Tito Vasconcelos and Dark Camp Drag

            In her introduction chapter on the immense variety of Latin American performance artists, Fusco identifies a recurrent theme that we have come across in our previous readings on performance artists, particularly those who have identified with the Black Atlantic Diaspora: “It seems to me that the necessary antidote to facile interpretations of cultural difference,… [as it] attempts to impose a single form of syncretism as a moral imperative, is to encourage awareness just how much of the experimentation in Latin American visual art, literature, and theater in this century has adjudicated between national and regional influences and international vocabularies, and to demonstrate how these experiments cannot be reduced to any single formula.” However, she points out some important cultural forms that have inspired many Latin American performance artists, including sainete criollo, the Mexican carpa, and Caribbean cabarets. (6-7)

            Of the list of Latin American performance artists she selects, one of them who intrigues me is the Mexican drag performer Tito Vasconcelos (his campy last name plays with the popular Christian phrase/song, "Vaya con Dios," but means "Go with Jealousy" instead of "Go with God," and most likely was taken from the influential writer/philosopher, José Vasconcelos, who was involved in the Mexican Revolution during the 1910s). Fusco describes Antonio Prieto’s analysis of Vasconcelos’s type of drag performance as “dark camp” – “the kind of camp that is grotesque, ‘displays an almost sadistic delight with cruelty.’” Prieto also says that this kind of drag performance was successful against the highly heteronormative-dominating society of Mexico as exuding a kind of “symbolic terrorism.” (11) Today, the use of dark camp has become more accepted, and even fashionable, in many drag communities in urban cities of the U.S., especially following the legacy of American drag queens from the 70s and 80s, such as the brazen and twisted work of Divine and John Waters. Could this type of dark camp performance still have value of agency today, after it has passed through the processes of commodification and popularization?

Reflections on Goldberg: The Media Generation

Jessica Wildman

In Goldberg’s discussion of "the media generation”, the author explains that, “by 1979, the move of performance toward popular culture was reflected in the art world in general" (p 190). The 1960’s and 1970’s saw performance artists like Adrian Piper and Carolee Schneemann vehemently rejecting the art establishment in terms of race and gender inequality; however, the media generation of the 1980’s gave rise to a group of artists who began to commercialize the form, breaking what Goldberg calls, “conceptual art’s cardinal rule, of concept over product, by turning from performance and conceptual art to painting” (p 190). I find this commercialization or commodification of art to be quite interesting. Goldberg states, “the generation that created this about-turn mostly comprised students of conceptual artists who understood their mentors’ analysis of consumerism and the media” (p 190). I wonder if those, “struggling unknowns”, who were transformed into, “art stars”, in the early 1980’s produced that identity and career themselves or if it was the construct of the art world elites? With that question in mind I can’t help but think of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and the significance of those elite networks within the art world. 

I was in Barnes and Noble last week sifting through the magazines and there was a publication with Marina Abromovic on the cover (I forgot the publication). The article was fascinating. Arguably the most prominent performance artist of recent years was discussing how she often does not get paid for her performance work, and makes most of her income teaching. It makes me think that performance is the one form of art with a driving force that sustains itself, not monetarily, but on meaning. That’s not to say that traditional art forms like sculpture and painting are churned out and contrived, but knowing that performance is difficult to monetize those suspicions dissipate. Is this true? As an artist myself I find that to be an existential question. How can one create work that sustains a life and art practice that isn't consumable/consumerist?  

Fusco Reading

In Fusco’s, “Introduction: Latin American Performance and the Reconquista of Civil Space,” what I found most interesting was his discussion of the various generalizations about Latin American cultural production, and how it can differ in other places throughout the world. In exploring the first generalization, he brings in the example of the Dadaists’ usage of the Cabaret Voltaire, the circus, and other forms of theater that were used (page 7). Similarly, popular forms of theater and cabarets in the Caribbean have become inspiration for some Latin American performance artists.

The second generalization Fusco discusses is the use of rituals and religious. Europeans tended to look at non-Western performances for their avant-garde theater. For example, Hugo Ball reading primitivist poems phonetically, Surrealists looking to the dances and rituals of the Native Americans, and even the adaptation of the improvisational style seen by black jazz musicians (page 7). However, Fusco argues that Latin American artists have looked within their own cultures, such as Pre-Columbian, colonial, African and Catholic traditions (page 7-8).

The third generalization involves what the author calls, “the spatialization of power” (page 8.). Fusco explains that in the history of performance, there are formal shifts made by the medium. “In light of the determinant role the art market has placed in the classification and evaluation of European and American art, it makes perfect sense that artists seeking to address the spatial articulations of this powerful institution would make such moves” (page 8). But Fusco argues that Latin Americans have had to face other issues, such as the state’s control over the art market in certain places. However, the state’s power over art does not end there, but it also exercises power on the bodies of their citizens (page 9). Fusco refers to the disappearance of citizens, the abuse by military and police, and even the censuring of political opposition (page 9). I found it most interesting that Fusco parallels this abuse of power to that of the “xenophobic treatment of the Latino subaltern in the U.S.,” such as border patrol, segregated neighborhoods, etc. (page 9).

                                                                                                         

Performance Art Chapter 7 (p.190-225)

The 1970’s emergence of performance art in the western world was brought into the mainstream realm of the art world. The 1980’s and 1990’s performance art challenged performance and the movement of the body during a massive sociopolitical uprising of the 1980’s. The eighties outwardly and without avail confronted issues with cultural identity.

RoseLee Goldberg expresses that artists were increasingly using performance to examine their cultural roots (p.210). This I found interesting as it provided a platform for ‘otherness’ whether it be race, gender, culture, east, west, so on. Goldberg does not necessarily suggest that this platform is new, but I do like that she highlights politics such as the end of the Cold War as well as the AIDS epidemic as examples of what the world was confronting at large. The influx of artists from former communist countries to the West that made it evident that performance art had functioned almost exclusively in the East as a form of political opposition in the years of repression (p.214). This eludes that performance and the ideology of the movement of the body in it’s purest form is so powerful that government must place restrictions on it. This statement also feels timeless as the world is experiencing this type of censorship today. 

Goldberg expresses “that minorities were increasingly pressing the issue of ethnic identity and multiculturalism” (p.210) during the 1980’s and 1990’s. I feel that this section seemed to have separated race and culture from the political and economic issues of Wall Street crashing, Nelson Mandela’s release from from prison, and protests for democracy in China. Goldberg’s separation of minorities from geopolitics feels skewed and frustrates me that these are issues are not related in her statement. Perhaps, I am misunderstanding her statement? Global politics, culture, race, and gender issues are all components to the arts and the creative process. 

The Poem Will Resemble You

Maus discusses the complexity of O’Grady’s work in the very beginning of the reading. Without having seen O’Grady perform, Maus deduced from documentation of her performances that “The continual internal refraction in O’Grady’s work forbid assimilation, yet the struggle to come to terms with the work’s implications—the inability to fix O’Grady’s art in a framework that is already known—strikes at the core of her major artistic contribution.” (page 185) Maus is speaking to the idea that not only is O’Grady’s work complex because of differences within it and it’s refusal to conform to artistic standards, but also because it initiated discourse surrounding art and art-making. Additionally, she challenged topics in the art world and initiated discussions of “conservatism and its presumptive avant-gardism.” (page 185) O’Grady appears to accomplish this throughout her works by creating works that are difficult to understand and examine, yet have clear messages that shed light on particular issues, some of which are controversial. I’m curious about how successful her poems are in producing this type of result. Maus doesn’t go into great detail examining each artwork so we are left with unanswered questions. It’s also difficult to understand reactions to the work since Maus admittedly never saw O’Grady perform. “Calling Halt to the Universe” for example criticizes contemporary art, yet without more discussion in the reading, it’s not completely understood. As readers, are we to simply interpret the works for ourselves based on the information Maus has given or did Maus perhaps feel that more discussion of the works was not necessary in understanding the overall theme of the article? Maus, perhaps, felt it was unnecessary to provide more discussion of the poems because other works, such as Nerfertiti/Devonia Evangeline required a more detailed description and analysis. O’Grady’s work is interesting in that it speaks to particular social issues, specifically involving the art world and it is not easily identifiable in a particular art category. However, Maus’ description and examination of the works left a lot of unanswered questions and made me curious as to why he chose to format his writing in such a way.