Grace Exhibition Space is delighted to announce the event “Of Food and Other Pleasures” –PERFORMEANDO’s third installment in New York City to take place within the framework of The Great American Performance Art Festival on Saturday, April 25, 2-5 PM.

“Of Food and Other Pleasures” derives its name from one of the literary works of Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Of Love and Other Demons. The ludic game of words –food and love, pleasures and demons, frame this special presentation of Live Action Art in a set of playful and emotive performances.

Taking as departure and reference people’s relation to food, the rituals and practices of consumption, and the politics of food distribution, PERFORMEANDO: Of Food and Other Pleasures consists of a series of performances by invited artists from the USA: Laura Blüer, Hector Canonge, Caryn Moria, Gregory Paul, and Lisa Parra in collaboration with Portuguese artists Daniel Pinhero and Rogerio Nuno Costa, from Argentina: Graciela Ovejero Postigo, and from Spain: Veronica Peña.

PERFORMEANDO

PERFORMEANDO (Spanglish word, coined by artist Hector Canonge in the context of Live Action Art) refers to the creation of an event, presentation, act, action, and/or artistic corporal expression. PERFORMEANDO is the first Performance Art project / program focusing on featuring works of performance artists who identify themselves as Latin/o/a or Hispanic living and working in the United States. Created in 2013, Canonge's new initiative was launched in New York City based on his observations and reflections about the need to foster the production, development, and presentations of performance art works by artists of Hispanic origin.

PERFORMEANDO serves as platform for dialogue and exchange, and fosters collaborations based on the premise of experimentation and exploration of Live Action Art in the context of the Hispano-American experience in the United States. The project along with its program presentations in the city and abroad have contributed to a better understanding of the concerns, experiences and creative processes of participating artists. Since 2013, PERFORMEANDO has been presented in collaboration with spaces in the NYC area in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. In 2014, the program was presented and introduced to worldwide audiences during the Month of Performance Art in Berlin, Germany. For 2015 PERFORMEANDO will broaden its scope reaching out to Latin America to work with artists from various countries who have been making an impact in the development of Arte Acción. The exchange of experiences, ideas, and practices in performance will further contribute to the growth of participating artists and independent art spaces in the Americas.

ABOUT THE GREAT AMERICAN PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL

What does it mean to be American? American in the sense of what it is to be living, working, and creating in the Americas: a broad and fluid definition of this hemispheric region and the people who identify with it—people of first nations, South/Central/North America, Canada, the Caribbean. The Great American Performance Art Festival is a series of performance art events curated around this question and its implications, most specifically the notion of borders and barriers. Borders are an arbitrary social construct reminiscent of colonization, war, and exploitation. The population of the Americas has grappled with issues regarding borders and migration, and barriers such as those between languages, political ideologies, religious beliefs, identities, races, ethnicities, demographics, privileges, communities, individuals, governing and law enforcement bodies, and countless other tensions that arise as a part of living in, working in, and identifying with the Americas.

Grace Exhibition Space Brooklyn and this horizontally organized group of curators and artists invited erformance art pieces that respond to the problematics of borders and barriers within the Americas. We seeked proposals for embodied art that reinterpret and reimagine the diverse social, cultural, and economic landscape of the Americas. We encourage proposals for pieces that extend to include broad cross-sections of communities and demographics, and especially those which include participatory elements that address the natural performative barrier between artist and audience. The Great American Performance Art Festival welcomes any interpretation, however abstract, of its proposed theme.

The Great American Performance Art Festival will take place from March-August 2015. Events will be held every other weekend at Grace Exhibition Space for March-May, and every other weekend at the Grace Performance Art Farm in Rosendale, NY from June-August. We will curate roughly 4-5 artists per event.

- text by Laura Bluer

ABOUT GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE

Grace Exhibition Space opened in 2006 and is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging performance works by the current generation of international performance artists, whether emerging, mid career or established. Being a Brooklyn loft, our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. Grace Exhibition Space is run by Jill & Erik with Vincent Tiley. Jamie is our bartender and Leah runs the door.

Please also support PANOPLY PERFORMANCE LAB [Brooklyn] GLASSHOUSE GALLERY [Brooklyn], MOBIUS [Boston] DFBRL8R GALLERY [Chicago] and EAMES ARMSTRONG [Washington, DC] - when you want to see more Performance Art!

"I have found Grace Space to be a breath of fresh air, and a new way to see and experience feelings you may have not faced in a long time. It’s a place to let yourself be exposed, amused, delighted, and terrified all at the same time, and I can say I haven’t experienced this combination of emotions at any gallery or theater I have ever stepped into, and that’s a wonderful thing. The space provides a refreshing perspective on an art scene that has been somewhat shackled and restrained for quite a bit of time now. Grace Exhibition Space is a brave pioneer as it puts Bushwick, as well as New York City, on the forefront of exploration and exposure into the minds and bodies of artists who are truly gifted, fearless, and unique." Terri Ciccone. Bushwick Daily January, 2013 "On each night, and in each performance, the human body is redeemed from the mundane and made anew."

David Lagaccia, Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Art (June, 2012)