Part lecture, part performance, artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña gave part of himself to a crowd at the Ulrich Museum of Art on April 9th.
Vivian Zavataro, the Executive and Creative Director of the Ulrich Museum of Art, began the night with an opening statement about Gómez-Peña
“As a writer and performance artist, his work has been read tremendously, confronted, rewritten and restaged so-called ‘Western art’, exposing its colonial legacies and systematic exclusion,” she said.
‘Dream with me:’ Envisioning a better art world
Gómez-Peña began his performance with a reading of his “Open Letter to the Museums of the Future,” in which he spoke about his hopes and desires for a non-racially charged art world.
He asked attendees to envision a false world he created in that moment, and invited them to live within that world.
“For everyone in my world, there is no difference between sameness and difference and borders are easy to cross,” he said. “In my world, there are no ‘illegal aliens,’ no ‘others,’ no good or bad guys, no terrorists or crime.”
“I invite you, dear foreigner, in my performance country, to dream with me and send me your own letters imagining a better art world or rather a myriad of art worlds.”
He asked attendees to imagine their own ideal museum of the future and notepads were passed around the room for those who wanted to write down their thoughts.
To Gómez-Peña, the museum of the future is a place where intercultural differences come together in a community, a place to rest and converse amongst one another.
“The museum of the future, it has to be a gymnasium of the imagination,” he said.
Censorship in art
Gómez-Peña delivered part of his lecture in Spanish. Then he apologized to those who could not understand.
“There’s only 45-50 million people who speak Spanish,” he said. The Spanish-speaking portion of the performance was followed by a discussion of censorship.
“The censorship of critical thinking, the censorship of deviant behavior and cultural difference has been the American (way) since the arrival of people in the 1600s,” he said. “I want to engage in another exercise of political imagination.”
He invited the audience to envision a “faraway country controlled by far-right politicians in their 70s.”
“These guys are supported by religious fundamentalists, oil tycoons and gold manufacturers.”
This portion of the performance was blended with purposely placed bouts of silence — an auditory and visual representation of censorship. Gómez-Peña would speak, then go silent, but continue moving his mouth as if he were still speaking, illustrating purposeful censorship.
“They have decided to scrutinize everything that goes on radio, TV, print journalism, the internet, performance art, including this very (silence),” he said.
“In a world such as this, content will be restricted to (silence), and the possibility to make intelligent, civic choices will be affecting our (silence).
“Imagine what type of world this would be.”
‘Listen to their stories’
Gómez-Peña thinks that the intellectual and artistic elders and helpers have been “abandoned completely by society.”
He asked younger artists to choose an elder from their community to adopt and listen to the stories they have to tell before they are gone or unable to.
“Document their opinions, listen to their new compositions, help them choreograph their latest illusion, organize their archives and help them to make their unique spaces more pleasant and vibrant,” he said.
Open letter to Jan Brewer
Gómez-Peña finished his performance and lecture with a reading of his open letter to Jan Brewer, the former governor of Arizona. The letter specifically focuses on her signing of SB 1070 into law, which created some of the strictest immigration policies in the United States.
After the law was passed, he said that artists from around the state and surrounding areas responded with defiant actions and various open letters. He said that he shared the original letter at the “worst of Jan Brewer’s madness,” but he has revised it for “Do-naldo Trump-as.”
“I write to you in hopes of making you aware of some fundamental contradictions in your cultural behavior and political ideas and to help you be more consistent with your claims,” he writes. “I write to you in English, so there won’t be any misunderstandings.”
In the letter, he lists cities, companies, sports teams, cars and states that should be renamed due to their links to the Spanish language, asking politicians for suggestions.
“You may also need to subject yourself and your family to hypnosis in order to unlearn words,” he said. “And as for tequila and mezcal, starting next month, some bars can no longer serve … please only American beer and moonshine.
“Those who you call illegals, those who you call criminal aliens, might be the oldest inhabitants of the Americas. Are you aware of this?”
Gómez-Peña travels the United States presenting his performance pieces to audiences at colleges, universities and art museums. His work, and parts of other performances, can be found on his website.
