Running Blind: The Tucson Border-Crossing Diaries

Day 5: Monday, August 6, 2007

The Art of Crisis Management of Art

Today everyone was hung over from a party for Roberto’s 40th birthday, held at the stunning desert home of one of MOCA-Tucson’s generous patrons. We laid Roberto out on a table and created a community tableau with his body, using food, rocks, sharpies (to write messages on him), tools, plants and whatever else we could find. When the tableau was complete, individual people performed simple rituals over his body as a way of preparing him for his next 40 years. The celebrations went late into the night and early into the morning. People really cut loose and some casualties of excess were inevitable. Guillermo wisely postponed the workshop until 4pm today to give everyone a chance to recover.

Even though I didn’t drink too much last night, I am very tired and exhausted, too. I feel an internal tension whose source is difficult to pin down. I miss my wife and my son and my familiar domestic routines terribly. Meals here have been sporadic and unbalanced. The heat and psychodrama of 8 and 10-hour days of intense creative activity are taking a toll on all of us.
A sense of crisis is starting to pervade the workshop so instead of following our daily routines, our leaders wisely called for some mental menudo. The first thing we addressed is the heat. Some people are falling out and beginning to miss days, especially the ones who are from radically different climates. We vote to come up with a series of homemade solutions to the heat, “Let’s call them the Mexican Proposals,” says Guillermo, acting as intellectual DJ, because of the homemade nature of the solutions. They included, spray bottles, more ice, a cold water foot bath, doo rags soaked in cold water and also a rented swamp cooler for the space. We voted not to relocate the space or switch the hours to the nighttime because of conflicts that would create.

The second thing we addressed is our own psychological state of mind. Discussion groups of 5 or 6 were formed and we each took turns getting whatever it is we have off of our chests. Each group designated a scribe and at the end of the session, the texts were read back to the group. The effect was very poetic.

Another major issue that has emerged is sexuality. It’s expressing itself in many forms but primarily in the use of bondage devices like dildos, corsets and things like that, not to mention scenarios and gestures. It’s become necessary for Guillermo to point out that if you don’t want to have sexualized images projected onto your body, you have the right to say no. The fact that we are able to confront and solve the problems of the group is made possible thanks to the careful community building exercises and the methodology of the workshop. The workshop has been structured so that everyone’s opinions are validated. As much as possible we try and make consensual decisions. Guillermo is a master at listening to the group’s issues, synthesizing solutions and then playfully feeding them back to the us.

With all this stuff behind us we moved onto our next exercise, which was to work collaboratively in two groups of thirteen people to create a tableau around a single person. A small group prepared the body of our subject while a larger group prepared the background and whatever other context would be needed like lighting and etc. Our theme was “The Death of an Immigrant.” The theme came up because just this week, two immigrant women died while crossing the Sonoran desert with their children (the children survived).

Bruno, from Guadalajara, is the raw material at the center of our tableaux. We remove all his clothes and wrap a cloth around his waste. Meanwhile, Mike washes his body down with a wet cloth. A few markings are placed on his body, mostly around his face and under his eyes. Someone finds a very large barrel and Bruno is placed over it. The two groups begin to operate side by side. A still life of fruits, small flags, religious paraphernalia and other personal items are placed at the base of the barrel. There is a glass of water and a glass of salt on a small stand. Nathalie has a special skill in tying up people with rope (she has a dungeon at her house designed for bondage and S&M games) and she begins tying up Bruno. This is long and involved process. It takes a couple of us to hold his body in place while Nathalie does her work. Bruno’s serious and sad expression reflects the effort and the vulnerability of his position. Through a door behind our tableau, someone has backlit a Mexican flag hanging from a ladder. Some people, including myself, are looking at each other skeptically. The overlay of the sexual props doesn’t seem appropriate to us.

The image doesn’t really seem to be working for me, but I have all but removed myself from the process at this point, deciding instead to be an observer. When Bruno’s body is all tied up, he is placed carefully over the barrel. The last element to be added is the lighting. When it’s all done, we gather to look at our work from different angles. As it turns out, it is stunningly beautiful. The composition does work from a certain angle, especially with the lighting, but the sexual elements still seem jarring. It’s an image of subjugation, sexual cruelty, despair, hope, tender nostalgia and formal beauty. People are then invited to perform silent rituals over Bruno’s bound and trussed “corpse.”

Often during the workshop, after an image has been created, Guillermo will address the group and ask us rhetorically, “What the hell was that? Was it a sculpture, a performance, a painting, a poem, an installation, an assemblage? I am only interested in art that has an identity crisis about itself. As you organize your images remember to do so without speaking to each other. Make you decisions with your heart and your body. Avoid talking. Avoid the brain. Thanks to the paradoxical and contradictory nature of truth, you will be able to create images that communicate beyond your limited conceptions.”

< Previous | Next >