Ícaro Maputo (2006)

Man has lived with the dream and the desire to fly since achieving the ability to walk upright. The dream and the desire to escape feelings, spaces, and nations followed shortly. As told in the Greek myth of Icarus, these longings often end in tragedy. In this linear narrative adaptation of Icarus, a writer desires to escape the frenetic urbanscape of contemporary Africa with its perils, poverty, and corruption. His dream of making art is likened to Icarus’ attempts to flee Crete…and yet, he, too, is met with the same fate: to fall back to Earth, to reality, and to Africa.

Ícaro Maputo tells the story of my multiple attempts to “make art” in Mozambique as an Artist-in-Residence at the National School of Visual Art in the capital city of Maputo. Drafts, sketches, proposals, and journaling never were enough to prepare me for the series of setbacks in carrying out this project. There is a subtext here about coming to terms with limitations and the cultural context of contemporary art making in a different nation with a different set of rules. Identity (being a black American) and access (being an American) are complex layers in which I found myself swimming, and at time drowning; and they provided a foundation from which to learn the most about myself as a human, as part of a larger black Diasporic community, and an artist.

Letter Writing Revivalists (2009)—in collaboration with Amanda Lichtenstein and Maritza Mosquera

I was approached by artist and writer Amanda Lichtenstein to participate in a site-specific performance that sought to jump-start the dying art of letter writing. Inspired by and linked to the American religious and cultural phenomena of the tent revival, at which evangelists descend upon a locality to preach the gospel and save souls, Lichtenstein devised a performance that married relational aesthetics and literacy.

Under a tent in a blooming garden (much like the Garden of Eden), I was a preacher, armed with a water-warped compendium of poetry, speaking in the tongues of Hughes, Yeats, and Sánchez, calling neighbors to come and “write the letter that was never meant to be sent.” Lichtenstein and I drafted the various templates of letters that revivalists could simply sign and send, or, in a writing circle akin to a prayer circle, they could write their own. These templates included the break-up letter, a letter to God, and a letter to _____________________.

Garage Spaces (2009)—curatorial practice in collaboration with Mike Bancroft

Two car spaces in a 3-car garage were re-constructed to be an alternative exhibition space, bringing art, artists, and art-making to the “community” and releasing them from the grip of the white cube gallery and the inaccessible studio. Garage Spaces is an experiment in three kinds of installations: the site-specific installation, the immersive installation, and installation-as-performance. Over the course of a season, three shows would fill Garage Spaces, each one unique as the next, and each one creating a narrative of the complexity of American culture.

Stolen (2009)—in collaboration with Mike Bancroft

The first installment of the Garage Spaces trilogy, Stolen, was a re-creation of a pawnshop, local sites of commerce in which the merchandise is often stolen or of dubious provenance. In a collaborative role as curator and artist, I sought to display, and sell, objects that were indeed taken without permission from friends, family, and other sources. The spaces of the pawn shop included a main room with shelves stocked with items, priceless and yet on-sale; a hidden vault behind a shelving unit loaded with objects that related to the entertainment and big name contemporary graphics industries; and an unfinished space converted into a mock meth lab; an illegal chili growing loft; and an empty, dark hallway flanked with a two-way mirror. Continuing with our exploration of relational aesthetics, participants at the exhibition became “shoppers” participating in the commerce of hawked goods.

My own contribution to the pawnshop was (Not-so-tender) Moments, a video installation of found digital video images discovered on a video camera that I actually purchased from a “real” pawnshop in Hollywood, California. The video follows a series of sun-soaked Hollywood fame seekers through an undetermined time span, from the confines of a “real” pawnshop, to frolicking at home with the cats, to a raucous bar teeming with barflies and starlets. Moments re-contextualizes those moments spent “playing” with technology to document our lives, and “playing” with stardom, and gives the participants their “15 minutes of fame.”

Den (2009)—in collaboration with Mike Bancroft

The second installment of Garage Spaces presented a secondary living room space common to many homes of American families, the den. This space is oftentimes more comfy than the primary living room; and is a place where families can relax, watch television, play games, do hobbies, reflect, and unwind from the challenges of daily middle class life. Den is playful and tugs at notions of class and race in the United States. The spaces in Den include a plush toy littered room where childhood playfulness is silenced through sound-proofing and a sub-woofer that pulsates with bass tones; and an ultra-artificial exterior patio painted to appear like the Great Outdoors, another American notion of leisure.

My contribution to Den was Rage. Place. Anywhere., an audio installation recounting an incident of gay bashing intercut with sounds of a football team cheering in triumph. Inserted into a series of other audio pieces of ambient sounds of homebodies by artist Alex Inglazian, my selection created a stark contrast to the audio narratives of snug den-life that revealed the undercurrent of violence and hatred that is often born in cozy spaces like dens.

Funeral (2009)—in collaboration with Mike Bancroft

The third and last installment of the Garage Spaces is Funeral, a creative re-structuring of the space to be a re-creation of a funeral home. Funeral seeks to comment of the culture and commerce of death in the United States.

Funeral debuts December 11, 2009.