Guillermo Gómez-Peña

Guillermo Gómez-Peña was born in Mexico City and moved to the US in 1978, where he established himself as a performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. He has pioneered multiple media, including performance art, radio, video, photography and installation art. His eight books include essays, experimental poetry and chronicles in both English and Spanish (and Spanglish).

Most of his artistic and intellectual work concerns the interface between North and South (Mexico and the U.S.), border culture and the politics of the brown body. His original interdisciplinary arts projects and books explore borders, physical, cultural and otherwise, between his two countries and between the mainstream U.S. and the various Latino cultures: the U.S.-Mexican border itself, immigration, cross-cultural identity, and the confrontation and misunderstandings between cultures, languages and races. His artwork and literature also explores the politics of language, the side effects of globalization, "extreme culture" and new technologies from a Latino perspective.

Gómez-Peña is regarded as a pioneer in US Latino and Latin American performance art. Some of his legendary performance art pieces include, Border Brujo (1988), The Couple in the Cage (1992), The Cruci-fiction project (1994), The Temple of Confessions (1995), The Mexterminator Project (1997-99), The Living Museum of Fetishized Identities (1999-2002) and the Mapa/Corpo series (2004-2008) His performances often involve audience participation, elaborate costuming and other collaborators, including Roberto Sifuentes, James Luna, Violeta Luna and Coco Fusco.

Through his organization, the San Franciso-based La Pocha Nostra, Gómez-Peña has intensely focused on the notion of collaboration across national borders, race, gender and generations as an act of citizen diplomacy and as a means to create transnational communities of rebel artists. La Pocha Nostra runs an extremely popular intensive summer performance workshop. Every year it takes place in a different country.]

title = Gómez-Peña to Present 1999 Abramowitz Lecture
url = http://web.mit.edu/arts/about/news/extra/1999/1027_gomezpena.html
format = html
date = 1999-10-27
accessdate = 2006-12-06

Organizations

* From 1984 to 1990, he was a founding and active member of the Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo.
* He has worked as a commentator for several NPR programs including "Crossroads", "All Things Considered" and "Latino USA".
* He directs the San Francisco-based performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
* He is a member of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, based at NYU.
* He is a member of the Latino MacArthur Fellows Ombudsmen group, "Los Macarturos"
* He is an active member of the London-based Live Art Developement Agency
* He is a contributing editor to The Drama Review (NYU/MIT).

Education

Gómez-Peña received both his B.A. (1981) and M.A. (1983) from California Institute of the Arts.He studied Linguistics and Latin American Literature at the UNAM (1974-1978, Mexico City)

Honors and awards

* Prix de la Parole at the International Theatre Festival of the Americas
* New York Bessie Award
* MacArthur Foundation Fellowship ("genius award", 1991; he was the first artist of Mexican birth or ancestry to receive this award)
* American Book Award
* Cineaste Lifetime Achievement Award, at Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival

Books and video Works

Books:
* "Warrior for Gringostroika" (book, Graywolf Press, 1993, ISBN 1-55597-199-7)
* "The New World Border" (book, City Lights, 1996)
* "Dangerous Border Crossers" (book, Routledge, 2000)
* "Codex Espangliensis" (book, City Lights, 2000)
* “Ethno-techno” (book, Routledge, 2004)
* "El Mexterminator" (book, Oceano, 2005)
* Bitacora del Cruce (book, Fondo de Cultura Economica, 2006)

Videos:
* Border Clasicos (An anthology of all his video works, 1988-2008, Video Data Bank)

Performances and international events

* The International Theatre Festival of the Americas. Montreal (1988)cite web
url = http://www.pochanostra.com/antes/jazz_pocha2/mainpages/bios.htm
format = html
title = Guillermo Gómez-Peña
accessdate = 2006-12-06]
* The Demons of Los Angeles. France, Spain, and Sweden (1989)
* The 1989 Bienal de la Habana. Cuba (1989)
* The Decade Show. New York (1990)
* Time Festival. Gante, Belgium (1990)
* EDGE ’90. Newcastle, England (1990)
* The Los Angeles Festival. Los Angeles (1990)
* The Next Wave Festival. Brooklyn Academy of Music New York (1991)
* The Festival of the Worlds. Finland (1991)
* EDGE ’92. Madrid, London (1992)
* The Sydney Biennial. Australia (1992)
* The Los Angeles Festival. Los Angeles (1993)
* Whitney Biennial. New York (1993)
* Fundación Banco Patricios. Buenos Aires (1993)
* Rompeforma. Puerto Rico (1993)
* The Hamburg Theatre Festival. Germany (1993)
* LIFT. London (1993)
* Banff Centre. Canada (1994)
* 3er Festival de Performance. Mexico City (1994)
* Ante-América. Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico and the US (1994)
* Helsinki Act. Finland (1995)
* LIFT. London (1995)
* X-Teresa Museum. Mexico City (1995)
* Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington DC (1996)
* 5Cyberconf. Madrid (1996)
* Polverigi Theatre Festival. Italy (1996)
* Szene Festival. Salzburg, Austria (1996)
* ARS Electronica. Lintz, Austria (1997)
* Root/less Festival. Hull, England (1997)
* Inroads, Arts International. Miami (1998)
* Caribe 2000. San Juan, Puerto Rico. (1999)
* Le Lieu International Performance Festival. Quebec, Canada (1999)
* Sonart (MACBA). Barcelona, Spain (1999)
* Encontro Hemisferico. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2000)
* Eventa 5. Sweden (2000)
* International Theater Festival. Havana, Cuba (2001)
* Experiències: Barcelona Art Report. La Capella. Barcelona, Spain. (2001)
* Ayuntamiento de la Gran Canaria. Canary Islands (2001)
* Performance Space. Sydney, Australia (2001)
* Espacio C. Santander, Spain (2001)
* Encuentro Hemisférico. Lima, Peru (2002)
* House of World Cultures. Berlin, Germany (2002)
* Liverpool Biennale. Liverpool, England (2002)
* Tate Modern. London, UK (2003)
* Performance Space. Sydney, Australia (2003)
* Center for Performance Research. Aberystwyth, Wales (2003)
* Muffathalle, Munich, Germany (2003)
* Zuerher Theatre Spektakle. Zurich, Switzerland (2003)
* Detox Festival. Norway (2004)
* Cervantino Festival. Mexico City (2004)
* Guggenheim Museum. New York (2004)
* Toronto Free Gallery. Toronto, Canada (2005)
* ARCO. Madrid, Spain (2005)
* Encontro Hemisferico. Belo Horizonte, Brazil (2005)
* LACMA. Los Angeles (2005)
* Bienal del Mercosur. Porto Alegre, Brazil (2005)
* Galeria Artificios. Canary Islands (2005)
* de Young Museum, San Francisco (2006)
* Museo de la Ciudad, Mexico City (2006)
* Performance Studies Internacional, London (2006)
* University of California, Humanities Research Institute, irvine, California (2006)
* Center for Performance Research, Aberystwyth, Wales (2006)
* Arnolfini, Bristol (2007)
* CCA, New Orleans (2007)
* Cal Arts, Los Angeles (2007)
* Universidad de los Andes, Bogota (2007)
* Centro Cultural La Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2007)
* Border Exercises, Harstad, Norway (2007)
* Festival Escrita na Paisagem, Evora, Portugal (2007)
* National Review of Live Art, Glasgow (2008)

Edwin Vega leading performer

Lectures

* "Techno-Dioramas: Ethno-Cyborgs and Artificial Savages" Massachusetts Institute of Technology, William L. Abramowitz Lecture Series (1 November 1999)cite web

Through his organization, La Pocha Nostra, Gómez-Peña has intensely focused on the notion of collaboration across national borders, race, gender and generations as an act of citizen diplomacy and as a means to create transnational communities of rebel artists. ]

References

* [https://www.graywolfpress.org/index.php?option=com_phpshop&page=shop.author&product_id=150&author_id=32 Biographical note on the site of Graywolf Press]
* [http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$arti/stdetail?GMEZPEAG Guillermo Gómez-Peña] at " [http://www.vdb.org Video Data Bank] ; this includes detailed descriptions of his videos.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.pochanostra.com/#Scene_1 Official site of Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra] (requires Macromedia Flash)
*
* [http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?GMEZPEAG Guillermo Gómez-Peña] in the [http://www.vdb.org/ Video Data Bank]