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Dangerous border crossers : the artist talks back
Gomez-Pena, Guillermo.
Adult Nonfiction NX512.G66 A35 2000
From Publishers' Weekly:
A Mexican transplanted to Los Angeles, writer and performance artist G¢mez-Pe¤a celebrates hybridity, borderless frontiers, interdisciplinary art forms, linguistic amalgams, cultural collisionsÄvirtually everything that partakes of "betweenness," especially the image of the Chicano cyborg, half human-half machine. So it shouldn't surprise that the author's fifth book confounds definition, fusing performance theory with performance diaries, conversations, essays, scripts, commentaries for NPR, travelogues, anecdotes and photographs of "living dioramas." (Philosophically, all this amalgamation stems from the concept of mestizaje, the mixing of European and indigenous "blood" that produced the Mexican peoples.) A cross between Oscar Wilde and Lenny Bruce, witty and gritty and brilliant, G¢mez-Pe¤a stretches language to the breaking point, coining words and code shifting at will. He defines performance itself as "an artistic `genre'... in a constant state of crisis," an "ideal medium for articulating a time of permanent crisis such as our own." Performance art is by definition controversial, often intended to provoke thought by violating social strictures. Yet G¢mez-Pe¤a finds that, in the '90s, "citizen action," in which people banded together to protest `immoral' art, became a "weekend sport" with performance artists "fair game." Anyone interested in contemporary performance theory should read this book. For the rest of us, it is a cultural roller-coaster ride with decidedly satirical seat belts. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
From Library Journal:
Awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1991, G"mez-Pe$a is known for shocking audiences with such performances as "Couple in a Cage" (1994), a critique of the historical practice of displaying and exoticising indigenous peoples. His newest book is a collection of performance texts, radio scripts, poetry, critical writing, interviews, and photographs that chronicles his performance and activist escapades since 1994, when his books, The New World Border and Warrior for Gringostroika, left off. Filled with biting humor and political satire, the text again weaves between such diverse topics as border culture, technology, racism, language, and globalization. Dangerous Border Crossers complements a second title from Routledge, Corpus Delecti (1999), an anthology of Latino performance art from the Caribbean and the Americas, edited by Coco Fusco. Both books add to the much-needed recent surge of publications on performance art. Recommended for academic and other libraries with specialized collections in contemporary art, theater, or Latin culture.DKrista Ivy, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Gomez-Pena, Guillermo.
Adult Nonfiction NX512.G66 A35 2000
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From Publishers' Weekly:
A Mexican transplanted to Los Angeles, writer and performance artist G¢mez-Pe¤a celebrates hybridity, borderless frontiers, interdisciplinary art forms, linguistic amalgams, cultural collisionsÄvirtually everything that partakes of "betweenness," especially the image of the Chicano cyborg, half human-half machine. So it shouldn't surprise that the author's fifth book confounds definition, fusing performance theory with performance diaries, conversations, essays, scripts, commentaries for NPR, travelogues, anecdotes and photographs of "living dioramas." (Philosophically, all this amalgamation stems from the concept of mestizaje, the mixing of European and indigenous "blood" that produced the Mexican peoples.) A cross between Oscar Wilde and Lenny Bruce, witty and gritty and brilliant, G¢mez-Pe¤a stretches language to the breaking point, coining words and code shifting at will. He defines performance itself as "an artistic `genre'... in a constant state of crisis," an "ideal medium for articulating a time of permanent crisis such as our own." Performance art is by definition controversial, often intended to provoke thought by violating social strictures. Yet G¢mez-Pe¤a finds that, in the '90s, "citizen action," in which people banded together to protest `immoral' art, became a "weekend sport" with performance artists "fair game." Anyone interested in contemporary performance theory should read this book. For the rest of us, it is a cultural roller-coaster ride with decidedly satirical seat belts. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
From Library Journal:
Awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1991, G"mez-Pe$a is known for shocking audiences with such performances as "Couple in a Cage" (1994), a critique of the historical practice of displaying and exoticising indigenous peoples. His newest book is a collection of performance texts, radio scripts, poetry, critical writing, interviews, and photographs that chronicles his performance and activist escapades since 1994, when his books, The New World Border and Warrior for Gringostroika, left off. Filled with biting humor and political satire, the text again weaves between such diverse topics as border culture, technology, racism, language, and globalization. Dangerous Border Crossers complements a second title from Routledge, Corpus Delecti (1999), an anthology of Latino performance art from the Caribbean and the Americas, edited by Coco Fusco. Both books add to the much-needed recent surge of publications on performance art. Recommended for academic and other libraries with specialized collections in contemporary art, theater, or Latin culture.DKrista Ivy, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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