What is your work about?
My art uses simple gestures and materials, as well as emotional language and content as strategic tools to address themes of social justice, identity, and the relationship between conceptual art and pathos. These gestures typically involve highly emotional and participatory interactions between an individual, an audience, and me. They often result in social sculptures, performance-based videos, and text-based objects.
The economy of the work is rooted in my artistic investment in dialogue and inclusion. I am interested in the complex intellectual and emotional dialogue that can occur between a viewer and the artwork – in particular, the conversation that takes place afterwards, when the viewer is left to process the interaction. Ideally, inspiring people to re-examine and respect/accept universal truths grounded in emotions.
Artist Statement
Thank you for considering my application for the Emerging Artist Grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation for emerging artists whose practice requires financial assistance. I am both honored by the nomination and excited about the prospect of working with the foundation to help further my work.
The selection of works I have chosen for your consideration span a decade. Because my practice is both serial and conceptual in nature, the selected works may seem disparate, but are in fact built on an artistic foundation that explores the limits of art making, viewing, and collecting. Projects may begin at a particular point in time, but continue to help shape present and future projects. Trained primarily by post-modern and conceptual artists from the West Coast, my practice often utilizes conceptual parameters to engage in conversations about social justice, identity, and the relationship between conceptual art and pathos.
The first project in my application There But For The Grace Of God Go I utilizes HIV testing as a means to explore issues of medical and social stigma and their relationship to art activism and social justice. I often refer to my projects as social sculptures not only as a way to engage in art historical conversations about the boundaries of art making and the ideas that Joseph Bueys spent his life exploring, but also as a way to explore conversations about the experience of art outside of it’s materiality. Art, for me, isn’t always about an object, but rather about the dialogue and experience that it creates. First organized in 2006, the project has several iterations spanning several years, and much like the works of Fluxus artists, has the potential to be re-enacted as long as HIV antibody testing is available, and necessary.
The second project consist of using the ancient practice of tattooing the body as a vehicle to discuss the demarcation of the body, gender roles, and social stigma. Historically, tattooing has been a way to delineate social status and sometimes gender roles. In the case of the projects MONFORTE and San Judas, the body is marked with a gang tattoo in the spot traditionally reserved for the female body and the depiction of a Catholic saint usually revered by the poor to help heal and provide relief to what are often impossibly dire situations. This use of tattooing to explore gender roles is further explored by the project in American Samoa in which I received the lima tatau (tattoo) and interviewed fa’afafines – biological men that live their lives culturally as women free of the social stigma often experienced by transgender individuals in Western cultures.
My experience in Samoa would not have been possible without the generous support of the Art Matters Foundation. Because my projects often focus on conceptual parameters instead of the traditional practice of making objects that are sold for money, I am often forced to fund my own projects outside of the support of the commercial art world, and/or depend on the generosity of foundations and organizations such as Art Matters and the Smack Mellon Studio Residency program in Brooklyn. While at Smack Mellon, I explored a project that reflected on my experience in American Samoa – where although male to female transgender identity is accepted, the idea of a female to male transgender individual would be not only unacceptable, but unfathomable. The portrait series I created at Smack Mellon focused on the representation of a community that often faces huge social and economic hurdles in modern society. This theme of giving voice to communities that are often silenced is a continuing theme in my work.
The projects 10 and Always and Forever explore the voice and experience of young people from different perspectives. In 10, I provide a ten year old named Alejandro with the agency to ask me any ten questions of his choosing, with the requirement that I had to answer them honestly. In Always and Forever, LGBT youth in the Bronx are invited to come to a free prom – creating a safe space in what is often a hostile and violent environment that rejects them because of their identity.
The final two projects in my application, Sorry 2006 and Angry (2012-present), explore the use of the video confessional that is now culturally ubiquitous thanks to reality-based television to touch on the relationship between conceptual art and pathos, a theme that is consistent in all of my work. Contemporary art education often focuses on conceptual rigor and tosses the emotional experience aside because emotional conversations about ideas are easy to negotiate, but how does one engage in a conceptual conversation about emotions? Painful to watch and experience, the projects create internal and external dialogues that are difficult in order to help open the parameters of what art is and what it can be.
I would also like to touch on why my production has slowed down over the past couple of years. In 2012 I experienced a depilating medical condition that required extensive gastrointestinal surgery the following year. In spite of the long recovery period – I am still adjusting to a life with a compromised G.I. tract, I am continuing to work on my video project Angry, and have recently focused on the creation of the new work scheduled to be completed this Fall.
Once again, I am grateful for the nomination and am honored to have my work reviewed for this award.
CV
Education
1996 BA Art, University of California, Los Angeles
2004 MFA Studio Art, New York University
2004 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Selected Exhibitions
2013
Me Love You Long Time, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA
2012
Beach Box: Latin Labor Day Weekend, Whitebox Art Center, New York, NY
2011
Multiple, Limited, Unique: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Center for Book Arts, Center for Book Arts, NY, NY
Born Again: A Lebonese-Dominican Dominican York is born again as a Bronxite and Eight Artists Respond to Born Again, Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
2010
Proximities, Alice Yard, Port of Spain, Trinidad
Conversions, Bronx Art Space, Bronx, NY
New Sound Pornoaoke, Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY
2009
Tainted Love, LaMaMa Gallery, New York, NY
Lips Like My Sugar Walls, Dixon Place, New York, NY
2008
B-Sides, Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ
E9; Aljira Emerge Exhibition, Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ
2007
Faceoff, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY
Project Diversity Queens, Various venues, Queens, NY
S(files) 007, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Six Degrees of Separation, Paul Sharpe Projects, New York, NY
L.I.C., Video NYC, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY
If You Don’t Stand for Something, You’ll Fall for Anything, EFA Gallery, New York, NY
Exquisite Crisis and Encounters, A/P/A Gallery, NY, NY
2006
Queens International 2006: Everything All At Once, Queens Museum, Flushing, NY
Brother to Brother, Point Zero, Portland, ME
I Belong To You, Newfest Film Festival, New York, NY
No More Drama, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
Action (3), Five Myles, Brooklyn, NY
I Never Meant To Hurt You (curator), Buzzer Thirty, Astoria, NY
Gender Fuck, Metelkova Mesto, Zagreb, Croatia
Do You Think I’m Disco, Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
2005
Temporary Space at Hotel Chelsea, Daniel Reich Gallery, New York, NY
PERFORMA05, Artists Space, New York, NY
AIM 25, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY
Identity Crisis, Haven Gallery, Bronx, NY
2004
Skowhegan Projects, Skowhegan Fair, Skowhegan, ME
Objects of Desire, Newfest Film Festival, New York, NY
2003
It’s Not Me, It’s You, Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY
DL: The Down Low in Contemporary Art, Longwood Art Gallery Bronx, NY
Selected Bibliography
Aranda-Alvarado, Rocio “Conversation with Wanda Raimundi Ortiz and Ivan Monforte”, Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics, Issue No. 7, 2014
Rooney, Kara L. “Tainted Love.” The Brooklyn Rail Jul-Aug edition 2009
Cotter, Holland. “Tainted Love.” The New York Times 19 June, 2009
Genocchio, Benjamin. “The House Party Spirit In All Its Glory.” The New York Times 28 December 2008
Genocchio, Benjamin. “Beguiled by Fresh Talent.” The New York Times 22 August 2008
Bradford, Gregory. “Where Do Ya Stand?” White Hot Magazine May edition 2007
Ramos, E. Carmen. “American Art Without Borders: The (S) Files Biennial 2007
El Museo del Barrio (catalog) 2007
Golderg, Roselee. Performa: New Visual Performance 2007
Performa Press, New York, NY 2007
Lowenstein, Kate. “Queens International: Everything All at Once.” 2007
Time Out New York 11 – 17 Jan. 2007
Tam, Herb. “Queens International 2006: Everything All At Once.” 2006
Queens Museum of Art (catalog) 2006
Cotter, Holland. “I Never Meant To Hurt You.” The New York Times 5 May 2006
Cotter, Holland. “Do You Think I’m Disco.” The New York Times 3 Feb. 2006
Barliant, Claire. “Critics Pick: Do You Think I’m Disco.” Art Forum.com February, 2006
Bellini, Andrea. “New York Tales.” Flash Art Nov. – Dec. 2005, Vol. XXXVIII No. 245
Cotter, Holland. “Latino and Beyond Category.” The New York Times 2 Sept. 2005
Genocchio, Benjamin. “When Artists Discover Craft-Oriented Kitsch.”The New York Times (Westchester Edition) 21 Aug. 2005
Sirmans, Franklin. “DL: The Down Low in Contemporary Art.” Time Out New York 30 Oct. – 6 Nov. 2003
Cotter, Holland. “DL: The Down Low in Contemporary Art.” The New York Times 24 Oct. 2003
Awards & Residencies
2010
Smack Mellon, Artist in Residence
2008
Art Matters Foundation Grant
Center for Book Arts, Artist in Residence
2007
Lambent Fellowship in the Arts, Tides Foundation
Pennies from Heaven Fund, New York Community Trust
2004
Lower East Side Printshop, Key Holder Residency & Scholarship
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Residency & Fellowship
1998
Side Street Project, Artist in Residence
1996
UCLA Art Council Award
William (an excerpt), 2009
10, 2008
Sorry 2006
Angry, 2012-Present