This performance marks the explosive launch for INDECENCIA! a forthcoming exhibition at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, , curated by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles
To RSVP, click HERE
About this event: Thursday, May 26th, 8:00 PM / By donation /
Grace Exhibition Space182 Avenue C, New York, NY 10009
Co-presented by Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and Grace Exhibition Space
Colombianizacion is a project by artist Nadia Granados (b. 1978, Bogotá, Colombia) encompassing performance, video, and social/digital media in a trenchant analysis of the gender performativity of men in narco culture. Granados’ project draws on primary sources related to the violence propagated by the political elites that have been transforming economic, social and cultural structures in Colombia. Using audiovisual political speeches, as well as advertising material created by the government’s press agency, Colombianización illuminates the industrial commodification of Colombia–that is, its simplification into a brand name to attract foreign investment and tourism. To learn more about Nadia Granados click HERE
Colombianización’s analysis of gender performativity is based on the feminist, decolonial approach of Sayak Valencia in her book Gore Capitalism. Aspects of toxic masculinity and its impact on culture are further recognized through the relationship between advertising, the financial burden of war and its weaponry, and the criminal violence brought onto society. Using the figure of the drag king to question systems of construction of masculine identities, with transcripts of speeches delivered by men over media channels, Nadia Granados interprets male societal tropes–the hit man, the soldier, the businessman, and the entrepreneur–as ironic advertising campaigns. These speeches compliment cultural discourses regarding terrorism, borders, migration, and the “illegality” that justify military interventions in Colombia, using the excuse of the fight against narcoterrorism.
INDECENCIA! (September 15, 2022 - January 9, 2023, at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art) brings together a group of artists and activists from Latin America and/or of Latina/o/e/x descent living in the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean. The exhibition speaks to the intricacies of the unorthodox ideas developed by Marcella Althaus-Reid and her Indecent Theology, as well as the decolonial theory of Walter Mignolo. Curated by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles.
Nadia Granados is a Colombian artist using performance, experimental cinema, music, multimedia, web art and cabaret. She is known as La Fulminante. Her artistic practice questions the manipulative strategies that exist behind the representational systems that circulate through the media, making a direct criticism of these structures of symbolic power, and using resources associated with gender performativity and communication guerrillas. She is interested in decolonial thought and the anti-imperialist struggle from a sudaca-kuir-transfeminist perspective. @colombianizacion.
Leslie Lohman Museum of Art is the only dedicated LGBTQ+ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ+ art and foster the artists who create it. The museum provides a platform for artistic exploration through multi-faceted queer perspectives. @leslielohmanmuseum
Grace Exhibition Space is a space devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging works by the current generation of international performance artists whether emerging, mid-career or established. Our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art. Grace Exhibition Space presents over 30 curated live performance art exhibitions each year, showcasing new work by more than 400 performance artists from across the United States and the world since 2006.
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles treads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively through creative experiences that he unfolds within the quotidian. Nicolás has received mentorship in art in everyday life from Linda Mary Montano, a historic figure in the performance art field. Residencies attended include P.S.1/MoMA, Center for Book Arts, Yaddo and MacDowell. Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic, in 2011 he was baptized as a Bronxite: a citizen of the Bronx. Nicolás is the founding director of The Interior Beauty Salon, an organism living at the intersection of creativity and healing: www.interiorbeautysalon.com @interiorbeautysalon