Nao Bustamante (born September 3, 1969) is a

Chicana Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator from the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Her artistic practice encompasses performance art, sculpture, installation, and video and explores issues of ethnicity, class, gender, performativity, and the body.

Early life and education

Bustamante was born in California. She first trained in postmodern dance before moving into the realm of performance in the mid-1980s. Active in the San Francisco between 1984-2001, Bustamante was once referred to as "the doyenne of the Bay Area’s underground cultural scene."Fusco, Coco, ed. Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas. London: Routledge, 2000. She holds a BFA and MFA from the

New Genres New Genres is an artistic movement begun in the early 20th century. The movement is marked by many notable artists who work with a variety of media such as video art, body art, installation, performance, and sound art. Definition New Genres art i ...

Program at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

Career

Bustamante has performed in galleries, museums, universities, and underground sites internationally, notably collaborating with performing artist

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 ...

and the experimental arts entity Osseus Labyrint. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the prestigious

Anonymous Was a Woman Award The Anonymous Was A Woman Award is a grant program for women artists who are over 40 years of age, in part to counter sexism in the art world. It began in 1996 in direct response to the National Endowment for the Arts' decision to stop funding in ...

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

Fellowship, Lambent Fellowship, Chase Legacy Award in Film, Artist in Residence for the

American Studies Association The American Studies Association (ASA) is a scholarly organization founded in 1951. It is the oldest scholarly organization devoted to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. culture and history. The ASA works to promote meaningful dialogue about t ...

, CMAS-Benson Latin American Collection Research Fellowship, Queer Artist in Residence at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban dist ...

, and the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) Scholar in Residence Fellowship in preparation for a solo exhibition at Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles. She currently serves as Professor and Director of MFA Art Program at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

Roski School of Art and Design in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. She previously held the position of Associate Professor of New Media and Live Art at the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

Troy, New York Troy is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County, New York, Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Huds ...

. Bustamante competed in the first season of Bravo's Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.

Notable Works

* 1992 ''Indig/urrito'': Performance commemorating the 500th anniversary of the

Conquest of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short ter ...

during which Bustamante "challenged the white men in the audience to go onstage to express their apologies for the years of oppression of

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

peoples by eating a piece of a

burrito A burrito (, ) is a dish in Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine that took form in Ciudad Juárez, consisting of a flour tortilla wrapped into a sealed cylindrical shape around various ingredients. The tortilla is sometimes lightly grilled or stea ...

that Bustamante had strapped on to her hips." * 1992: ''Rosa Does Joan'' In arguably her most widely seen 'performance,' Nao created the character of "Rosa" the

exhibitionist Exhibitionism is the act of exposing in a public or semi-public context one's intimate parts – for example, the breasts, genitals or buttocks. The practice may arise from a desire or compulsion to expose themselves in such a manner to group ...

, to appear on the Joan Rivers Show. In this performance, Bustamante "becomes Rosa, a character or persona she devises for the purpose of guerrilla-style stunt performance." As Rosa, she tells Rivers about her sexual exploits while a psychiatrist
Dr. Georgia Witkin
determines how authentic she is as an exhibitionist. * 1996-1998: ''STUFF!'' with

: Performance which explores

sexual Sex is the biological distinction of an organism between male and female. Sex or SEX may also refer to: Biology and behaviour *Animal sexual behaviour **Copulation (zoology) **Human sexual activity **Non-penetrative sex, or sexual outercourse ** ...

and spiritual

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

and its impact on

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

women, based on interviews with

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

sex workers A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work is d ...

and child

street vendors A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with costermonger or peddler. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive goods, handicrafts, or food items. Whether statio ...

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil and Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. * 1995: ''America the Beautiful'': Extended reflection on the social forces that confine and contain feminine creativity, using her own body as a canvas. * 1998: ''The Chain South'': This was a satire piece focused on the corporate and pop-cultural relations between Mexico and the U.S. Bustamante portrays "Ronaldo McDonaldo." Director Miguel Calderon appears in the piece. * 2001: ''Sparkler'': This performance includes Nao posing vulnerably with a sparkler behind her in low light. * 2003: ''Neopolitan'': Video installation that includes a loop tape of the artist breaking out into spontaneous sobbing. The TV playing the loop is covered by a multicolored cozy that was crocheted by the artist, among other crocheted items. The installation, according to cultural critic

José Esteban Muñoz José Esteban Muñoz (August 9, 1967 – December 3, 2013) was a Cuban American academic in the fields of performance studies, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory. His first book, ''Disidentifications: Queers of ...

, is "an illustration of the depressive position and its connection to minoritarian aesthetic and political practice." * 2006 - 2007: ''Hero:'' Multimedia feature-length performance using video. Bustamanate transforms from princess to hag in the course of performance, incorporating video and storytelling. *2007: ''Wow and Now: A Celebration of Feminist and Queer Performance''. Curated by Nao Bustamente, Karen Finley, and Jose Estaban Munoz, November 10, 2007 Joe's Pub, New York City. * 2009: "Given Over to Want" * 2010 ''Silver and Gold'': performance at The

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

that began with Bustamante dressed in a beekeepers outfit frolicking through a green forest. The film then progresses, and "things start to happen ..that can't be described in a family newspaper." According to Bustamante the film was a homage to "

Maria Montez María África Gracia Vidal (6 June 1912 – 7 September 1951), known professionally as Maria Montez, was a Dominican motion picture actress who gained fame and popularity in the 1940s starring in a series of filmed-in-Technicolor costume ...

, the 1940s Dominican film star, and muse and legendary filmmaker, Jack Smith." *2013 ''Tableau:'' Short fictional film about an experimental filmmaker, JT, as he attempts to complete his apocalyptic film while being interrupted by his tween neighbor. The film premiered at Outfest LA Film Festival. The film can be viewed online. * 2015 ''Soldadera:'' Exhibition at the Vincent Price Art Museum. Features a documentary film of Bustamante's journey to Guadalaraja to meet 127-year old

Soldadera ''Soldaderas'', often called Adelitas, were women in the military who participated in the conflict of the Mexican Revolution, ranging from commanding officers to combatants to camp followers. "In many respects, the Mexican revolution was not o ...

Leandra Becerra Lumbreras, at the time the last survivor of the

Mexican revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...

. Bustamante also produced a bullet-proof dress titled "Tierra y Libertad - Kevlar 2945" and

rebozo A rebozo is a long flat garment, very similar to a shawl, worn mostly by women in Mexico. It can be worn in various ways, usually folded or wrapped around the head and/or upper body to shade from the sun, provide warmth and as an accessory to an ...

inspired by an image of a group of armed women dressed in Edwardian gowns. The dress is worn in a performance captured in the video "Test Shoot" where Bustamante wears the dress as she is fired at with a rifle.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bustamante, Nao Living people American women performance artists American performance artists Artists from California Hispanic and Latino American women in the arts American multimedia artists Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty San Francisco Art Institute alumni Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni 1969 births American women academics 21st-century American women