This exhibition organized by El Museo del Barrio, New York, is the first to Surrey performative actions created over the last four decades by over 100 artists from throughout the Americas, including Latinos in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico, Central and South America. 

Seeking to establish a chronology of key works, the exhibition and a related, forthcoming major publication begin to address the dearth of information readily available on this important strand of Caribbean and Latin American artistic production. As well, they link to, and explore differences from, the received history of “performance art” which generally highlights only North American, European, and select South American and Asian creators. 

Actions are interactive events, taking place in the street or another public space, in the museum, gallery or privately, and they generally employ the body of the artist or his/her surrogate in a direct relationship to a live —witting or unwitting— audience. They differ from full-scale, narrative theatrical stage presentations (which separate the artists from viewers), dance, literary readings, traditional folk art activities, or direct political actions with no explicit artistic intention, although in many cases draw from common roots and strategies. The actions focused on in this exhibition have been either created by artists with a rich trajectory of performative practice, or who have carried out key events so important as to become landmark. 

Much of the works have subtle or overt political contexts and content. Over these last four decades when performance has flourished, Caribbean and Latin American communities have endured military dictatorships, civil wars, disappearances, invasions, brutality, censorship, civil rights violations, immigration issues, discrimination, and economic woes nearly unabated. The title of the exhibition, Arte ≠ Vida, troubles the commonplace idea that art is equivalent to life, and life is art. What is proposed through these many works is that while art affirms and celebrates life with a regenerative force, and sharpens and provokes our critical senses, artistic actions which address inequalities and conflict are not equivalent to real life endured under actual repression. 

Presented through documentation —primarily still photography or video perspectives, relevant writings, clippings, ephemera, and remnants or related materials transformed into artworks— these selected actions are but fleeting and often low-resolution and partial glimpses. Without actually attending the actual, myriad actions that have transpired all over the globe in real time and space, we can Orly imagine the fullness, depth, and emotional impact of each event. Nonetheless, we hope this Windows allows a breathtaking peek into previously unseen creativity. 

Deborah Cullen, Curator 
 

Made possible by an Emily Hall Tremaine

Exhibition Award

And by the Jacques and Natasha

Gelman Trust