Image above: Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo in Remembering El Consultorio / Photographer: Richard Rivera

Bring your problems to Grace Exhibition Space on November 8 / Remembering El Consultorio / As part of CENTRAL, a performance program curated by Pancho López for Grace Exhibiton Space

For more information click HERE

Remembering El Consultorio / Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel with everyone present and willing at Grace Exhibition Space

I recall hearing in the Santo Domingo of the 1980s of a bar-nightclub called El Consultorio, one which worked as a consultation space, in the fashion of a therapist or psychiatrist office. I was kind of too young to visit, but read about it in the paper. People would gather there during the wee hours to vent their big personal problems through an open mic. The person with the most daunting challenge would be gifted by the house with a drink. Almost 40 years later, I use the 30 minutes allocated to me at Grace Exhibition Space to invite those in attendance to share with each other some of the vicissitudes that we have been undergoing since the pandemic and through the USA election. I include myself, and will open the mic for some daring people present to go public with our dilemmas. I initiate and close this action with an invocation for individual and collective healing; a clamor.

With Remembering El Consultorio, I bring back the essence of a far-gone space, as well as contest the condescension with which therapeutic approaches to artmaking have been usually treated until now—when they have suddenly become fashionable and palatable to the Art industry. This is to remember that what it is known as Art today, had its origins and intrinsic connections to spirituality, religion, ritual and the impetus to bring wholeness, to appease and /or to thank that who is larger than oneself.

I dedicate this humble 30 minutes of venting and healing at GES! to Sonia Silvestre, to the Mother, and to all of my Mothers.

Remembering El Consultorio copyrighs 2021 Nicolás Dumit Estévez