Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican/Chicano

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist, writer,

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video,

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

. His fifteen books include essays, experimental

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

, performance scripts, photographs and chronicles in both English, Spanish and

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is m ...

. He is a founding member of the pioneering art collective Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo (1985-1992) and artistic director of the performance art troupe La Pocha Nostra. Gómez-Peña has contributed to cultural debates for over 30 years staging seminal performance art pieces including ''Border Brujo'' (1988-1989), '' Couple in The Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West'' (with

Coco Fusco Coco Fusco (born Juliana Emilia Fusco Miyares; June 18, 1960) is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator whose work has been exhibited and published internationally. Fusco's work explores gender, identity, race, and power th ...

, 1992–93), ''The Cruci-fiction Project'' (with Roberto Sifuentes, 1994), ''Temple of Confessions'' (1995), ''The Mexterminator Project'' (1997–99),''The Living Museum of Fetishized Identities'' (1999-2002), ''The Mapa/Corpo series'' (2004-2013) and most recently the border opera ''We Are All Aliens'' (2018–present). His award-winning solo performances mix experimental aesthetics, activist politics, Spanglish humor and audience participation to create a "total experience" for the audience member/reader/viewer. Gomez-Pena received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1991 for his work as a writer and interdisciplinary artist.

Biography

Early life

Guillermo Gómez-Peña was born in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

in 1955. He studied

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

and Latin American Literature at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) from 1974–1978. He moved to the US in 1978 and studied at

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

, earning a B.A. in 1981 and an M.A. in 1983.

Work

From 1983 until 1990, Gómez-Peña lived in the San Diego/Tijuana border region. Most of his artistic and intellectual work concerns the interface between North and South (Mexico and the U.S.),

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...

culture and the politics of the brown body. His original interdisciplinary arts projects and books explore borders, physical, cultural and symbolic, between his two countries and between the mainstream U.S. art world and the various Latino cultures, including the U.S.-Mexico border itself,

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

, cross-cultural and hybrid identities, and the confrontation and misunderstandings between cultures,

languages Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

and races. His artwork and literature also explore the politics of language, the side effects of

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

, "extreme culture," the culture of violence and new technologies from a Latino perspective. He is a patron of the London-based

Live Art Development Agency Live Art Development Agency, also commonly known by its acronym LADA, is a publicly funded arts organisation and registered charity founded in London in 1999 by Lois Keidan and Catherine Ugwu. LADA provides professional advice for artists as we ...

and a Senior Fellow of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics (NYU). Naftazteca Guillermo Gomez Pena

La Pocha Nostra

Gómez-Peña is the artistic director of the international performance troupe

La Pocha Nostra LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

. La Pocha Nostra is a trans-disciplinary arts organization that provides a support network and forum for artists of various disciplines, generations and ethnic backgrounds. La Pocha is devoted to erasing the borders between art and politics, art practice and theory, artist and spectator. La Pocha Nostra has intensely focused on the notion of collaboration across national borders, race, gender and generations as an act of radical citizen diplomacy and as a means to create temporary communities of rebel artists. Every year, La Pocha conducts a summer and a winter performance art school in which the troupe's radical pedagogy (body-based methodology that has been developed during the last 20 years) is shared with international groups of rebel artists. Gómez-Peña's work with La Pocha Nostra has been presented across the US, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Australia and South Africa. In recent years, the troupe has presented work at

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

(London), Arnolfini (Bristol), the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

(New York), LACMA (Los Angeles), the House of World Cultures and the Volksbuhne (Berlin), MACBA (Barcelona), El Museo de la Ciudad (Mexico City) and the Encuentros Hemisféricos in Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires and São Paulo. Gomez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra have participated in the following biennales: Havana, The Whitney, Sydney, Liverpool, Thessaloniki and Mercosur. The troupe's photo performances are now in the permanent collection of Daros Foundation (Zurich) and Galeria Artificios (Gran Canaria). In 2018 the troupe performed ''The Most (un)Documented Mexican Artist'' at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. In 2019 the troupe performed ''Enchilada Western: A Living Museum of Fetishized Identities'' at The PASEO art festival in Taos, New Mexico.

Collaboration with Coco Fusco

Gómez-Peña traveled internationally for two years with fellow artist

performing ''The Year of the White Bear and Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West'' (1992–1994), a satirical performance piece in which the two artists were exhibited in a cage in museums and at arts festivals as "authentic" Amerindians from a previously undiscovered island off the Mexican coast. The pair dressed up in a hodgepodge of

ethnic drag An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

and bits of Americana such as a baseball cap and grass skirt in the case of Fusco, and face paint and a leopard-skin wrestling mask for Gómez-Peña. Coco Fusco described the piece as "a satirical commentary both on the Quincentenary celebrations and on the history of this practice of exhibiting human beings from Africa, Asia, and Latin America in Europe and the United States in zoos, theaters, and museums." During its run, the critically acclaimed piece was performed at major museums and arts festivals in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago and Madrid, Spain, amongst others. ''The Year of the White Bear'' was sometimes accompanied by a performance piece entitled ''New World (B)Order'', which Chicago Reader art critic Carmela Rago called "the denouement of the performance installation at the

Field Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

; using irony and humor Gomez-Pena and Fusco allowed us to contemplate the next step--being part of a world border culture, reclaiming our humanity and our hearts." The artists also worked with filmmaker

Paula Heredia Paula Patricia Heredia Suarez (born October 13, 1957 in San Salvador, El Salvador) is a filmmaker based in New York City. She is the daughter of radio and television pioneer Leonardo Heredia and writer and journalist, Mercedes Suarez. Career S ...

to create ''The Couple in the Cage: Guatianaui Odyssey'', a documentary that records several performances for ''The Year of the White Bear'' as well as viewer reactions to the work.

Collaborations with additional artists

Besides ongoing projects with La Pocha Nostra (Emma Tramposch, Saul Garcia Lopez, Micha Espinoza, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Balitronica, and Roberto Gomez-Hernandez) Gómez-Peña has made collaboration an integral part of his artistic practice. He thinks of collaboration as a form of “radical citizenship”. Some of his notable collaborative projects include artworks created with: James Luna, Reverend Billy, Tania Bruguera, Annie Sprinkle, Richard Montoya (Culture Clash), Rene Yanez, Sara Shelton-Mann, Vest&Page, galindog, Post-Commodity and Non-Grata.

Awards and honors

* The Guggenheim Fellowship, 2019 * The Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship, 2016 *

United States Artists United States Artists (USA) is a national arts funding organization based in Chicago. USA is dedicated to supporting living artists and cultural practitioners across the United States by granting unrestricted awards. Mission The organization' ...

Fellow award, 2012United States Artists Official Website
/ref> * The Free Culture Award, 2012 * Cineaste Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000 * The American Book Award for New World Border, 1997 * Viva Los Artistas Award, 1993 * John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship, 1991. Gómez-Peña was the first Chicano artist to receive this award. * Prix de la Parole, 1989 * The

Bessie Award The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, ...

, 1989

Bibliography

Books

* ''Warrior for Gringostroika'' (book,

Graywolf Press Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Graywolf Press collaborates with organizations such as the College of Saint Benedict, the Mello ...

, 1993, ) * ''The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems & Loqueras for the End of the world '' (book, City Lights, 1996) * ''Temple of Confessions: Mexican Beasts and Living Santos'' (book, powerHouse Books, 1997, ) * ''Dangerous Border Crossers'' (book, Routledge, 2000) * ''Codex Espangliensis'' (book, City Lights, 2000) * ''"Ethno-Techno: Writings on Performance, Activism and Pedagogy'' (book, Routledge, 2005, ) * ''El Mexterminator'' (book, Oceano, 2005) Spanish. * ''Bitacora del Cruce'' (book, Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2006) Spanish and Spanglish. * ''Conversations Across Borders'' (book, Seagull Books, 2011) Laura Levin ed. * ''Exercises for Rebel Artists'' (book, Routledge, 2011) * ''Doc/Undoc'' (book, City Lights, 2017, ; with Felicia Rice) * ''Gómez-Peña Unplugged: Texts on Live Art, Social Practice and Imaginary Activism'' (forthcoming Routledge 2020) * ''La Pocha Nostra: A handbook for the rebel artist in a post-democratic society'' (forthcoming Routledge 2020)

Video

References

External links

Official site of Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra (link to new website)

Official Photo Blog of Gomez-Peña

Official Guide to La Pocha Nostra Online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gomez-Pena, Guillermo 1955 births Living people Bessie Award winners Performance art in Los Angeles MacArthur Fellows California Institute of the Arts alumni American artists of Mexican descent Franklin Furnace artists American Book Award winners