HOPE: A Three-Day Performance by Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Dumit Estévez, 2011 / Presented with the Bronx Council on the Arts / Photo: Alex Villaluz
Documents in the Online Archive Include:
Art and Addiction / Performing Oneself or Someone Else:An Interactive Between Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Dumit Estévez / An Eco-Sexual Dirge to Be Read Aloud / Sex-Ecology and the Spiritual Pursuit: The Implications of Guilt and Pleasure in the Act of Loving the Earth / WRITING HOPE IN THE BRONX: LINDA MARY MONTANO & NICOLÁS DUMIT ESTÉVEZ / Bronx Hopes: From Riverdale to Hunts Point / A Complicated Affair: Performing Life on the Margin between Art and Politics: Nicolás Dumit Estévez / THE ARCHIVE FLIES THE COOP, says Linda Mary Montano / INTERVIEW BETWEEN LINDA MARY MONTANO AND NICOLÁS DUMIT ESTÉVEZ, JANUARY 2010 / Linda Writes a Letter to Nicolás and Alysha about Mary / Nicolás Writes a Letter to Linda about Mary / THE ART OF COLLABORATING AND MENTORING: NICOLÁS DUMIT ESTÉVEZ AND LINDA MARY MONTANO / With Gratitude to the Saint of Everyday Life: A Conversation between Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo and Linda Mary Montano / Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Talk About Laughter / LINDA MARY MONTANO TALKS TO NICOLÁS ABOUT AGING / YOU TOO ARE A PERFORMANCE ARTIST: Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Dumit Estévez / ENDURING/APPRECIATING AS SAINT TERESA OF ÁVILA AND SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS: LINDA MARY MONTANO & NICOLÁS DUMIT ESTÉVEZ
Linda Mary Montano is a seminal figure in contemporary performance art and her work since the mid 1960s has been critical in the development of video by, for, and about women. Attempting to dissolve the boundaries between art and life, Montano continues to actively explore her art/life through shared experience, role adoption, and intricate life altering ceremonies, some of which last for seven or more years. Her artwork is starkly autobiographical and often concerned with personal and spiritual transformation. Montano’s influence is wide ranging — she has been feature at museums including The New Museum in New York, MoMA, MOCA San Francisco, and ICA in London. Montano created 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART: 1984-1998, A 7 Chakra Experience; and ANOTHER 21 YEARS OF LIVING ART 1998-2019: A FREE ONLINE SCHOOL FOR PERFORMANCE EXPERIMENTATION. She has placed over 60 of her videos free on YouTube.
Montano’s websites: Archive / Video Data Bank / Fales Library at NYU / Blog / Dorsky Museum / Youtube Channel
Publications: Linda Mary Montano: You Too Are a Performance Artist / Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties / Midred’s Death / My Last Book (upcoming) / Before and After Art/Life Counseling / 14 Years of Living Art / The Sculpture of Linda Mary Montano / Art in Everyday Life / Letters from Linda Mary Montano / The Art Life Institute Handbook (to download click HERE)
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles treads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively or through experiences where the quotidian and art overlap. Concurrently, this path has been informed by a strong personal interest in immigration, cultural hybridization and Nicolás’s understanding of identity as a process always in flux. He hence approaches the concepts of home and belonging to the U.S. American context from the perspective of a Lebanese-Dominican, Dominican York who was baptized as a Bronxite: a citizen of the Bronx. While ephemeral by nature, Nicolás’s work gains permanence through audios, photographs, props, drawings, rumors, embodied memories, costumes, websites, videos and publications. During the past 15 years he has received mentorship in art in everyday life from Linda Mary Montano, a historic figure in the performance art field. Montano and Nicolás have also collaborated on several performances.
To access the full archive click HERE