"A Room Of One's Own"
Coco Fusco (born June 18, 1960 in New York City) is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer who began her career in 1988. Fusco has performed and curated throughout America and internationally, and currently is the Chair of the Fine Art Department at Parsons The New School for Design. Her recent work combines electronic media and performance in several formats, including large scale projections, and live performances streamed to the internet, inviting audiences to chart live-chat interaction. She is now developing a series of performances exploring the role of female interrogators in the War on Terror. Fusco's work explores the relationship between women and society, war, politics, and race.
Now as I had mentioned earlier, I have been having a hard time being able to find video of her works, all I can really do is read about most and give my take on it.
I was able to find a 1:28 second clip of Coco's "A Room Of One's Own" performance. At first, I thought, this wasn't art, shes just acting, or doing some sort of theater performance. I haven't read Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room Of One's Own", but after doing some research on it I can see the correlation and the artistic significance in Coco's performance. The themes in Woolf's essay are feminist in nature, that women's artistic ability (in this case, writing) can only be achieved if she has money, and a room of her own. At least when this was written (in the late 20's) most women didn't have money, or a place of thier own, therefore thier abilities to create and express things from a women's perspective were almost non existant.
What I think Coco is trying to say or express in her "A Room Of One's Own" performance is that women shouldn't be oppressed in creating. In his case, she talks about the role of women in today's military and thier abilities to use thier "mind and thier charms" in order to interrogate terrorists. Giving a woman the power (money) to control the outcome and giving her a "room of one's own" in order to make that happen is saying alot for the abilities of women and what they are capable of.
Two Undiscovered Amerindians
"In order to address the widespread practice of human displays, Fusco and Gomez-Peña enclosed their own bodies in a ten-by -twelve-foot cage and presented themselves as two previously unknown "specimens representative of the Guatinaui people" in the performance piece "Undiscovered Amerindians." Inside the cage Fusco and Peña outfitted themselves in outrageous costumes and preoccupied themselves with performing equally outlandish "native" tasks. Gomez-Peña was dressed in an Aztec style breastplate, complete with a leopard skin face wrestler's mask. Fusco, in some of her performances, donned a grass skirt, leopard skin bra, baseball cap, and sneakers. She also braided her hair, a readily identifiable sign of "native authenticity."
To read more about this, please visit Undiscovered Amerindians
According to Fusco, she and Gomez-Peña aimed to conduct a "reverse ethnography . . . Our cage became a blank screen onto which audiences projected their fantasies of who and what we are. As we assumed the stereotypical role of the domesticated savage, many audience members felt entitled to assume the role of colonizer, only to find themselves uncomfortable with the implications of the game"
I find this to be a very great idea for an art performance, as it requires the viewer to actively participate in it. Fusco and Gomez-Peña were merely living pieces of art in which the audience was to decipher it and come up with thier own conclusions. This obviously requires alot of critical and analytical skills. "Despite Fusco and Gomez-Peña's professed intentions that Undiscovered Amerindians should be perceived as a satirical commentary, more than half of the visitors to the museums who came upon the performance believed that the fictitious Guatinaui identities were real. (Undiscovered)". Even if one did realize that this was just a performance, one would still feel the effects of what it must have been like to have caged "savage people" and have them be a spectacle for all to see. It's a performance that gets inside your head and makes have to think about the implications of humanities past. Brilliant!
I Like Girls In Uniform
Now this was a short documentary I found on Youtube, talking about prejudices in society and her experiences as being a mixed race person. In the first part, she tells a story about the fertility industry, and how thier practices are. In her experience, there is cultural bias (Christian based ideologies on who and what parents can be). She went on to also say that most of the fertility clinics had questions on the questionaire relating to the persons connection to Christianity. In the second half of the documentary, she goes on to talk about her childhood, and how it has shaped who she is. She stated that her identity was a problem for others, and others kept trying to change her. She also talked about how as a child she would teach her Cuban relatives how to speak english when they arrived in the States, and how she would feel superior to them for knowing english. But as she grew up, she realized that that is the "monocultural and chauvinistic" view that America idealizes.
Even though this documentary was short, it showed a glimpse into her mind, and what makes her tick. She obviously has feminist and cultural ideals, and with good reason. She is a female, and she is of Cuban decent. These are things she can not change, so she owns them. She expressed her feminism and culture through well created art.
Even though I didn't know where to start with this, or find exactly what I was looking for, the information I have found about Coco Fusco has had an impact on how I view certain aspects of the world now. I believe this is the point of art, and she does it very well.
Ya some of he artist are difficult to find, but your's does look interesting and there will definitely be more to find! Good luck!
ReplyDelete