I searched everywhere for successful Chicano artists for a sense that my work had a place. When Duchamp or Beuys made their work it was about lives, their ideas, it reflected their view of the world. No one asked Marcel Duchamp to make work solely about his heritage—and he did not have to make artwork for the annual Halloween exhibition. I desperately wanted to make art that had meaning beyond other's expectations—art that reflected my own life and how I saw things? But I had no models, no history to fall back on. Because of this I did the only thing that I could, I decided that I would have to be my own model. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ultimately, At UCDavis, critical theory, personal history and personal artifacts began to infuse themselves into my work opening it up to incorporate queer, feminist and other identity discourses. I created two theoretical treatises, "The Soft Cyborg," a variation on Haraway's "Cyborg" and "Putoh"--melding Japanese Butoh and Latino identity performance. In 2016, I co-curated "On the Edge: Latinx Performance Art Festival" the first all-Latinx performance art festival--apparantly--ever. I did this with Lauren Davis, La Sala Collective member and Assistant Director at Art Exchange Gallery. This led to me becoming part of university curricula across the globe when Marvin Carlson mentioned our event in Routledge's textbook "Performance: A Critical Introduction." </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today, Issues of gender, race and identity permeate my work and it is through performance that I seek to push the boundaries of how we perceive the essence of ethnic/cultural/Latinx performance, to give voice to underrepresented groups and, moreover, to expand the language of marginalized performance and even to broaden access through guerrilla and drop-in performances. As a conceptual artist, I am confronted with the sense that "Conceptual Art" is often considered to be an elitist, hegemonic realm. It has become visibly and conceptually associated with purity, intellectualism, masculinity and hegemony. As a Latino Artist who works with many materials that have been pared down to their core elements, minimalized and purified so to speak--creating fiercely personal narratives--I have been forced to deal with oversimplified views of who can make what and what art can be made. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am part of a new breed of Latinx artists intent on expanding the themes and expectations available to minority artists--making art that is individual--defying traditional expectations of collective identity. I choose personal, everyday materials, a collage of sheets, candy, fake flowers, tin foil and personal items in order to tell my stories. This is an important conceptual, performative and material shift that cannot be overstated. It is a stance of liberation, which pushes the boundaries of expectations and dares to say that individual lives of color matter; which, in itself, is powerful and revolutionary, problematizing racial, masculine, cultural and identity essentialism in an intellectual investigation which is in no way post-race. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps the greatest engine that keeps me going is my over-developed desire to correct social injustices and my love for constant creation. Building community has always been one of my primary concerns; I have taught courses at UC Davis, UNR, Europe and art classes here in Seattle. I understand firsthand, the power of art to change a person and give their lives new meaning. Beginning at UNR, I have been in many art exhibitions, community events, auctions and live painting activities. In the last five years, I have been part of 8 teaching and artistic workshops with the Seattle Art Museum. In 2016, I was asked to put my dreams into action by programming an evening of performance art for La Sala Latinx Artists Network’s ‘La Cocina’ in Pioneer Square. This collaborative project entitled "On The Edge: Latinx Performance Art Festival," was the first all Latinx night of performance art. Up to that point, apparently, there had never been an all Latinx night of performance art in the Pacific Northwest. I had been wanting to get back into that part of my oeuvre. Not performances--that happens all the time--performance art--in all of its difficult to classify, irreverent, problematic, transient, impossible to document glory. In less than a month, we put everything together from scratch. I worked very closely with Lauren Davis of ArtXchange Gallery and Miguel Guillén as well as the rest of the folks at La Sala and La Cocina and the other performers. The night itself was not just historic; it was an amazing success! This magical event exceeded all our hopes. The first On the Edge Festival was a one-night event, small but expansive, dedicated to serving Seattle and the Seattle Latinx community, giving voice to local Latinx Artists presenting work that is rarely seen in our communities. What we created with On the Edge is a sense of freedom and inclusion that I have always searched for in my journey as a performer exploring themes of Latino/x identity, gender and class privilege. We had a very nice crowd and at least once, I heard a very audible gasp as I was on stage. There is something very real and very magical about doing something as visceral and honest as performance art in front of a live audience--it is an amazing feeling for the audience as well as the performer. Our night of performance had something for everyone and at the same time, the whole event was fundamentally individual and Latina/o/x, and is part of a larger conversation working not only to continue and preserve a set of cultural traditions, but seeking to redefine the nature of these traditions moving forward as we live at a time in which definitions of race, masculinity, gender and art are in flux</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-20310509346916969112020-08-23T23:34:00.009-07:002020-08-28T17:12:23.197-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #16: Dada Death 2.5 Guerrilla Performance in front of Seattle Art Museum. 2017<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYtcyzH-lkE/X0LVHO2s5gI/AAAAAAAAZBI/ewDaTHDgbJkFCge3CJgIAmEMOhG73j9BQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/bong13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYtcyzH-lkE/X0LVHO2s5gI/AAAAAAAAZBI/ewDaTHDgbJkFCge3CJgIAmEMOhG73j9BQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/bong13.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Dada Death 2.5: Guerrilla Performance in front of the Seattle Art Museum 2018.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OLlXvN1A1no/X0NiUIr6PkI/AAAAAAAAZBY/0Tql8X8cun8MpMhdfjjFH0n95GX8mHBxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dADADEATH32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OLlXvN1A1no/X0NiUIr6PkI/AAAAAAAAZBY/0Tql8X8cun8MpMhdfjjFH0n95GX8mHBxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/dADADEATH32.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jvSsEZqT7lM/X0NikVx8MiI/AAAAAAAAZBg/gPRV6_GRv_UwzO3bzbSNNexv0WNzehh2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/horn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1617" data-original-width="2048" height="404" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jvSsEZqT7lM/X0NikVx8MiI/AAAAAAAAZBg/gPRV6_GRv_UwzO3bzbSNNexv0WNzehh2QCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h404/horn.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NO91y5ohyYE/X0Niw6ZbhVI/AAAAAAAAZBk/RNO7N7EdEEQ6sMcus4Pr8VeoHbO0J885QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/SAMANTHA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NO91y5ohyYE/X0Niw6ZbhVI/AAAAAAAAZBk/RNO7N7EdEEQ6sMcus4Pr8VeoHbO0J885QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/SAMANTHA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uleKhZnePHE/X0Ni7JLRAhI/AAAAAAAAZBs/1g01kC246xoH9skZGzGOPr8vo-O60fucgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/DADADEATH%2B31%2B%25283%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1569" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uleKhZnePHE/X0Ni7JLRAhI/AAAAAAAAZBs/1g01kC246xoH9skZGzGOPr8vo-O60fucgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/DADADEATH%2B31%2B%25283%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eC_nnjOm9fY/X0NjGKKkYaI/AAAAAAAAZB0/wY_oSq8AXb0nWMZqCwfZx_aXLW3swItWgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/spazz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eC_nnjOm9fY/X0NjGKKkYaI/AAAAAAAAZB0/wY_oSq8AXb0nWMZqCwfZx_aXLW3swItWgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/spazz.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KVafeQtTBrg" width="320" youtube-src-id="KVafeQtTBrg"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-80553747761901990622020-08-22T23:45:00.012-07:002020-08-23T00:22:48.817-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #15: Dada Death 2.0: Echo Echo Gallery. Greenwood Collective. Greenwood, Seattle, WA. 2017.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p4U6I6fdAbY/X0INYuhMLyI/AAAAAAAAY_8/UWaHM5_TNA0qLHQ4Nipax9-TcnAmZkNjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dadadeath.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1208" data-original-width="2048" height="242" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p4U6I6fdAbY/X0INYuhMLyI/AAAAAAAAY_8/UWaHM5_TNA0qLHQ4Nipax9-TcnAmZkNjgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h242/dadadeath.jpg" width="410" /></a></div> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">"Dada Death 2.0." Performance Art. Echo Echo Gallery. Greenwood Collective. Greenwood, Seattle, WA. 2017. Final Version.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z4exAv8qBKs/X0IOUY9N_jI/AAAAAAAAZAE/00meuN7ED4MmHMgwWVqGX9UkQKwifia9wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dadadeath4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1291" data-original-width="2048" height="258" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z4exAv8qBKs/X0IOUY9N_jI/AAAAAAAAZAE/00meuN7ED4MmHMgwWVqGX9UkQKwifia9wCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h258/dadadeath4.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We live in the age of Nefarious, an age of puppet kings and a lethargy that stems from the belief that we have discovered everything. But this is far from the truth, the truth is that we have become arrogant enough to believe that we cannot be excited, we believe that the same impulses that made us excited in the past do not and cannot thrill us. We live in an age that is more truly Dada than Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton could have ever thought up, an age in which we are bombarded with the idiocies and indecencies of life on a daily basis. Perhaps shell-shocked is a better word, and waiting, we have become ossified and are ready to place ourselves into the machine. Even the smartest of us will sell his soul so he can eat. The age of the artist has passed and in its stead we have a sea of castrated bald white men, spouting the lines as if it was enough to memorize what Hegel or Jameson or even hooks said. We have forgotten the lessons of the first truly Post-Modern philosophers the Dadas had to teach us—we have forgotten how to fight, to kick each other in the eye, how a baritone belly-laugh feels and we have held our piss for far too long</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8KvWFFtmMVc/X0IOhDH00MI/AAAAAAAAZAI/H0TfYX_9FtEqxgrwyqyLYg0LkK78hw3CwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dadadeath3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8KvWFFtmMVc/X0IOhDH00MI/AAAAAAAAZAI/H0TfYX_9FtEqxgrwyqyLYg0LkK78hw3CwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/dadadeath3.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Critical Theory, or rather philosophy was never meant to be the domain of School Teachers. It was never meant to be the tool for professionals to build their careers on. Criticism was always meant for the young, the artists, the poets and musicians the so-called practitioners—to feel the age they live in. Critical theory has become ossified and fat. It has lost the one thing that is unforgivable--a sense of humour.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CzqO9fL1O0Q/X0IOxC19ZcI/AAAAAAAAZAU/YlBMf6nxaiwVB4NsHgS1Kifu6VvfJQVDACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dadadeath5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1875" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CzqO9fL1O0Q/X0IOxC19ZcI/AAAAAAAAZAU/YlBMf6nxaiwVB4NsHgS1Kifu6VvfJQVDACLcBGAsYHQ/w469-h512/dadadeath5.jpg" width="469" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are filled with candy and all sorts of preservatives. Our houses and cupboards are brimming over with purple plastic-coated soft drinks and Twinkies. We are what we eat and from here that doesn’t look too good. Let us take a moment and look at the metaphor of eating, of what we eat. Let us take a moment to look at the Twinkies, Chicken McNuggets, and Coca Cola that we ingest. It has been said that the Twinkie is known to have a shelf life of many, many years. Open a Twinkie and you will find that it is an odd little thing—unexpectedly perhaps it is a moist even wet affair, it is a soft cylinder of unnatural yellow. Wrapped within this manufactured cake is a creamy filling of vanilla. Beneath the perfectly flat, flaky-golden brown base of each Twinkie there are three small perfect oblong holes. It is these small holes, the same on each cake through which the cream surprise has been injected. These holes are perfect, the same from one Twinkie to the next. It is their perfection, which we have come to expect in our enjoyment of each Twinkie. It is this perfect cake that we ingest, with the promise that the next one will be exactly the same.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qkumSdHFJxw/X0IPb7T61pI/AAAAAAAAZAc/6Q0Bmw6TsAEecJwYpwJox88bYw0LCXyCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dadadeath10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1598" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qkumSdHFJxw/X0IPb7T61pI/AAAAAAAAZAc/6Q0Bmw6TsAEecJwYpwJox88bYw0LCXyCwCLcBGAsYHQ/w399-h512/dadadeath10.jpg" width="399" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Awhile back, I lived in Germany for a year. It was very interesting. I had a couple of art shows there and I made many friends there as well. The Germans are the kindest, sweetest people–especially the youth–at least they were when I was there. I hope that they have not been poisoned like Eastern Europe has. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, my friend’s hearts were broken when I told them that, as Americans, often we synechdochically use the word “German” to mean Nazi in many cases. Especially in the movies. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Germans are a beautiful people, but they were broken by their own history. Their psyches were shattered and now they suffer from amazing self-hatred and collective embarrassment for what they cannot escape as being part of them. Part of their story. Part of their skin. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are no flags in Germany, very little examples of patriotism-especially on the boorish level that we might be used to. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One day, I was on the bus and this old guy wanted to apologize to me personally for what the Nazis did. It was a very uncomfortable experience. It was amazingly poignant and by the time I was getting off the bus, I realized that he wanted me to absolve him of the guilt of a child who ha seen the Nazis as heroes. Just as we are now taught as children to admire our policing agencies–as agents of order. This now, grandfather was forced to view the gypsies, Jews and queers as agents of decay, as the very rats that they had been told to see them as. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Germany, this constant self-loathing is everywhere, but it is very subtle and no one ever really acknowledges it, not to each other, not in the open–perhaps to strangers, but in a very real way as a nation they have lost their sense of identity as purely good human beings. Initially, this was forced upon them from without, but ultimately it has become a part of them, but this happened long enough ago that now, many of the kids are running around in Nazi bike gangs. I saw those as well, in Frankfurt. They are kind of scary. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Borrowing a term, though not the same idea–from Friedrich Nietzsche, this move toward agency can be seen as being “Beyond Good and Evil.” It just is. In a way that is neither good nor evil–they have begun to take that anger and self-loathing and have started to make something out of it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2SgHPoVzjI/X0IPkhB1lGI/AAAAAAAAZAg/l0hKAMC7uI0aqHee6qldkNGPMLllvrljgCLcBGAsYHQ/s700/1515675004870307851915001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="326" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2SgHPoVzjI/X0IPkhB1lGI/AAAAAAAAZAg/l0hKAMC7uI0aqHee6qldkNGPMLllvrljgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/1515675004870307851915001.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the lifetimes of these artists (the artists of Die Antwoord) they have witnessed humans doing the most horrible atrocities–under the guise of society. They know how cheap and meaningless life is or can be. They understand in a way that we are only beginning to get a glimpse of–just how easily money trumps life. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The baby talk they spew is deceptive of the most vile, evil, shit that they are trying to warn us all about. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The simplism of their form is like standup comedy. It is like the bright, multicolored blotters that acid used to come on. A pretty, simple, wrapping for something that takes away your innocence and imparts knowledge of the shape of the universe and gives you a taste of the darkest and brightest candy-colored parts of your mind. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That is why I believe that Die Antwoord is so important–they are the best example of what is created after we as humanity have lost our souls and after we have lost our faith in everything– and believe me when I tell you that as a collective species–we have very definitely lost our souls. I thought it would have to wait until humanity realized that the universe was approaching heat death, for us to realize this–but at least in one way, we are a rather bright collection of animals. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But, I will say this. That because we are humans–and because everything we do and say is always deconstructed and creates a universe in which its opposite is true–that Die Antwoord is also a band that is equally about hope. I know it sounds like a contradiction and, in fact, it is–but it is just as true.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Esuoc4SPsg/X0IPwOOEOGI/AAAAAAAAZAo/8oH1cUyO1MwxxyKu-ok8qLVu743iffJVwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/dadadeath19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Esuoc4SPsg/X0IPwOOEOGI/AAAAAAAAZAo/8oH1cUyO1MwxxyKu-ok8qLVu743iffJVwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/dadadeath19.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fact that we as humans need to have things wrapped in shiny, plastic is why I also believe that something like Pop is the most perfect medium for conveying the things that art needs to say in this day and age. It, like the obscene, baby talk rap lyrics–it is the perfect form for communicating the nature of the void. In baby talk expletives and candy-coated color-fields. To answer your earlier question, though–yes, artists need to live–but artists also really need to be able to convey their meaning–they are all blind men and women describing an elephant view of the universe. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think that things evolve–different things make sense in different eras–in the era of the Pre-Raphaelites (which in itself was a conservative reaction [alors--you now have groups of artists seeking inspiration from a movement that was already retrospective in its original incarnation]) or the Mannerists, etc. the “Pretty Vacant” was invisible (just as there are forces that are at work now, that we can’t see, because the connections are not yet visible)–it was there, but could not be seen–meaning then was conveyed in purely narrative forms and by way of symbolism–but as happens in any system–entropy increases and things that once did–no longer make sense. We are beyond mere narrative; we are beyond mere representation, we are in an era of terrible beauty and pop conceptualism. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Truth does not change, that is the kernals remain the same and we float around them and it is our perception of what the truth is changes over time. That sounds obvious, but I want you to bear with me for a moment. We perceive, naturally that he universe remains the same, which is actually not true, stars die and we move around the stellar arm of the milky way, bu, in essence much of what we call the universe, at least, appears mostly the same--but truth now looks nothing like it did to the first women and men. We scoff at the logic systems of the earliest philsophers, can't believe that astronomers thought the earth was the center of the heavens and even the moderns seem outdated to our post-postmodern sensibilities, so we understand that our sense of truth changes--we could not expect to agree with a cave-person on even the most fundamental of things. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I want us to focus for a moment, especially on our perception of things--the truth in things, right now the public at large, is being taken through a period in which we are being asked to look at everything that we held true just minutes ago and to rewrite it, to alienate ourselves from it and to look at it through new eyes--for better and often for worse. I tried to explain this to a friend like this. Take a painting that was created by or for the priests at the Palais des Papes in Southern France--before the Renaissance, a painting that was made as a pure celebration of the majesty of religion--that actual, physical painting is the same now as it was when it was painted hundreds of years ago, it is constituted by essentially the same atoms that have made it up since its origin--it is a monadic whole--maybe some of the pigments and therefore the colors have broken down as they breathe in the oxygen of the ages and take in the light of candles and later, flourescents--but otherwise they have not changed in any significant way. But, what they mean, what they signify and how we perceive them, I guarantee you that, that has changed. And I guarantee you that can be said of everything, from the functional Ancient Greek objects that are now sitting in vitrines at the Smithsonian to the religious paintings of the past, and this is especially true of any text that you might find, from a painting to a book or anything that works with signs and significators.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BnTttH8BhtU/X0IP8-4I7uI/AAAAAAAAZAw/_8HgPxEBJ_QanHsihzuH_W0_Y4Sq9g-8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20180112_193701.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BnTttH8BhtU/X0IP8-4I7uI/AAAAAAAAZAw/_8HgPxEBJ_QanHsihzuH_W0_Y4Sq9g-8wCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/20180112_193701.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="text-align: justify;">he way these things are seen change through the ages--their essential meanings have changed and yet the objects themselves have not. Now, let's put together a little mental exercise, if you were to go back in time, if you had a time machine and could actually do this, and you stood in front of one of the paintings in the hallway at the Palais, you might have a moment of awe, you might feel the pangs of nostalgia for an earlier age, you might even have a religious moment, but I also guarantee that you would not see the artworks in the same way that the people of the 11th century saw it. You would not suddenly understand the meaning of that age as somehow inherent in the painting standing before you, you would not be able to even see what that truth was supposed to be. Just as you can only imagine now how that work was meant to be seen by the artist that painted it originally. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But that truth is still there, would still be there for those people, even if they were suddenly sent to the future now. As is the truth of the Renaissance painters, who dissected the work and saw its limitations, just as the Papists who saw it as sacrilegious, just as the Enlightenment saw it different and just as those tin the future will see those paintings, however they see them. But the objects have not changed and those truths--all of them have always been there. It becomes clear therefore that all truths that are applied to an object and even an age are all always inherently present in an object or indeed anything--all truth exists at once--simply waiting for us to discover it. Truth, all truths are always there, waiting to be discovered--like the skins of an onion, unwrapping over time. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We live in an age of unprecedented change–things are dying off every day–not making it to the next era. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">8-tracks, Xerox paper, the clicking sound of movie projectors, film-strips, forty-fives. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you see any of these it is because nostalgic forces are in play. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last night I painted a landscape, it was a very nice landscape. But, I wanted it to be more–I decided that it just didn’t have the gravitas that I wanted it to. So I decided to rectify that and I gave it a title that conjured up images of not just “sturm” but also the mightiest “drang” that anyone has ever experienced! In words, I threw in allusions to Herakles and Ovid, I forced everyone who read the title-card of this piece to ponder their own mortality and question the meaning of not just their own, but everyone’s existence. However, despite all of the poesy of my heroic words, despite the finest ink and most expensive acid-free paper, ultimately, what I had created was really just a fucking landscape. A very lovely landscape. But a landscape all the same. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We live in an age of unprecedented change and there are nostalgic forces in play.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-epKkZSE4zQA/X0IROVtS-DI/AAAAAAAAZA8/4qO61aaLDvscpbs8w9KzhoqUPTjbT7fUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20180112_193626.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-epKkZSE4zQA/X0IROVtS-DI/AAAAAAAAZA8/4qO61aaLDvscpbs8w9KzhoqUPTjbT7fUwCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/20180112_193626.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zEaWCeZy_1o" width="320" youtube-src-id="zEaWCeZy_1o"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Dada Death 2.0." Performance Art. Echo Echo Gallery. Greenwood Collective. Greenwood, Seattle, WA. 2017. DadaDeath Sepia Version.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-6404500266108822042020-08-22T15:09:00.007-07:002020-08-22T23:03:27.912-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance#14C: The Magician/Sorcerer: When the Body Speaks. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cJxGHGUI9NQ/X0F45UeipXI/AAAAAAAAY9A/2u-TMPjm5C0XHPE5SP-ooy6hFZOFEhgOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2568/Body_Finish%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="2568" height="195" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cJxGHGUI9NQ/X0F45UeipXI/AAAAAAAAY9A/2u-TMPjm5C0XHPE5SP-ooy6hFZOFEhgOgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h195/Body_Finish%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The Magician. Short video shot from stage left. Part 2. When the Body Speaks. Full. A Night of Performance Art by Xavier Lopez. Cast: Xavier Lopez, Grace Larenard, Basil Mayan, Girlgoth and Kaz. Supported by Artists Up - Grant Lab Award from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4 Culture and Artist Trust. Music changed to adhere to copyright laws. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017. Filmed by Lily Munn.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xh-5PtV34BM/X0HcFE5doXI/AAAAAAAAY9M/5X3PU2jLbHwX6VVsuqIjgfNRDcTlbwAyACLcBGAsYHQ/s2577/Body_Glitter1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1221" data-original-width="2577" height="194" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xh-5PtV34BM/X0HcFE5doXI/AAAAAAAAY9M/5X3PU2jLbHwX6VVsuqIjgfNRDcTlbwAyACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h194/Body_Glitter1.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">After singing as Gus the Ghost and tearing about the sheet ghost as the Diabetic Luchador, I meet </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DuamzXG528U/X0HjCkZlkrI/AAAAAAAAY90/qtEOmEX9-wcbv0T6RiY8jfNQuOnfUOUtwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2569/Body_Magic1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="2569" height="195" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DuamzXG528U/X0HjCkZlkrI/AAAAAAAAY90/qtEOmEX9-wcbv0T6RiY8jfNQuOnfUOUtwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h195/Body_Magic1.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;">Up to this age, up to this period in time--children's book, horror stories, cartoons etc. have long told the same tale--the Pinnocchio story of the artificial becoming real. Becoming "a real boy"-- has become a trope--a modern icon--according to Wikipedia, which also says that Pinocchio is one of the most adapted characters of all time. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZUHXRt8Tq6c/X0Hoj1Z-CkI/AAAAAAAAY-g/MjW2WN7oNy4JB3dS2Rjxn1V92vM6icUzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2584/Body_Magic5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1217" data-original-width="2584" height="193" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZUHXRt8Tq6c/X0Hoj1Z-CkI/AAAAAAAAY-g/MjW2WN7oNy4JB3dS2Rjxn1V92vM6icUzgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h193/Body_Magic5.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">But recently something has changed, I first noticed it and wrote about it in a presentation I did at a conference at UCDavis, a couple of years ago. Ours is the first generation in which Pinocchio has lost interest in being a real boy and instead has decided that rather than going back to being anything as silly as wood, or staying flesh, it is time to turn to plastic, foam and rubber instead. And I suggest that this is not mere musing, something is going on here and it may be zeitgeist--the flesh made plastic.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G-BDrhHyWo4/X0HqBG3362I/AAAAAAAAY-s/nO6ITA8HL4U0vynK3m6UIAg7L8Ao4ir-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2592/Body_Magic6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1213" data-original-width="2592" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G-BDrhHyWo4/X0HqBG3362I/AAAAAAAAY-s/nO6ITA8HL4U0vynK3m6UIAg7L8Ao4ir-ACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h192/Body_Magic6.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">I would love to work on a performance with Joseph Beuys--of all the artists throughout history--his is the one that I seem to come back to the most--visually, we share some striking similarities--which is odd--because for both of us the performance work is extremely personal, autobiographical and anecdotal. I'm sure that Beuys himself would say it has something to do with a kind of post-Jungian--artistic collective mind--but all of that is just a little too new agey for me--though I love Beuys for being so out there and for being so willing to go out on a limb for what he believed--no matter what!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-47ioQQpT0/X0H_D3sykOI/AAAAAAAAY-4/KhP5LkWzVgUDXS7-nkLpiru44en6DXdKACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/walking.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1130" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-47ioQQpT0/X0H_D3sykOI/AAAAAAAAY-4/KhP5LkWzVgUDXS7-nkLpiru44en6DXdKACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/walking.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">When the Body Speaks (Performance in three parts):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2hhc-f8tnzM/X0H_VNzsDBI/AAAAAAAAY_A/lJsIhOOSXCwUykUGnsQn8z5DKKoIt7BJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/rabbit1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1086" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2hhc-f8tnzM/X0H_VNzsDBI/AAAAAAAAY_A/lJsIhOOSXCwUykUGnsQn8z5DKKoIt7BJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/rabbit1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Scene microphone and stand on stage outcropping. Stage right Grace La Renard is standing dressed as a ghost. On a table, also stage right is a blue cloth and a top hat filled with a glowing light. Further back stage right is a male ghost. In the background stage right is an easel and white canvas and near that is a bucket filled with flour and a chair.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-osP5kVCR7-M/X0H_kWVqv9I/AAAAAAAAY_E/YEytTATXy2Ii3Jr1atiqr7cuv9Y41B2UgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2587/Body_Magic11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="2587" height="193" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-osP5kVCR7-M/X0H_kWVqv9I/AAAAAAAAY_E/YEytTATXy2Ii3Jr1atiqr7cuv9Y41B2UgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h193/Body_Magic11.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>From off stage I walk on stage dressed as a ghost carrying a plastic pumpkin filled with flowers. After a beat I begin to sing the Depeche Mode song "When the Body Speaks." As the song ends, I take off the headphones and phone and place them in the bucket, toss some flowers at the audience and place the pumpkin bucket stage left so that Lily can retrieve it. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-abiMu4_nfuU/X0H_u3LoyhI/AAAAAAAAY_M/7IraN1JrcdYmhtct-XvEqxXpOkhOlvdjACLcBGAsYHQ/s1598/Body_Magic12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="1598" height="191" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-abiMu4_nfuU/X0H_u3LoyhI/AAAAAAAAY_M/7IraN1JrcdYmhtct-XvEqxXpOkhOlvdjACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h191/Body_Magic12.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>As the song ends the two other stage ghosts begin chanting "You're nothun' but a nothun'. You're nothun' but a nothun'."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvlqeokN25E/X0H_7a5cgkI/AAAAAAAAY_U/NLmB8lAYWRg9qlD2En9_dcz7uEvyiEGTwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1944/photo08.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1944" data-original-width="1458" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvlqeokN25E/X0H_7a5cgkI/AAAAAAAAY_U/NLmB8lAYWRg9qlD2En9_dcz7uEvyiEGTwCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/photo08.jpeg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>As this happens I begin dancing the dance of lonely ghost--as the dance reaches its crescendo I take off the cloak and reveal the "Diabetic Luchador," Who begins to dance the dance of the Diabetic Luchador, while the two dancers continue to chant. During this dance, I am looking like I suffer from vertigo and high and low blood sugar. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-huUcfQiAG2w/X0IAE_f8k_I/AAAAAAAAY_c/cWxdY0ujdLAV66Ahju6w_E5tyRgXewaDwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2582/Body_blood8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1218" data-original-width="2582" height="194" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-huUcfQiAG2w/X0IAE_f8k_I/AAAAAAAAY_c/cWxdY0ujdLAV66Ahju6w_E5tyRgXewaDwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h194/Body_blood8.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>At the end of it I grab the ghost sheet and begin to tear it apart. Then wrap it around my hands and barefoot legs. I move to the bucket and begin to put flower on my hands and draw a mushroom cloud on the ground before me. Taking my sweet time. At the end of this. I kneel down center stage. As soon as I kneel the Sorcerer's apprentice music should start.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lcm00kYDSgM/X0IAOQNKLjI/AAAAAAAAY_k/MsiradvKjPUxMn8CK0MUXhC4jk00iPQnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1944/photo09.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1944" data-original-width="1458" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lcm00kYDSgM/X0IAOQNKLjI/AAAAAAAAY_k/MsiradvKjPUxMn8CK0MUXhC4jk00iPQnwCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/photo09.jpeg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br />The two ghosts begin to chant "Your blood will show you the way." and "Magic is in your blood." <br /><br />At this point Lily comes from off stage and paints my face and blows glitter on me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aLYb1j947TQ/X0IAY-y9O8I/AAAAAAAAY_s/ywi7-zbXhwQD4glljUXdz-zYQquuQxFogCLcBGAsYHQ/s2580/Bogy_Maji1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1219" data-original-width="2580" height="194" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aLYb1j947TQ/X0IAY-y9O8I/AAAAAAAAY_s/ywi7-zbXhwQD4glljUXdz-zYQquuQxFogCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h194/Bogy_Maji1.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br />"The Dance of the Magician" Begins as the Sorcerer's apprentice plays. As I pull flowers then a rabbit out of a hat and then a ghost and then blood then paint a painting. <br /><br />Stage goes black as I turn to the audience then say "When the Body Speaks--all else is hollow." <br /><br />The end. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tny2j1rsQfY" width="320" youtube-src-id="tny2j1rsQfY"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vMQEpONGlJc/X0F4ScYXSiI/AAAAAAAAY84/MICO9KPiATMG_Lc-dDXpCSTcsOqG1LPPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2575/Body_Ending.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1221" data-original-width="2575" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vMQEpONGlJc/X0F4ScYXSiI/AAAAAAAAY84/MICO9KPiATMG_Lc-dDXpCSTcsOqG1LPPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Body_Ending.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-67267307340936677112020-08-17T20:34:00.007-07:002020-08-19T22:54:34.984-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #14B: The Diabetic Luchador: When the Body Speaks. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rnfLHwGdA9U/XztJPs_rDjI/AAAAAAAAY7g/XeitQakn8PAN_M7awQdMxdn-P6RiRHJsgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2592/Body_Lucha2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1213" data-original-width="2592" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rnfLHwGdA9U/XztJPs_rDjI/AAAAAAAAY7g/XeitQakn8PAN_M7awQdMxdn-P6RiRHJsgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h240/Body_Lucha2.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Diabetic Luchador (Nothing but a Nothing.) Final Version. When the Body Speaks. Full. A Night of Performance Art by Xavier Lopez. Cast: Xavier Lopez, Grace Larenard, Basil Mayan, Girlgoth and Kaz. Supported by Artists Up - Grant Lab Award from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4 Culture and Artist Trust. Music changed to adhere to copyright laws. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017. Filmed by Loren Herrera.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WkFkirSKypI/XztJhjX8U5I/AAAAAAAAY7o/cMR67ra1rTsAgKbDdFhSnS03ByBM8gRuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/23658629_1669296579759152_1973926194906294017_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="307" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WkFkirSKypI/XztJhjX8U5I/AAAAAAAAY7o/cMR67ra1rTsAgKbDdFhSnS03ByBM8gRuQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h307/23658629_1669296579759152_1973926194906294017_n.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: right;">The Diabetic Luchador was a new character created with this "night of performance, part of the "Putoh" night's events. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XEf7wlD2wR0/XztKXQxEHdI/AAAAAAAAY78/HqKhk9aKojUO5B4BNXwgUIrJaej2QMLkACLcBGAsYHQ/s2583/Body_Lucha4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1217" data-original-width="2583" height="242" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XEf7wlD2wR0/XztKXQxEHdI/AAAAAAAAY78/HqKhk9aKojUO5B4BNXwgUIrJaej2QMLkACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h242/Body_Lucha4.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this part of the night's performances, the Diabetic Luchador tears apart the sheet ghost of the prior scene.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pZ3OM1GOU5o/XztJ5BACsbI/AAAAAAAAY7w/YCR_G7Z9yfYjWaPrwhGt88lt9jjFk9xcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/23755404_1669296776425799_350307303324280273_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pZ3OM1GOU5o/XztJ5BACsbI/AAAAAAAAY7w/YCR_G7Z9yfYjWaPrwhGt88lt9jjFk9xcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h384/23755404_1669296776425799_350307303324280273_n.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2017, I was awarded the "Artist-Up Grant," presented by three amazing arts organizations--4Culture, Artist Trust and The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. I was asked to take my work to the next level. The plan, with guidance from Irene Gomez, was to be in a completely different place with my work afterward--little did I know just how much I would grow. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first part was to put together my own art book--which was amazing. But it was the second project that made me truly nervous! I was to present a short "one-man performance" dealing with issues of "Latinoness," entitled "When The Body Speaks," it would be about Illness, specifically illnesses targeting Latinos and which run through my family tree, directly through my body and in my blood! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ultimately, however, I would craft a longer, more complex event than initially planned, enlisting five other artists--a first for me! I did a forty-five minute performance and I was extremely nervous because of my ailments. Would the nerve-endings in my feet flare up? Would I suffer from vertigo? Before this, my longest performance was 25 minutes and I was much younger then. But over the year of practice I brought my weight down by twenty pounds and when I hit the stage I was certain I could do it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The event, itself was part biography, part endurance and part conceptual art. I introduced Seattle to "Putoh" a mestizo hybrid of cultures and performance genres! On top of that, I did something I thought I never could have--I sang in front of a live audience! That night I grew as an artist, possibly even extended the definition of Latinx art today, but more importantly, I expressed the way that I see the world. I was overjoyed and proud of what I had accomplished! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ALUTZp0_DKM/XztLpJKxpDI/AAAAAAAAY8M/P6YxTBbZxvEd3lX4noB3dVFdGRkZJF4KgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Body_Lucha7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1559" data-original-width="2048" height="390" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ALUTZp0_DKM/XztLpJKxpDI/AAAAAAAAY8M/P6YxTBbZxvEd3lX4noB3dVFdGRkZJF4KgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h390/Body_Lucha7.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">In the background, two figures, one dressed as a blind ghost and the other dressed as a vampire bat chant, "You're Nothing but a Nothing, You're Nothing but a Nothing."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A_iZQ1pUcUU/XztMEG4pb6I/AAAAAAAAY8Y/RvSihh0bRtAE7qzz_RcyQ6bWsDRVjoGpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Body_Lucha10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1754" data-original-width="2048" height="438" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A_iZQ1pUcUU/XztMEG4pb6I/AAAAAAAAY8Y/RvSihh0bRtAE7qzz_RcyQ6bWsDRVjoGpwCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h438/Body_Lucha10.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My work is always intensely personal and conceptual--it comes from me. I work with a variety of materials and in many methods. I tell stories and create new connections questioning the meanings of our most commonly held notions. My work is about associations and creating a discourse between myself and the viewer. I love these connections, they are my joy, they are the things I look for at all times and which permeate my work. It is my goal to completely change current discourse and deconstruct the way that we view art and race.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zuD7V76TNHA/XztMDvLP5yI/AAAAAAAAY8U/rzTuEsj8NgAZFzbbMYnF4VPeNYjTNXwcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Body_Lucha11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1574" data-original-width="2048" height="394" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zuD7V76TNHA/XztMDvLP5yI/AAAAAAAAY8U/rzTuEsj8NgAZFzbbMYnF4VPeNYjTNXwcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h394/Body_Lucha11.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am part of a new breed of Latinx artists for whom artmaking is autobiographical and personal, yet eschews the most obvious tropes of masculinity and race. As a Latino artist working much of his life with materials that have been pared down to their core elements, minimalized and purified, creating fiercely personal narratives, I have long been forced to deal with oversimplified views of color, masculinity and biography, but in a world and at a time, in which so many of these definitions are changing, my shift in point of view is fiercely important. I am intent on making my own way as an individual artist, speaking my own name and making art that comes from my experience of this world. I connect to a post-postmodern dialogue and speak to personal obsessions and desires that are not bogged down by obvious cultural history. This is a very important stance of liberation, which in and of itself is powerful and revolutionary. Now, having said this, mine is not a simplistic stance, nor is it a mere ignoring of reality--instead it is a journey, an intellectual investigation and as an artist, I am aware that we are not post-race and my work is not either.</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TwtTy0zZysY/XztMEAQXz5I/AAAAAAAAY8c/Tjzh3m78zOwMSqWbWwmHdUwD5yI64C4dACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Body_Lucha12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1554" data-original-width="2048" height="389" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TwtTy0zZysY/XztMEAQXz5I/AAAAAAAAY8c/Tjzh3m78zOwMSqWbWwmHdUwD5yI64C4dACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h389/Body_Lucha12.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This year's version is a wonderfully multicultural affair, in tune with a world that is getting smaller and more open-minded, even while the news tries to tell us the opposite. The first act sets the stage for the rest of the production as we are presented with a very Derridean frame within a frame, has a wonderful tree and a beautiful window--wherein we can see some of that Nutcracker magic. We get some really nice costumes, starting with Herr Drosselmeier's togs, which include an Olivian reference in his red-and-white-and-black cape--we also get lovely costumes for the various toys and all the celebrants--and that is just Act 1--the costumes in act 2 are even better!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C0ubGcWTH_8" width="320" youtube-src-id="C0ubGcWTH_8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-52939383378448710742020-08-16T20:07:00.015-07:002020-08-16T21:31:08.501-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #14A: Gus Was a Singing Ghost. When the Body Speaks. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KYcLeIeg6UE/XznqALp-LKI/AAAAAAAAY5s/nrNSCZhyFZcdZxgZ27Bh9EdM4tbetI-IgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2593/Body_ghost4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1212" data-original-width="2593" height="191" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KYcLeIeg6UE/XznqALp-LKI/AAAAAAAAY5s/nrNSCZhyFZcdZxgZ27Bh9EdM4tbetI-IgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h191/Body_ghost4.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Gus Was a Singing Ghost. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gus Was a singing Ghost. When the Body Speaks. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017. When the Body Speaks. A Night of Performance Art by Xavier Lopez. Cast: Xavier Lopez, Grace Larenard, Basil Mayan, Girlgoth and Kaz. Supported by Artists Up - Grant Lab Award from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4 Culture and Artist Trust. Music changed to adhere to copyright laws. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017. Documented by Loren Herrera. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3nkq-3l2z0M/XznsNPjUoQI/AAAAAAAAY54/rVlWCl_CkJUvUFJbrnLkUdhkjevH4G4qQCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/25323098_10155951703661552_1154865776_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="592" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3nkq-3l2z0M/XznsNPjUoQI/AAAAAAAAY54/rVlWCl_CkJUvUFJbrnLkUdhkjevH4G4qQCLcBGAsYHQ/w379-h512/25323098_10155951703661552_1154865776_n.jpg" width="379" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">The performance of myself dressed as a ghost and singing in front of a live audience, actually started as many of my performances do, by picking up the pieces of "discarded" performances--or more specifically, performances that I haven't gotten around to yet and which have morphed and mutated in the time since their first imagining.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">In this case, Gus is a mixing of my continuing "Sheet Ghost" series of performances and a performance that I still intend to do some day, wherein I am dressed as the English band Depeche Mode's singer and Songwriter Martin L. Gore, standing outside Seattle's Pike's Public Market or some similar spot lipsynching to Depeche Mode songs for cash. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Y9Dk1yMP_g/XznvLSYySUI/AAAAAAAAY6M/sWqYW1rS6KAS02wYUwCViooXtFJwLC4swCLcBGAsYHQ/s720/2.%2BIMG_26247797410623.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="720" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Y9Dk1yMP_g/XznvLSYySUI/AAAAAAAAY6M/sWqYW1rS6KAS02wYUwCViooXtFJwLC4swCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h266/2.%2BIMG_26247797410623.jpeg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">The Sculptural Installation, "A Recreation of My Teen-Age Bedroom," Showing how autobiography plays throughout my entire oeuvre of artworks.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vdNtDLsoB2M/Xznxqri3bBI/AAAAAAAAY6Y/gDARj0sEiBQ9PHRC7RHDSCxprAjwgW9DACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20180427_184252%25280%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="307" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vdNtDLsoB2M/Xznxqri3bBI/AAAAAAAAY6Y/gDARj0sEiBQ9PHRC7RHDSCxprAjwgW9DACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h307/20180427_184252%25280%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Day-Dream Believer," Installation. Seattle, Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery, an installation, which like the recreation of my bedroom is made up of personal, autobiographical artifacts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_6q_L2nWcY/Xznuv6mWzLI/AAAAAAAAY6E/EnXV7AffSSs4vSarvin7C2K5Xg4vqN3vwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Body_ghost3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2017" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_6q_L2nWcY/Xznuv6mWzLI/AAAAAAAAY6E/EnXV7AffSSs4vSarvin7C2K5Xg4vqN3vwCLcBGAsYHQ/w504-h512/Body_ghost3.jpg" width="504" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In this performance, I sang in front a live audience for the very first time, a song entitled "When The Body Speaks," A Grabbing Hands Sonnet.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w5psld5sJIs/XznzFaUNF2I/AAAAAAAAY6k/tLLc_iLBMcI8RBBUfGq1RsS4mLYE0tUGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2601/Body_ghost9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1209" data-original-width="2601" height="190" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w5psld5sJIs/XznzFaUNF2I/AAAAAAAAY6k/tLLc_iLBMcI8RBBUfGq1RsS4mLYE0tUGgCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h190/Body_ghost9.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Gus the Ghost is a continuing character throughout my sculpture and performance art. When we were children we had three "ghost" imaginary friends. </div> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X4HKRO-SvYs/Xzn0D3qMoAI/AAAAAAAAY7A/3whoSjOO1UET8hBcptbps0OtHsKt2nkuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1956/Ghost%2Bsculpture.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="1956" height="248" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X4HKRO-SvYs/Xzn0D3qMoAI/AAAAAAAAY7A/3whoSjOO1UET8hBcptbps0OtHsKt2nkuwCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h248/Ghost%2Bsculpture.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had been working with the ideas of ghosts ever since I was an undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1990, where I did a performance titled: Poltergeist. This was part of a solo exhibition I did at the Faire Gallery Cafe. The piece included sound and a looping video that can be accessed here: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_FBQJREDGEw" width="320" youtube-src-id="_FBQJREDGEw"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Soft Cyborg Video: Ghost Story</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n2EuOhaV1vQ/Xznzi04PCrI/AAAAAAAAY6s/GJXZM9b8FuoXaW2l4lWftzBO5izY-no0wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2587/Body_ghost13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="2587" height="193" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n2EuOhaV1vQ/Xznzi04PCrI/AAAAAAAAY6s/GJXZM9b8FuoXaW2l4lWftzBO5izY-no0wCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h193/Body_ghost13.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">When the Body Speaks...All else is Hollow. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-76DGA3NpChU/XznztRJee4I/AAAAAAAAY6w/exDIO6QSB44YRdc39_jM92xp05OiGHogACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Body_ghost16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1425" data-original-width="2048" height="356" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-76DGA3NpChU/XznztRJee4I/AAAAAAAAY6w/exDIO6QSB44YRdc39_jM92xp05OiGHogACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h356/Body_ghost16.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">What is beneath the sheet?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ied65rkEbe8/Xznz4_TnTlI/AAAAAAAAY64/fJXbuYEY04U2bK3sQbLfZq_9a96bKNLyACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Book_When_Lil1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ied65rkEbe8/Xznz4_TnTlI/AAAAAAAAY64/fJXbuYEY04U2bK3sQbLfZq_9a96bKNLyACLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/Book_When_Lil1.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the end, after the song, I pulled off the sheet, thus beginning the second act.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_XWPLia0Q0w" width="320" youtube-src-id="_XWPLia0Q0w"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gus the singing Ghost. When the Body Speaks. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017. A Night of Performance Art by Xavier Lopez. Cast: Xavier Lopez, Grace Larenard, Basil Mayan, Girlgoth and Kaz. Supported by Artists Up - Grant Lab Award from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4 Culture and Artist Trust. Music changed to adhere to copyright laws. Performance Art. InArtsNW. Seattle, WA. 2017. Filmed by Loren Herrera.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-32650227879899381642020-08-16T00:58:00.016-07:002020-08-16T17:10:27.361-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #14: When The Body Speaks: A Night of Performance Art - Overview. 2017. <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oGtPMOkoep8/XzjwEs9LipI/AAAAAAAAY4g/5HljDCcjsdA1bDtMrgr-G6KiMXnIDg1CgCLcBGAsYHQ/s792/inarts%2Bcover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oGtPMOkoep8/XzjwEs9LipI/AAAAAAAAY4g/5HljDCcjsdA1bDtMrgr-G6KiMXnIDg1CgCLcBGAsYHQ/w328-h254/inarts%2Bcover.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Xavier Lopez Performance: When the Body Speaks Act 2: Performed on November 9th, 2017. Supported by an Artists Up / Grant LAB Award from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4Culture & Artist Trust. When the Body Speaks Act 2: Sheet Ghost/The Diabetic Luchador (Nothing but a Nothing) finds the Diabetic Luchador confronting the ghosts of his past. Starring: Xavier Lopez, Grace LaRenard, Basil Mahan and Lily C. Munn as "The Guardian Angel." Live Music Editing by Kaz. Directed by Loren Herrera, originally edited by Loren Herrera, project by Xavier Lopez, Filmed on location at INARTSNW, November 9th 2017. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tv1Yh2aHOZk/XzjmrBG37_I/AAAAAAAAY4I/oYeLjP5b9egf-le_vQbD2jc8lLTUl7F4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/really%2Buse%2Bthis%2Bone.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1583" data-original-width="2048" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tv1Yh2aHOZk/XzjmrBG37_I/AAAAAAAAY4I/oYeLjP5b9egf-le_vQbD2jc8lLTUl7F4wCLcBGAsYHQ/w328-h254/really%2Buse%2Bthis%2Bone.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I was to present a short "one-man performance" dealing with issues of "Latinoness," entitled "When The Body Speaks," it would be about Illness, specifically illnesses targeting Latinos and which run through my family tree, directly through my body and in my blood! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ultimately, I would craft a longer, more complex event than initially planned, enlisting five other artists--a first for me! I did a forty-five minute performance and I was extremely nervous because of my ailments. Would the nerve-endings in my feet flare up? Would I suffer from vertigo? Before this, my longest performance was 25 minutes and I was much younger then. But over the year of practice I brought my weight down by twenty pounds and when I hit the stage I was certain I could do it. </div><br /><div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JT-YKE1htOo/XzjmhwJ_PmI/AAAAAAAAY4E/MOt2db0fzWgRIJvDIH-Swtc7O7rYmhgzwCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/FB_IMG_1510309144160%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="410" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JT-YKE1htOo/XzjmhwJ_PmI/AAAAAAAAY4E/MOt2db0fzWgRIJvDIH-Swtc7O7rYmhgzwCLcBGAsYHQ/w307-h410/FB_IMG_1510309144160%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;">The event, itself was part biography, part endurance and part conceptual art. I introduced Seattle to "Putoh" a mestizo hybrid of cultures and performance genres! On top of that, I did something I thought I never could have--I sang in front of a live audience! That night I grew as an artist, possibly even extended the definition of Latinx art today and expressed the way that I see the world. I was overjoyed, proud of what I had accomplished!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nbJUlevuljU/Xzjv001jscI/AAAAAAAAY4Y/-_vhwIhQQjkLo-U3WEkwD5UM27z-8ImLwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/received_10214267935909212.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1440" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nbJUlevuljU/Xzjv001jscI/AAAAAAAAY4Y/-_vhwIhQQjkLo-U3WEkwD5UM27z-8ImLwCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/received_10214267935909212.jpeg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br />What exactly is Putoh? <br /><br />Putoh is a hybrid in every sense of the word. Putoh celebrates individuality and intersectionality. Invented in the year 2000 at the university of California Davis, it is a portmanteau of ideas, vision and philosophies. Linguistically, the term "Putoh" is a fusion of two languages and two words. Of course there is the Japanese Butoh, meaning, literally Dance But also the Spanish-in this case-Mexican, gutter word Putoh. Which has many meanings, but which has a very similar etymological history to the word "Punk" and it is in that spirit that the two words were married. <br /><br />The performance form itself was created by a Chicano, pre-Latino, pre-Latinx, a Mexican American, one Jewish and one post catholic, two feminists, two performance artists, two university students, a painter, two sculptors and a science fiction fan. Katherine Adamenko and Xavier Lopez came from very different backgrounds Xavier, a California Mexican American complete with a Valley girl brogue and Katherine Adamenko New York City Jewish and Cuban/Spanish ("on my dad’s side") feminist performance artist with a huge personality were destined to create something that the world was not prepared for--something that refuses to be categorized, meshes forms and cultures. So sit back, relax and enjoy the "Return of the Putoh" and enter the Post-postmodern a world of intersectionality at every turn.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MBmyF1iaAow/XzjwX6FgoJI/AAAAAAAAY4o/d4b1R2oHBRMCvoNa3LggZRUYE0qKeiatgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/postkrista.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MBmyF1iaAow/XzjwX6FgoJI/AAAAAAAAY4o/d4b1R2oHBRMCvoNa3LggZRUYE0qKeiatgCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/postkrista.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I put together a night of Performance Art, presented by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4 Culture and ArtistTrust at the recently reconsecrated INARTS NW building--a place that is housing some of the most avant garde performance in the city. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In this performance, I returned to an artform that I created alongside the wonderfully Feminist performance artist and Butoh artist Katharine Adamenko, when we were both taking graduate courses at UC Davis. Entitled "Putoh," </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xNU_MX3YJ9s/XznKtjchN9I/AAAAAAAAY5g/CzIjhIYIjQw6M1My8KW9IjL_h5cSW1nAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Magician1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xNU_MX3YJ9s/XznKtjchN9I/AAAAAAAAY5g/CzIjhIYIjQw6M1My8KW9IjL_h5cSW1nAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Magician1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I'll say more about it in a bit, but November 9th's performance reminded me of a series of performances that we did together in the late, late nineties. It was the birth of the Soft Cyborg and of "Putoh" and it was a heady time that stands in direct contrast to today wherein we felt as though we could accomplish everything--where we didn't feel as though the world was on the brink and it is in that that spirit that I present you with the description that I wrote about one particular performance that I put on as part of a series of salons put together by my very dear friend Katharine Adamenko, what follows is the paper--the last paper I wrote for the last class I took at UC Davis, before embarking on a five year trip to Europe--modified only enough to keep it from sounding too strange.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-trP88UUTABg/Xzmang_FkcI/AAAAAAAAY40/MFCTxFjJ-qspw1qkhOtSUU0jWXROTnNcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20171022_165632.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-trP88UUTABg/Xzmang_FkcI/AAAAAAAAY40/MFCTxFjJ-qspw1qkhOtSUU0jWXROTnNcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/20171022_165632.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fj3TV5r3YdI" width="320" youtube-src-id="fj3TV5r3YdI"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">When the Body Speaks. (Augmented Mix.) Performance Art. InArtsNW.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1mC5DuLhHwg/XznJlCtjmyI/AAAAAAAAY5A/TtqM4S8H4UQuIDZ6XTxB3jypx3F6RZzbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s271/4Culture-Logo-2300-c.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="271" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1mC5DuLhHwg/XznJlCtjmyI/AAAAAAAAY5A/TtqM4S8H4UQuIDZ6XTxB3jypx3F6RZzbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/4Culture-Logo-2300-c.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b-8uKr7dzKA/XznJueHp5oI/AAAAAAAAY5E/boDWMobZ-SsfEdQM_V8-C-PlMg-Hto-wgCLcBGAsYHQ/s248/OAC_logoblue-rgb.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="248" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b-8uKr7dzKA/XznJueHp5oI/AAAAAAAAY5E/boDWMobZ-SsfEdQM_V8-C-PlMg-Hto-wgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/OAC_logoblue-rgb.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZvoXf6_3V2Q/XznJ53J13oI/AAAAAAAAY5M/up5GogcFb1U0fhRtKWO75b2VKt8KQwjKACLcBGAsYHQ/s144/artists.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="144" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZvoXf6_3V2Q/XznJ53J13oI/AAAAAAAAY5M/up5GogcFb1U0fhRtKWO75b2VKt8KQwjKACLcBGAsYHQ/s0/artists.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></div><p></p></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-19201794543054840862020-08-16T00:13:00.011-07:002020-08-16T00:49:18.755-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #13: "A Falling Piece" at Artist Up: Grant LAB Shout Out at Oxbow. 2017. Photography: Bruce Clayton Tom.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Qgtv5FHGrU/XzjZet3PdZI/AAAAAAAAY2k/GUAB-HryJsQ5lYq7IsaLZFVqtTUjFXneACLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0588%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="273" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Qgtv5FHGrU/XzjZet3PdZI/AAAAAAAAY2k/GUAB-HryJsQ5lYq7IsaLZFVqtTUjFXneACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h273/artistsup_0588%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"A Falling Piece." Final Version. Artist Up: Grant LAB Shout Out at Oxbow. Original performance on 5/10/17. Photography: Bruce Clayton Tom. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1u2iB_DeHGs/Xzja7TSD2MI/AAAAAAAAY20/4Pxt_RGUZW8JxKvvUVsquC_FpmbPrkr3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0570%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="799" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1u2iB_DeHGs/Xzja7TSD2MI/AAAAAAAAY20/4Pxt_RGUZW8JxKvvUVsquC_FpmbPrkr3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/artistsup_0570%2B%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Influenced by the "Happenings" of Alan Kaprow and especially the "Dangerous" performances of Dick Higgens, when I was invited to Artist Up: Grant Lab Shout Out I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to do a performance "on the fly" as they call it and do a falling piece. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qiQrmGtrKxM/XzjbC2nqmbI/AAAAAAAAY24/N2yy9B2nuJw0Fo_JMaaR3rot_V3pw_kLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0577%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qiQrmGtrKxM/XzjbC2nqmbI/AAAAAAAAY24/N2yy9B2nuJw0Fo_JMaaR3rot_V3pw_kLgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h341/artistsup_0577%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The performance itself was extremely simple. When I was called to give my presentation, I stumbled several times on my way to the top of the stairs where I was to speak about my artistic ouevre and to describe my plans for what I would be doing with the grant later in the year. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uk4yF8rlewI/XzjbLqxvgYI/AAAAAAAAY3A/3hF6vtysKQcwXNPs4psfUJ1JTrvz9nBbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0579%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uk4yF8rlewI/XzjbLqxvgYI/AAAAAAAAY3A/3hF6vtysKQcwXNPs4psfUJ1JTrvz9nBbgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h341/artistsup_0579%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I energized the space and like Dick Higgins was dedicated to go all in with the performance.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ssrrxuUpYu8/XzjbU-pg7cI/AAAAAAAAY3I/_5pbsodqa1AICyPJsEizn5-Y96mGU98OgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0582%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ssrrxuUpYu8/XzjbU-pg7cI/AAAAAAAAY3I/_5pbsodqa1AICyPJsEizn5-Y96mGU98OgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h341/artistsup_0582%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Stumbling...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CDsM1Yl-NgY/Xzjbe0iFgfI/AAAAAAAAY3Q/chOoEoiNs64niOydUEXr2W_cUmjhAsrxACLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0588%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CDsM1Yl-NgY/Xzjbe0iFgfI/AAAAAAAAY3Q/chOoEoiNs64niOydUEXr2W_cUmjhAsrxACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h341/artistsup_0588%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and dragging myself up the stairs...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4TbIhRpR288/Xzjbnt_a9HI/AAAAAAAAY3Y/r7re8a--mIIY3Gp7DBJSAlbqwzo9QSHVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0589%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4TbIhRpR288/Xzjbnt_a9HI/AAAAAAAAY3Y/r7re8a--mIIY3Gp7DBJSAlbqwzo9QSHVQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h341/artistsup_0589%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TACArcWJ7Tw/XzjbzrT9wtI/AAAAAAAAY3g/rUxRzwgOIeMNddOBQAC5rjYUqn44-e0KACLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0593%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="799" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TACArcWJ7Tw/XzjbzrT9wtI/AAAAAAAAY3g/rUxRzwgOIeMNddOBQAC5rjYUqn44-e0KACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/artistsup_0593%2B%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">...and falling back down several times...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RhED-CRpU7w/Xzjb8FMgwSI/AAAAAAAAY3o/8rS_DP8wvBwfRpmiDvgEyYaU5WAzxnurQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0594%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="273" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RhED-CRpU7w/Xzjb8FMgwSI/AAAAAAAAY3o/8rS_DP8wvBwfRpmiDvgEyYaU5WAzxnurQCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h273/artistsup_0594%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">...refusing help...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GbgmUmvfgfs/XzjcEZuLhgI/AAAAAAAAY3w/ETKrlWTsI4I8vMrYCtO1Fop85ZW2Ya24wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0599%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="799" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GbgmUmvfgfs/XzjcEZuLhgI/AAAAAAAAY3w/ETKrlWTsI4I8vMrYCtO1Fop85ZW2Ya24wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/artistsup_0599%2B%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Until I made it to the top.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sFTV59M2Y_Y/XzjcOgjJA3I/AAAAAAAAY30/qOnqoCk1ix4imxhw-VJYnMISy3Djb16GACLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/artistsup_0610%2B%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sFTV59M2Y_Y/XzjcOgjJA3I/AAAAAAAAY30/qOnqoCk1ix4imxhw-VJYnMISy3Djb16GACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h341/artistsup_0610%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Where I gave my presentation. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3FKlZODf0Tg" width="320" youtube-src-id="3FKlZODf0Tg"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In order a photodocumentation of the event, photographed by <span style="text-align: justify;">Bruce Clayton Tom. 2017.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-30228348378619329062020-08-15T18:47:00.018-07:002020-08-15T23:55:12.488-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #12: "Seance" at John Cage Musicircus. 2016.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5us2JHJDTm8/Xzh2RAwXiAI/AAAAAAAAY08/gsj-DFVaGQUi3e9QnuN6WArDdLCTFV-CQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20161119_171305.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5us2JHJDTm8/Xzh2RAwXiAI/AAAAAAAAY08/gsj-DFVaGQUi3e9QnuN6WArDdLCTFV-CQCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/20161119_171305.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">After On the Edge: Latinx Performance Art Festival, I became part of (the wonderful and personal high-point) the John Cage celebration that was put together to celebrate the work of John Cage.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cqhh83uemd0/Xzh3vennUFI/AAAAAAAAY1M/7y9haUNxUWgoBxXwh6t3AgjnTL5xYjynwCLcBGAsYHQ/s273/caged.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cqhh83uemd0/Xzh3vennUFI/AAAAAAAAY1M/7y9haUNxUWgoBxXwh6t3AgjnTL5xYjynwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/caged.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory">music theorist</a>, artist, and philosopher. A pioneer of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music)">indeterminacy in music</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroacoustic_music">electroacoustic music</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_technique">non-standard use of musical instruments</a>, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde">avant-garde</a>. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XYcTyDRc8FU/XziSHtNuHnI/AAAAAAAAY1s/b2C0xis6PSsjMi-1XTpU63DxtHqCCRueACLcBGAsYHQ/s960/15073541_10209523406015285_3527046441912979250_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XYcTyDRc8FU/XziSHtNuHnI/AAAAAAAAY1s/b2C0xis6PSsjMi-1XTpU63DxtHqCCRueACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/15073541_10209523406015285_3527046441912979250_n.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8UktW-yDFJc/XziTNRaJ3pI/AAAAAAAAY2I/pOLIKXGQufUZbWgwHB5RYT_wMxXn42dUQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cageghost.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8UktW-yDFJc/XziTNRaJ3pI/AAAAAAAAY2I/pOLIKXGQufUZbWgwHB5RYT_wMxXn42dUQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Cageghost.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2016, I was asked to take part in the John Cage Musicircus, a mixed-media performance festival held at Seattle's prestigious Town Hall. What follows is a mixed-media performance piece that I created for the event, perhaps one of strangest pieces I have created so far. Broken up into two pieces, this is the abstracted ghost piece.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L_WbvgxwQhY/XziSuDvPf2I/AAAAAAAAY18/VlbhTSkbPiAa0ti2Gz4LQthMAmEzwKBwQCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/15181695_10209523425215765_6705952576455654156_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L_WbvgxwQhY/XziSuDvPf2I/AAAAAAAAY18/VlbhTSkbPiAa0ti2Gz4LQthMAmEzwKBwQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/15181695_10209523425215765_6705952576455654156_n.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f_w7tLradec/XziTv-3PwLI/AAAAAAAAY2U/t2P2fKrnjAkawkGNBMhTFLobmlttQRqxgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/book_oscars-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1989" data-original-width="2048" height="498" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f_w7tLradec/XziTv-3PwLI/AAAAAAAAY2U/t2P2fKrnjAkawkGNBMhTFLobmlttQRqxgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h498/book_oscars-1.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Seance (Performance.) The John Cage Musicircus. Seattle, WA. 2016. Originally Titled "I Always Cry at the Oscars. David Bowie (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016.)" Became the ghost piece ("Seance.") presented at John Cage Musiccircus. Later called, just "Cancer." All sounds created by Xavier Lopez and the environment within the Town Hall John Cage Musiccircus Event. Many thanks to the folks who put on the event, especially Melanie Voytovich. Performed November 19th, 2016.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mXOeK6G0t8U/XziQDDi0iLI/AAAAAAAAY1g/ETkxoWDxVCUxBMDNL3OqvVVTENbTpCM4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2874/Musiccircus%2BTimes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2874" data-original-width="1094" height="1250" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mXOeK6G0t8U/XziQDDi0iLI/AAAAAAAAY1g/ETkxoWDxVCUxBMDNL3OqvVVTENbTpCM4gCLcBGAsYHQ/w476-h1250/Musiccircus%2BTimes.jpg" width="476" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DRY2bOx21x8" width="320" youtube-src-id="DRY2bOx21x8"></iframe></div><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-84359146614513387302020-08-13T21:45:00.025-07:002020-08-14T21:45:04.647-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #11C: On The Edge: Latinx Performance Art Festival - Polymorfy "Super, Sugar Bear #2"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ay-sdrg8jAE/XzYUf5cZ7lI/AAAAAAAAYyM/-VRcYckTwec3RkXClZ05QJ7gESAQW6p8ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/15443127_10211367542521190_1734012146536327994_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ay-sdrg8jAE/XzYUf5cZ7lI/AAAAAAAAYyM/-VRcYckTwec3RkXClZ05QJ7gESAQW6p8ACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/15443127_10211367542521190_1734012146536327994_o.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Dream of the Soft Cyborg (Performance Art) : Polymorfy: "Super, Sugar Bear (Performance,)" Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA. La Cocina. 2016.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span color="" face="" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oXlt8dDVv2k/XzcPk0P5VCI/AAAAAAAAYyc/I29J8q7E61kPQKXHgQy630a36cNHuMN3QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204732_001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oXlt8dDVv2k/XzcPk0P5VCI/AAAAAAAAYyc/I29J8q7E61kPQKXHgQy630a36cNHuMN3QCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20160805_204732_001.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: justify;">Flashback: </h1><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The year is 1999 or was it 2000? Yeah, I think it was the millenium and I was in the last year of my Art History program at UC Davis. I remember it like it was yesterday, so bright and vivid in David Hockney pastels, the weather was beautiful as it often is in the warm, zephyrous, Southern Californian sun. I was standing in front of the Art History class that I was "T.A.'ing" for Dr. Dianne Sachko Macleod; who was my advisor until I switched over from an emphasis in Victorian Studies to an emphasis on contemporary art and gender issues. I have been very lucky over the years to have studied with some of the most amazing and accomplished professors female and otherwise--and Dr. Macleod was no exception. She was always a remarkably badass professor and hard as nails. Her classes almost kicked my ass, but on many occasions she left me full of new insights and changed my view of the world, the structure of scientific revolutions, the archeology of knowledge and the dialectic of history! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">In the background, a jet flew overhead. At some point, in every college class that I have ever taught, especially the ones where I felt a real connection to the students, I have tried to take one day to just communicate with them, to get a feeling for the world that they live in--a sense of how they view their lives. Add to that a love of Socratic Method and Platonic ideals and of course that meant that I had to teach a class beneath the eucalyptus trees just outside the UC Davis Art Department. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zeDZdgLwtao/XzdLEhNb1iI/AAAAAAAAY0Q/Ch2XnUVs_p4NoFqidzOFKZ9MjC5-SChlACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204759.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zeDZdgLwtao/XzdLEhNb1iI/AAAAAAAAY0Q/Ch2XnUVs_p4NoFqidzOFKZ9MjC5-SChlACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_204759.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was the last day of regular classes. The next one would be test preparation and then we would meet for finals, which I would then have to grade. In many ways I actually knew these students better than the professor did--but that was the nature of the University experience. We were the grunts, but because we cared so much about what we were doing, they kept piling more and more duties upon us. If you've ever seen Project Runway--imagine that times a hundred and you've still got no idea what grad school is like. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">We spoke of many things that day. We spoke of contemporary music, how things had changed since I was an undergraduate and we talked about just how crappy "Star Wars: A Phantom Menace" was. We talked about philosophy and the students' own plans for the future--and I realized that it didn't look like they could truly articulate any. Then I asked them for their sense of the current state of the world, reality--life, the universe and everything--their sense of existence in 1999, or was it 2000. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">One person asked me if I had ever seen the video for "Numb" from the 1993, U2 album, Zooropa. Another said she felt as though she were trapped in plastic, wax, amber or "something like that." That's what she said..."or something like that." It was odd that I remember that so clearly--it wasn't even out of the ordinary, but then again, maybe life is actually made out of an ever increasing series of ordinary moments, moments of no apparent consequence that only become consequential upon reflection. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">The next student said that it felt as though they were waiting for something, like they were locked in place, going through the motions--waiting for something. I asked what they thought they were waiting for. The end of the world? The Second Coming? "Yeah," they said. They didn't know, but they all agreed that they were waiting for something, something that would change everything and bring form and meaning to their lives. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWjOQM7ypG8/XzdLT3xlXdI/AAAAAAAAY0U/cycVM4vefIwOL6MMoITJzAtQANfFcCrDwCLcBGAsYHQ/s420/102.%2BTheSpaniard-large.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="420" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWjOQM7ypG8/XzdLT3xlXdI/AAAAAAAAY0U/cycVM4vefIwOL6MMoITJzAtQANfFcCrDwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/102.%2BTheSpaniard-large.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: justify;">Flashback further:</h1><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When I was a child I remember a cartoon dog that used to float up in the air (in a state of what has to be described as orgasmic bliss,) when he was given a doggie treat. I loved this doggie and was fascinated by how happy he could become when he received the object of his affection. This fascination seemed like utter bliss to a young child, but, I don’t have to reach so far back to find his contemporaries. Scooby Doo, for one will do anything to get his “Scooby Snacks.” He will easily apprehend the same villain that had eluded the Scooby’s for the first half of the cartoon. He will happily overcome his own fears and attempt all sorts of inexplicable super-heroic feats for the promise of these snacks. He too becomes orgasmic and ecstatic in the presence of his main addiction.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Think of cereal commercials with their animated emcees, those spokes-chickens, muscle-bound Tigers and Sugar-bears. Think of the Trix Rabbit, who is named after the product of his affection—one that according to the logic of his mythos, he can never attain, because when he does, if he is not stopped by the children around him--he goes insane. This is true also about Sonny, the Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs Crow, who wants nothing more than to be one with his General Mills cereal. But what drives these characters to be such all-consuming need machines?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_PivjrpQ-Ng/XzcPw0PcvBI/AAAAAAAAYyg/3G3ZaPPUjUAkgUqwuw850sGDxlyxb0_RQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204803.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_PivjrpQ-Ng/XzcPw0PcvBI/AAAAAAAAYyg/3G3ZaPPUjUAkgUqwuw850sGDxlyxb0_RQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_204803.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is interesting that one of the ways to see the evolution of our society is as one of an increasing alienation of mankind from the baser needs of the human as animal. This is evident in our language, in our supermarkets and oddly, it is evident in our media. Recently, I have had the pleasure of rediscovering another program of my childhood--the old "Our Gang" comedies--also known as the <b>Little Rascals</b>. In these comedies, aside from the casual racism of the age which is horrible and seeps into these epic, little stories--children of various ethnicities hang out together and have amazing adventures. But something else interesting occurs here--these children, the main protagonists-- are very poor, poor in the way that we simply do not see presented anywhere today, but they are proud, smart and damned clever. And there are several episodes that center around these children attempting to find--or rather, steal food. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now this is something that we simply do not see anymore--it is not part of how we allow ourselves to be represented. Starving children, children fighting for their existence is simply not considered funny. In fact, there are very few instances in the popular media in which the food chain is ever dealt with--excepting two very notable areas. Firstly, television commercials--of course, deal with food and feeding in very abstract ways--but still, it is a component of many of their one-minute narratives. Secondly, however, many of the narratives of cartoons continue to deal with the intricacies of the food chain, animal against animal, hunter and hunted, cat and mouse, vulture and rabbit, wolf and roadrunner all with the frustrated intention of feeding (something, which I am just now realizing could be made to connect to the frustration machine that Marcel Duchamp created with his large glass. I will have to come back to this. 2020.) These dramas continue to this very day in new Warner Brothers Cartoons, Ren and Stimpy and even on the Simpsons with the Itchy and Scratchy Show.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is with these cartoon characters that we have allowed a kind of Lacanian imaginary space to grow--one in which we safely and with a distance allow our baser needs to be represented. The need to feed, which includes the need to kill, which includes countless chicken-beaks, and which is not pretty, clever, comforting or kind--as Morrissey said ages ago--"it is the unholy stench of murder." However, again, we see a kind of sublimation--a fetishization which occurs and allows us to distance ourselves from the baseness of these dark, animalistic desires and which makes them palatable, which in turn allows us to deal with even deeper issues than mere feeding--issues of addiction and even of desire--again, from the safe distance of sublimation into the alien/alienation. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In fact because the text is opened to us by way of the distance that is allowed us through alienation and fetishization--it actually becomes easier to see why these cartoon spokes-creatures love these products so much—they are in fact addicted to them. Desire and addiction fuel these narratives. Cocoa Puffs and Trix are the drugs that they seek. They wrap their existences around these products; they promote them and thus they become part of each other. This is evident when we look closer at characters like Toucan Sam, and Sonny, the emcee for General Mills’ Cocoa Puffs, who are even the same color as the product that they promote. It is a part of their cellular makeup and especially Sonny seeks to return himself to his originary place of utter bliss, one in which he and cocoa puffs can become one. </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B7Huxt4MxP0/XzcQEJrerFI/AAAAAAAAYyo/WZc_2QvHpR0adbee8Fv-AZ7OM1_3dx8FACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204824.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B7Huxt4MxP0/XzcQEJrerFI/AAAAAAAAYyo/WZc_2QvHpR0adbee8Fv-AZ7OM1_3dx8FACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_204824.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If we imagine that Sonny is real, for a moment, we will discover that this is actually a very easy thing to do. In fact, if we look very closely at these commercials we will see that we have always been asked to imagine that they are indeed real beings--these cartoon emcees. These characters are seen to exist in a world that is very much like our own. Like Roger Rabbit, they interact freely with the humans they encounter. There is no barrier between the children and mothers in these commercials that the Trix Rabbit, for instance, must contend with. </div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And like Roger Rabbit, these commercial emcees, too, seem to exist via a set of defining rules, their existences calculated to make others happy, like Roger, they are also incapable of passing up the punch-line to a joke and they seem to exist as slaves to our, and especially their, own passions. Sonny, Toucan Sam and the Trix Rabbit may be cartoons, soft and furry and made of painted cells like Roger, but they are something more--they live in and effect our world. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is an odd assertion to make about characters that are, in fact creations of corporate men and women—whose sole agenda is to sell a product. But if one looks around, she will see that these hybrid creatures are in fact everywhere, from Mickey Mouse, The Michelin Man, the Jolly Green Giant, talking and singing dogs on TV and at X-mas™, even Snuggles the living teddy-bear—we must admit that we are surrounded by these grotesqueries and I will make many more assertions before I am through. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKnMfcMPWSA/Xzck1Z9PC5I/AAAAAAAAYzo/N3hDcCWQgd4JKVnYCqM7bMj7zwTPwGk-QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/0_Book_2_mouse.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="328" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKnMfcMPWSA/Xzck1Z9PC5I/AAAAAAAAYzo/N3hDcCWQgd4JKVnYCqM7bMj7zwTPwGk-QCLcBGAsYHQ/w328-h328/0_Book_2_mouse.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let’s look at, perhaps, the most well known of these creations, better known than even Bugs Bunny, I am of course speaking of Mickey Mouse. A moment ago, I spoke of a Bakhtinian idea that comes from the caves and grottoes of the mythic world, images that have come to be called grotesque. In these ancient drawings and carvings animals and humans were seen to be interacting, often in vulgar and obscene ways, at other times and throughout history we have seen fantastic images of men and women who may have been the offspring of these grotesque carnivals. Mythology is filled with Minotaurs, hecubi, etc. those creatures, which are a mixture of man and animal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Ml_xQxEWmA/XzcQTUJdx0I/AAAAAAAAYys/ED7T-nYhr-QfGOzjVY4VXt-7Khb5EIsHwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204916.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Ml_xQxEWmA/XzcQTUJdx0I/AAAAAAAAYys/ED7T-nYhr-QfGOzjVY4VXt-7Khb5EIsHwCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_204916.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, now these creatures have lost their connections to the real animals, they once mimicked. They are confabulations and fabrications instead of having connections to their real counterparts. These are creatures like Mickey Mouse, who wear pants and shoes, who live in 50’s houses and who own other animals, speak openly and who’s jobs seemingly are to act as spokes-creatures, ad-monsters and film-stars.<a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/xavier-lopez-jr/toward-a-more-dada-dialectic-the-soft-cyborg-returns-from-the-grave/10151459556453564">[1]</a> But there is something more here, something that gives these beasties, perhaps, an even greater claim to being real than you and I. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No longer happy with Pinocchio's simple desire to be a boy, to be human, to enter our world and be one of us. These "Soft-Cyborgs" are claiming immortality. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let's think for a moment about how stories and texts are subverted, often despite their original intentions and are opened up to new interpretations. <span style="text-align: left;">Within Fantasyland attractions, for instance, little attention is given to the original, “authorized” narratives of the books and movies. Especially in rides like Alice or Pinocchio the narratives break down and are overturned, becoming new ride narratives. Because of this, often there is little chance for the rider to make sense of these rides in a traditional sense. At times, characters appear and disappear for no good reason, and events occur out of order. In Alice, for example, the White Rabbit appears at times when he is meant to be missing. The Queen of Hearts screams at riders unprovoked and the Madhatter’s Tea Party occurs at the end of the tale. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FI1luo6wBrk/XzdlKeXnR-I/AAAAAAAAY0s/L4Kj3-ahnoUMafNfs8kKfMvl92SfUK81gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204950.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FI1luo6wBrk/XzdlKeXnR-I/AAAAAAAAY0s/L4Kj3-ahnoUMafNfs8kKfMvl92SfUK81gCLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20160805_204950.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Pinocchio is one ride that especially contests the traditional narratives found in the Pinocchio book, film and the moralities of the park in favor of an amoral ambivalence. The savage interior of Pinocchio’s Daring Adventure is one of the many places in which Disneyland logic breaks down, and a cautionary tale transforms into a celebration of the vulgar and low. This “daring adventure” is a breakneck of Carnivalesque imagery, ultimately turning Disney’s own messages against him. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Several biographers have noted that Disney was very much in favor of the wild, adventurous, seeking, experimenting (male) child.<a href="file:///C:/Users/xlope/Desktop/Writing/Stuff%20for%20publication%20blog/entrenched%20the%20Magic%20Kingdom.doc#_ftn1">[1]</a> Film characters like Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, Pecos Bill, and even Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio, are to some extent--examples of this. But, if Disney in the movies questions the world of adulthood and its breaking of the child’s will through rules and procedure, in Disneyland he gives almost completely into the propriety of civilized mannered society. Pinocchio’s Daring Journey was originally meant (like Mr. Toad) to be an admonishment to children against the dangers of breaking the rules of society. This, however is not what occurs in the ride. </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8vvSPDtcLlQ/XzctpmAFHbI/AAAAAAAAYz4/0hJJpyh_PZoDSpyVyq9lHMZJgqXiIhTMwCLcBGAsYHQ/s604/1915677_1286103309583_3277755_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="453" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8vvSPDtcLlQ/XzctpmAFHbI/AAAAAAAAYz4/0hJJpyh_PZoDSpyVyq9lHMZJgqXiIhTMwCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/1915677_1286103309583_3277755_n.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Throughout the ride, walls are painted with scenes of Pinocchio’s temptation. Disney is meticulous in showing the threat and punishment of desire. From the start, however, Disney’s intentions are thwarted. Riders begin at the gates to the puppet theatre, already mise-en-scene. Pinocchio is shown dancing on strings, already entrapped because he has succumbed to the temptations of sublimated sexual desire and the greed of fame. He has chosen an “actor’s life” (literally, he has chosen to be an actor,) to take active control of his life and environment, and is no longer the passive puppet that F.C. Sayers accuses Disney guests of becoming.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like the civilized admonishment and implied threats throughout the park, this daring journey was also meant to be about the control of base emotions and the unregulated id (the child in us all.) In the adventure though, Pinocchio’s conscience, (Jiminy Cricket) is always shown attempting to catch up and only ever reaches the puppet at the end of the ride--when he has safely returned home. In this telling, Pinocchio never has to deal directly with his conscience. </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nuC93hY6oSg/XzcuA8t9-jI/AAAAAAAAY0E/Lgt3eFCiEBgNSkLuWDFl179GhoQ5GpCaACLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/Bear.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1279" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nuC93hY6oSg/XzcuA8t9-jI/AAAAAAAAY0E/Lgt3eFCiEBgNSkLuWDFl179GhoQ5GpCaACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Bear.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Interestingly, this ride contains a Disney representation of a carnival. However, unlike the Bakhtin carnival, riders are not meant to enjoy the ironically named “Pleasure Island.” Very quickly, any implied pleasure turns into menace. This is a manic, malicious carnival that hurls riders through at a breakneck pace while a loud calliope organ plays atonally, in the background. As guests pass through a debaucherous orgy of smoking, gambling and sex, they are unnerved by the distant braying of donkeys--the threat of Pinocchio’s eventual transformation into beast. This is the ultimate fear of coupling with our own animal natures. To add to the threat, against the last wall before Pinocchio’s transformation can be seen a jumbled sexualized creature--a mixture of moving human and animal figures. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once Pinocchio has finally and utterly succumbed to all sorts of debauchery and has become a jackass, he is almost immediately swallowed by Monstro the whale. The next scene, immediately shows the “good fairy” returning Pinocchio home safely. Where Geppetto greets him with the words, “I’m so happy.” But something is amiss and the traditional story has been radically changed. Pinocchio has not renounced the ways of debauchery and sin. Within the ride, we do not see a moment in which the puppet has a change of heart. Any misgivings have to be extrapolated from sources outside the ride—outside of this text. Instead, here Pinocchio has to be saved only when events would surely have destroyed him. This Pinocchio has unremorsefully enjoyed all that the carnival has to offer, and (just barely) survived. To further show the lack of his awareness, in the final scene of the ride--Pinocchio has not become a boy. He has chosen to stay in this imperfect state. The traditional Happy Ending has been thwarted. Here, the attraction itself has “overturned” the Disney’s narrative in favor of a new ambivalent one. Despite all of their scriptwriting, Imagineers have been incapable of controlling their own text.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ThEhhmVx1rg/XzctjB5dqvI/AAAAAAAAYz0/rmm1KHtBilw-NC9P95gOpS9opcePrD6mACLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/31.%2BSugarbear__Xavier%2BLopez%2BJr.%252C%2BPerformance%2BArt_5ft_NFS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1278" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ThEhhmVx1rg/XzctjB5dqvI/AAAAAAAAYz0/rmm1KHtBilw-NC9P95gOpS9opcePrD6mACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/31.%2BSugarbear__Xavier%2BLopez%2BJr.%252C%2BPerformance%2BArt_5ft_NFS.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Further thwarting any simple understanding of the assumed texts, as emcees, by selling their animated souls to monopolies and mega-corporations they have become larger, longer-lasting, stronger, more powerful than the men that have created them. They no longer die, when their creators die. They simply acquire a strange new voice, a new stance, chiaroscuro shadowing and continue on. They have become demi-hegemonic, that is, they continue as long as the product they speak for continues to sell. This sell/cel/cellular aspect of the soft-cyborg is fascinating and puts our mere mortal bodies to shame. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In opposition to Roger Rabbit, who according to his own mythology, made those first tentative steps into our world in the thirties, only to find that he missed the comfort of his own world, we can find a system that has begun to inverse itself. One in which it is humans who are attempting to enter the world of these cartoon characters, to trade in their flesh and blood for the promise of animated immortality.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eOftQeEi5G0/XzcQphsItPI/AAAAAAAAYy4/pHSnKgXs2kkbMc-3zib4lkCqoEEayLQ0ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_204930.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eOftQeEi5G0/XzcQphsItPI/AAAAAAAAYy4/pHSnKgXs2kkbMc-3zib4lkCqoEEayLQ0ACLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_204930.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What, then, exactly is the allure of the Soft Cyborg--what is the carrot that is dangled before us in order to make us even want to become soft in the first place? What desire can possibly be fulfilled by us becoming a cross between human and cartoon character? What do we gain from becoming soft? What happens when flesh becomes furry? What is the value of pliant flesh? Pliant, suppliant metal against flesh?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let's start at a point that is more manageable and which seeks to be more descriptive. Going back to when I was a graduate student at UC Davis working on my second thesis paper, I read a few German magazines speaking of the birth of a new kind of Mannerism, pretty much going as far back as Matthew Barney's Cremaster series. For the sake of any easy to work with definition we will consider "Mannerism" to be a period that is a break of sorts from the traditional styles of a time, a break from the classical, but also a continuation of it and a growth from it, generating work that tends to be more stylistic and individual than it is about replicating the accepted rules of what is considered classic, rote, etc.. It is then, a kind of collecting, internalizing and understanding of the rules, elements and tropes of a previous period and taking that knowledge to play with these tropes.--In essence, a mannerist period is one in which artists take and make the tropes, styles, tricks, aesthetics, philosophies, limitations etc. and bend them to their will, making them their own. Essentially, it is play after the rules have been set and understood. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let us look at what I will call the ill-mannered mannerists--because their desire was to remake the rules, remake art in their own image. Back when I was a child, the first exhibition I ever saw was an installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was an exhibition of mannerism in which all of the paintings were of women and men with the most translucent, white skin and the longest of all possible long necks. It was a group show, involving several mannerist artists and included paintings and sculpture of the period.. The artists had reworked anatomy to the point that it no longer had anything to do with reality--think of Ingres and his reclining nude with the extra bones in her back and really take that many steps further. When I first saw these paintings and sculptures, I thought that perhaps this meant there was another race of creatures on our planet, all of them with longer necks and perfect skin. I took these paintings at face value and I asked my mother if they were, in fact, aliens. She just smiled and said that that was the style of the time. I was about six--what did I know about style, history, anatomy or art. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vSEgPiXp09E/XzcRoa0PmHI/AAAAAAAAYzE/HJ_Q7_dM9D0WV7tLZ5K5WEnPq_RnxD3QgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_205029.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vSEgPiXp09E/XzcRoa0PmHI/AAAAAAAAYzE/HJ_Q7_dM9D0WV7tLZ5K5WEnPq_RnxD3QgCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_205029.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My second point here is not merely aesthetic, but critical and theoretical--and more-so, it is actual. Going back to the story that I opened this dialectic with, the story of my students who could not describe what was happening to them. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The students, who had earlier become speechless, were alienated from their own place in history, waiting for something to change everything--some sort of a sign, which would give them direction or, at the very least, wake them from their slumber. They appeared to be in search of a break from what had gone before. In my estimation that horrible break actually did come in 2001, on my mother's birthday in September and it came with a price tag that was to be amazingly terrible, but which created a very decisive, very definite cut-off date for the Post Modern--especially, the late, last part of the Post Modern (and by extension) the program of Modernism. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This last part being one wherein there was an intrinsic desire to return to the roots of the modern and to regain the abstract and abstruse ideals of the early modern philosophers and through this conservative return to the roots of modernity to again deny any real, critical, theoretical or physical access/ability to and of the subaltern--and by extension all of us. For that was the secret of the subaltern; that, in the eyes of the institution, if you are not hegemonic, you simply have no meaning,- no reason, and you are speechless.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: justify;">We Are Twinkies</h2><div style="text-align: justify;">We are Twinkies in that we are ingesting, and here I am talking about a real scientific evolution—us becoming addicted at a cellular level to the products of our desire. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The value of course is that it may be both our inevitable end and our only survival skill, if we imagine a world like the one in Max Headroom—a program that was simply too honest to last long on television-we can imagine a world that is owned part and parcel by large corporations-these corporations are viruses, in that they seek to live for as long as they can using the resources of their host body till the host is destroyed and empty. They are the viruses that we have created, hard-edged and machine like they kill us with their cyborg bodies and hard-edged hegemonic minds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gTdFpSAt4VY/XzcR26pfH9I/AAAAAAAAYzI/QFzQ9csdMqcRHrwVNFDdVgd-BdqwtlD3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_205129.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gTdFpSAt4VY/XzcR26pfH9I/AAAAAAAAYzI/QFzQ9csdMqcRHrwVNFDdVgd-BdqwtlD3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_205129.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If we are to survive, we must become like Roger Rabbit, we must become like Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, our flesh must be pliant and perfect—we must become the plastic and rubber that bounces back after being dropped from the top of the Empire State Building. We must discover the nirvana that occurs in those few moments when we are suspended in mid-air before we drop. Our skin must stretch like Plastic-man and allow the machine to pass through us effortlessly. We must never bleed and instead we must ooze. We must see through the wild, white lidless eyes that see all and know the rules of the mystery. If not, the Terminator 2000 will necessarily destroy us. In essence we must evolve, grow and become what we were always meant to be. Soft.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RyGZFFXFTR0/XzcSC8v-OHI/AAAAAAAAYzQ/3pn4VOxXd-MvphRPfVWUTiTtRKQGJUY1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/104.%2B20160805_205135.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RyGZFFXFTR0/XzcSC8v-OHI/AAAAAAAAYzQ/3pn4VOxXd-MvphRPfVWUTiTtRKQGJUY1wCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/104.%2B20160805_205135.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We must be soft, but strong in order to get and be the good stuff. But what is this cool stuff, is it the desire to run fast, to be stronger, more agile than men, to live forever like advertisement emcees and cartoon characters? Perhaps the truth is ultimately less romantic and much more insidious. Perhaps the truth is one that we might actually prefer to keep hidden and mysterious, perhaps we would be better off to avert or even close our eyes to the answer, or answers. Perhaps, however, what I have spoken of is in fact a survival skill, perhaps our soft-cyborg skin, mutable and fluid like the skin of a cartoon, our addiction and slavery to our own creamy centers is what it takes to live in a world where we are mere mortals, slaves to forces that are much more powerful than we can ever hope to be, perhaps there is a silver-lining in a dialectic that places the human in a world in which large monopolies and lying presidents care more about money than the individuals that they are mutating into the soft-cyborg. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our bodies like Twinkies,Furries, </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are soft cyborg—we eat, drink and even sleep for the machine etc. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is evolution. Period.</div><p></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oyzuqBcmpKo/XzcSOFuaumI/AAAAAAAAYzY/VhxsRRfmGF4W79VbgMPdc4nOAmRtulIawCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/13912525_10210225378647807_1449574593931418332_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oyzuqBcmpKo/XzcSOFuaumI/AAAAAAAAYzY/VhxsRRfmGF4W79VbgMPdc4nOAmRtulIawCLcBGAsYHQ/w384-h512/13912525_10210225378647807_1449574593931418332_n.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span color="" face="" style="text-align: start;"><div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-7919931447345167562020-08-12T18:32:00.013-07:002020-08-14T15:15:13.231-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #11B: On The Edge: Latinx Performance Art Festival --Teaching A Hare to Tell Time. 2016<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5VgF7SUYeos/XzSXANkyXaI/AAAAAAAAYww/sq7W4otLbl8vrAPw82wO_A_qGr5aG3leQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203801_001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5VgF7SUYeos/XzSXANkyXaI/AAAAAAAAYww/sq7W4otLbl8vrAPw82wO_A_qGr5aG3leQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_203801_001.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Dream of the Soft Cyborg (Performance Art) : "Explaining the world to a Hare," Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA . La Cocina. Rumor has it that this was the first night of all Latinx non-solo Performance Art in Seattle history--but who knows for certain. 2016.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span color="" face="" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span color="" face="" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ypAKXk4MMsw/XzSabqR8k-I/AAAAAAAAYw8/d_efMhOEBhEHtNRKr06b2MACehLURogZACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203426.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ypAKXk4MMsw/XzSabqR8k-I/AAAAAAAAYw8/d_efMhOEBhEHtNRKr06b2MACehLURogZACLcBGAsYHQ/w410-h230/20160805_203426.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">This performance, like the earlier Spaniard performance at Anne Bonney in Seattle and a lost performance that I did at UCDavis all owed significantly to the performances of Joseph Beuys, whether I was aware of it or not. His mythology and mine overlapped in some very significant ways.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Sbg52pHwSw/XzSazy6kzZI/AAAAAAAAYxE/YYPJB_xhtVkiXl-3URGbAVN7UWI61FfXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203649.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Sbg52pHwSw/XzSazy6kzZI/AAAAAAAAYxE/YYPJB_xhtVkiXl-3URGbAVN7UWI61FfXQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20160805_203649.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If I was somehow given the opportunity, I would love to work on a performance with Joseph Beuys--of all the artists throughout history--his is the one that I seem to come back to the most--visually, we share some striking similarities--which is odd--because for both of us the performance work is extremely personal, autobiographical and anecdotal. I'm sure that Beuys himself would say it has something to do with a kind of post-Jungian--artistic collective mind--but all of that is just a little too new agey for me--though I love Beuys for being so out there and for being so willing to go out on a limb for what he believed--no matter what!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mzfFMtlNwlo/XzSbDDFG6EI/AAAAAAAAYxI/ROklN8qBCaUqrWLkU_nDJP4Abi-GXhGPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203709.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mzfFMtlNwlo/XzSbDDFG6EI/AAAAAAAAYxI/ROklN8qBCaUqrWLkU_nDJP4Abi-GXhGPQCLcBGAsYHQ/w512-h288/20160805_203709.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a child, before I even knew what art was, I would watch my father paint murals in the Los Angeles Chicano Art Movement as I would tag along to the Mechicano Art Center on Whittier Blvd mentally devouring the exciting scenes of Latino artists expressing what it meant to be Chicano back then! Days passed as I watched my father paint his expressionist, politically charged murals, day-dreaming of my own future. Every month my parents would take us to the LA Museums and galleries, where we saw Warhol's “Brillo Boxes,” conceptual sculptures and the films of Joseph Beuys and Gilbert and George. Later, in college, at the University of Nevada Reno and Uc Davis, my mind would be blown by the work of Marcel Duchamp and Dada, who influenced my now, mixed media performances. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TI9u8UVDwk8/XzSbTxmd_QI/AAAAAAAAYxU/bY_Vv2OO5y4U8J-gfQeAOi1eR0n33JiNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203735.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TI9u8UVDwk8/XzSbTxmd_QI/AAAAAAAAYxU/bY_Vv2OO5y4U8J-gfQeAOi1eR0n33JiNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20160805_203735.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">It was during this time that I began to perceived an unspoken difference between how my heroes made art and how I--as a young Latino artist--was expected to. Let me tell you a story. As a young artist, I searched everywhere, for successful Chicano artists for a sense that my work had a place. When Duchamp or Beuys made their work it was about ideas, their ideas, it reflected their view of the world. No one asked Marcel Duchamp to make work that was solely about his heritage—and he did not have to make artwork for the annual Halloween exhibition, knowing that that was the only time he would be able to show his work. I desperately wanted to make art that had meaning beyond other's expectations—art that reflected my life! But I had no models, no history to fall back on. I decided that I would have to make my own. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rlAYT21ZUXU/XzScd6EqXZI/AAAAAAAAYx4/0ycA7h_zQn8QPZa3Z8xJgFQ15rRyQS2zACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203805.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="450" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rlAYT21ZUXU/XzScd6EqXZI/AAAAAAAAYx4/0ycA7h_zQn8QPZa3Z8xJgFQ15rRyQS2zACLcBGAsYHQ/w800-h450/20160805_203805.jpg" width="800" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Ultimately, At UCDavis, critical theory, personal history and personal artifacts began to infuse my work opening it up to incorporate queer, feminist and other identity discourses. I created two theoretical treatises, "The Soft Cyborg," a variation on Haraway's "Cyborg" and "Putoh"--melding Japanese Butoh and Latino identity performance. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Today, issues of gender, race and identity permeate my work and it is through performance that I seek to push the boundaries of how we perceive the essence of ethnic/cultural/Latinx performance, to give voice to underrepresented groups and, moreover, to expand the language of marginalized performance and even to broaden access through guerrilla and drop-in performances. . As a Latino Artist who works with many materials that have been pared down to their core elements, minimalized and purified so to speak--creating fiercely personal narratives--I have been forced to deal with oversimplified views of who can make what and what art can be made. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PZPdEklWuFk/XzSb056CVEI/AAAAAAAAYxk/juUoGRTOSWc_VT_4bJHbhk54a6ius12igCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203916.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PZPdEklWuFk/XzSb056CVEI/AAAAAAAAYxk/juUoGRTOSWc_VT_4bJHbhk54a6ius12igCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20160805_203916.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">I am part of a new breed of Latinx artists intent on expanding the themes and expectations available to minority artists--making art that is individual--defying traditional expectations of collective identity. I choose personal, everyday materials, a collage of sheets, candy, fake flowers, tin foil and personal items in order to tell my stories. This is an important conceptual, performative and material shift that cannot be overstated. It is a stance of liberation, which pushes the boundaries of expectations and dares to say that individual lives of color matter; which, in itself, is powerful and revolutionary, problematizing racial, masculine, cultural and identity essentialism in an intellectual investigation which is in no way post-race. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfmYk4WGdmI/XzScFYWaUPI/AAAAAAAAYxw/DWiTtlqZb1A0CCs3DfEpgSZnehfn92-vACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203339.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfmYk4WGdmI/XzScFYWaUPI/AAAAAAAAYxw/DWiTtlqZb1A0CCs3DfEpgSZnehfn92-vACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20160805_203339.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QCFcWQq91OY" width="320" youtube-src-id="QCFcWQq91OY"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span color="" face="" style="text-align: start;"><div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span color="" face="" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span color="" face="" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: roboto, noto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p></div>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1496785610189639248.post-3253117890777931922020-08-08T12:51:00.005-07:002020-08-12T14:21:42.712-07:00Xavier Lopez Performance #11A: Cacophany Anodyne and Hamlet's Ghost Introduction.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PPnAV6xzpBc/Xy7uKIaCxjI/AAAAAAAAYv4/HUM-aizzYXITS6hJNYLW4eHrsDOn1197gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203225.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PPnAV6xzpBc/Xy7uKIaCxjI/AAAAAAAAYv4/HUM-aizzYXITS6hJNYLW4eHrsDOn1197gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20160805_203225.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><br />In 2016, there were only a handful of us, each of us taking the stage one after the other. From spoken word poetry and more traditionally Latino performance. I was the last one that hot, August night and as a cacophony of layers and layers of looped recordings of the tune "Theme From A Summer Place" played while I, dressed as a ghost handed out flowers into the audience, later I painted in chocolate and strawberry syrup, and dressed as a giant teddy bear--none of us had any idea that we were the first ones to put together a festival of Performance Art that was brave enough to claim the term Latinx. We had no idea that this was the first all-Latinx performance art festival--in all of its difficult to classify, irreverent, problematic, transient glory. The night itself was wonderful; then we became part of university curricula across the globe when Marvin Carlson claimed us in Routledge's textbook "Performance: A Critical Introduction." <br /><br />The first performance of the night began with me placing multiple "boom boxes" out throughout the room all playing the same track in a kind of staggered "row row row your boat"sort of way. Then I came out as a ghost and handed flowers to the audience.<br /><br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bQ9i0rT3Yn8/Xy7tFyl7E2I/AAAAAAAAYvo/_zRnxT0xsPkyeTJ0XxrPXzJIBl8qCoHFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20160805_203251.jpg" style="display: inline; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bQ9i0rT3Yn8/Xy7tFyl7E2I/AAAAAAAAYvo/_zRnxT0xsPkyeTJ0XxrPXzJIBl8qCoHFwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/20160805_203251.jpg" width="640" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">For the last twenty years I have been working with Sheet Ghost installations, performances and sculpture. Beginning first with my performance art in 1993, wherein I first used the "sheet ghost" in a significant way--I have found the ghost to be an amazingly expressive means of dealing with many issues ranging from the extremely personal to themes of isolation and even more abstract ideas as was the case in the most recent installation I did for the Seattle Office Arts & Culture's "Dialogues in Art" series, wherein I dealt with issues of homelessness. In Hope/Home, the first installation with multiple figures, the sheet ghosts became stand-ins for my family as we dealt with a period of homelessness that we experienced when I was still very young. Over the course of several installations I have seen my process become increasingly narrative and more and more theatrical.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-88FIR66KCE0/Xy8NN8NFiYI/AAAAAAAAYwE/28apzxBA5mUvtLssCs08GHJdyXf38I4jQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/book_ghost_o.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-88FIR66KCE0/Xy8NN8NFiYI/AAAAAAAAYwE/28apzxBA5mUvtLssCs08GHJdyXf38I4jQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/book_ghost_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><p></p>Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03747497678360132263noreply@blogger.com0