As many of you know, I am obsessed with our collective obsession with Frida Kahlo. And with all of the never discovered before photos, writings, and found artifacts, the internet is a playing field for all new things Frida. I try to catalog as many of these things as well as Frida inspired art, photos as Frida, Frida tattoos, and Frida products on obsessedwithfridakahlo.tumblr.com.
Valentines from El Rio
Wonderful Valentines day love from the always magical El Rio. Love em' share em'.
Don't worry. Our girls are legal.
Escobar-Morales as AMerican MEdia Output at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philly. Join us for 1st Friday on 10/5.
Acting as designers, distributors and promo models, Escobar-Morales established an online marketing and brand design agency called AMerican MEdia Output. The ad campaigns for Public Airways and Welcome to Arizona are inspired by recent news related to proposed immigration legislation in the US. Blurring the line between performance and reality, AMerican MEdia Output asks viewers and participants to imagine the economic and social consequences of laws like SB1070 through the framework of advertising. AMO is based online at AMericanMEdiaOutput.com and has disseminated their advertising over the internet using various social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Most recently, the AZ Welcome Girls hit the streets in San Antonio, TX to promote Arizona tourism by offering participants a cold drink of "Welcome Water."
Escobar-Morales at The Painted Bride in Papeles: Are we what we sign?
PAPELES: Are we what we sign? aims to serve as a visual examination of our social bond with papers as legal signifiers of identity that shape individual mobility, cultural acceptance, gender and sexual-orientation equality, economic access, labor opportunities, and educational attainment. Visual artists, community leaders, and arts administrators use this project to reflect upon the socio-cultural impact of documentation processes present in American society.This exhibition gathers twelve influential—established and emerging—artists working in drawing, painting, installation, printmaking, photography, and mixed media. Participating artists include Andrea Rincon, Andria Morales, Carlos Nuñez, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Erika Ristovski, the duo Escobar-Morales, Jonas Dos Santos, Jorge Figueroa, Lina Cedeño, Michelle Ortiz, Paula Meninato, and Susana Amundaraín. They propose social-visual experiments from their positions as immigrants and/or descendants of immigrants from Latin American nations. New and existing works in this exhibition illuminate the concept of documentation into powerful narratives of critique, ambiguity, longing, and resilience. 
The Painted Bride230 Vine Street | Philadelphia, PA 19106 | 215.925.9914September 7 – October 21, 2012Gallery hours: 12pm – 6pm, Tues – SatFirst Friday receptions: September 7, October 5 | 5-7:30pmGuest Curator Andreina Castillo | Co-Presented with Acción Colombia
Escobar-Morales: Excerpts from the Ressurection of Hun-Nal-Ye
Performance artists Escobar-Morales perform a funerary ritual, referencing the mythical Mayan tale of the Hero Twins reviving their dead father, the Maize God. In their contemporary interpretation of this ancient story, Escobar-Morales simultaneously represent the body and the soul; the God/ Goddess and twin offspring, in both physical and technological forms using live performance and web based video projection. Performed at Jolie-Laide gallery in Philadelphia.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIIr9MXHLBc]
AMerican MEdia Output in Philly
Are you Target Audience? Find out in Philly. Stay tuned for details on the next official AMerican MEdia Output appearance.
Excerpts from my thesis: My Shtreimel
My Shtreimel is a video blog that features my fiancée Loren, who is a reoccurring character in my work. Sitting in a dimly lit room, Loren shares a personal Sabbath ritual. Behind him is the large painting of the Rebbe that appears in Obsessed with Frida Kahlo video. Although Loren is alone, he addresses the camera as if he were speaking directly with his eventual audience.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNAxEUEE43Y] My Shtreimel, YouTube Video, 2006.
"I think it is very important for each of us to have an enjoyable Shabbos experience. And to be able to in some ways personally define what that Shabbos experience entails. There's a lot of different minhags that I think a lot different people have that not every one has. And there are certain things that we develop not necessarily because they are passed down from our father, or our mother, or your mother's father, just because it is something that makes your Shabbos experience a little bit more enjoyable a lot these personal minhags that we all have..."
Casually citing the Chofetz Hayim and the Talmud Yerushalmi, he acknowledges both his relationship to, and awareness of traditional Jewish texts; thereby, indirectly aligning himself with a more observant Jewish community. Using humor, he offsets the implied exclusivity of those ties, by adding that he is actually wearing a woman’s hat that was purchased at a thrift store.eruv stl is “posted as a response” to My Shtreimel. eruv stl is intended to link Berlin’s Eruv to St. Louis. In this low quality thus “authentic video blog” Loren and I drive around the Washington University in St. Louis area, with a map in hand, trying to locate St. Louis’s eruv. In the background you can hear Guns and Roses famous song Welcome to the Jungle. Loren assumes a role similar to the one of Matisyahu, a halakically informed Jew, who does not the traditional model for the other and is thereby able to communicate with the secular world.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv8YTCXv8xY]eruv stl, YouTube Video, 2009.I ask Loren why he thinks the eruv extends as far as it does and if he thinks that there area lot of Orthodox Jewish families living in the area. Loren tell me that the eruv has extended this far because of the Hillel on campus, and that while there are not many Orthodox families living on the streets that we are driving, that the presence of the Hillel on campus is enough to create an eruv-worthy Jewish community.Not only does it become clear that Loren familiar with Orthodox Jewish practices and the neighboring streets, but also he is still not sure exactly where the eruv is located. Meaning that even though the eruv is present, Loren is either a) so religious that he doesn’t abide by it, OR b) he doesn’t lead a Jewish life that would involve abiding by an eruv. As the conversation continues Loren continues to distance himself from vocabulary that you would expect to come from a more observant Jew, as he casually engages in humorous banter with me surrounding the eruv.I ask him how it felt to finally “find” the eruv, he responds that he “feels pretty good” but he didn’t feel like “it was an actual wall” - which it isn’t, so this statement is made in jest. He continues, “its like finding Waldo, Waldo had curly hair and glasses, he might have been a frum Jew [...] maybe it is a statement about jews begin such a small percentage of the population...
The Rebbe, Acrylic on Canvas, 2004.more thesis excerpts coming soon...
Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez
Rio Yañez never ceases to amaze me... This time it's through his (FIRST!!!) solo exhibition, Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez. Just look at this dual punk rock meets hip hop (ghetto) Frida... Clearly, Rio is an artistic mastermind.
WHAT: Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez.WHEN: Wednesday, April 11 – Friday, June 15 2012Monday-Friday: 8:00AM – 10:00PM,WHERE: UCSB Multicultural CenterUniversity Center room 1504Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6050
Acciones Plásticas プリクラ collaboration with Rio Yañez (2009)
Love is never too late.
I know it's almost April, but I would be remiss if I didn't share Rio Yañez's 2012 crop of valentines amazingness.Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends and lovers! El Rio’s Valentine’s Day Cards are back in the ring to take another swing! This is the 6th year of my cards and it’s turned into my longest running project. Enjoy!
As always, please post these cards on the pages of your online friends, real life enemies, booty calls, baby daddies, friends with benefits, people you're stalking on facebook, and people you would be stalking on Google + but don't want to go through the hassle of signing up with a new social network.
el es frida kahlo in the Jewish Women's Archive Blog
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlMPoFXRT18]el es frida kahlo featured on Jewesses with Attitude in honor of Frida Kahlo's 104th birthday.
A Latina "Jewess with attitude," Maya Escobar plays with the web as a platform for engaging in community dialogue around identity and multiple identities--how they are socially and culturally constructed. She often assumes multiple identities in her performances, drawing from various existing representations.
About "el es frida kahlo," she writes:
Frida Kahlo played with the identity that she wanted to project and the identity that was placed on her by others. Kahlo used her clothing, political affiliations, sexual escapades, and personal traumas, to create a character that informed her body of work. She inscribed her identity, painting her image over and over, constructing a mythology around her persona.In el es frida kahlo I confront the ambivalence I experience as a result of my simultaneous obsession with Frida Kahlo and weariness towards her commodification.
What is your reaction to this confrontational piece? Do you identify with Escobar's ambivalence towards Kahlo, her work, and her commodification in our culture?
AMerican MEdia Output in New Jersey
You saw Escobar-Morales as promo models in TX, "promoting" Arizona Tourism...
And here we are as marketing executives in NJ.
Andria was live at Gallery Aferro and I skyped in from Chicago.
Stay tuned for more details on the performance and the results from AMerican MEdia Output's #targetaudiencesurvey.
AMerican MEdia Output in Texas
[youtube=http://youtu.be/CMDhowuCwDE]AMericanMEdiaOutput.com
it's official: Escobar-Morales has arrived
visit us now at http://escobar-morales.com
Somos Ana
“Please die Ana, for as long as you’re here we’re not.”-AM on Are You My Other?
"Wondering if our girls are legal?"
Wondering if our girls are legal? Imagine an Arizona where cold spring water is in abundance, and everyone is free, especially the women. Enjoy the breathtaking natural terrain and spiritual landmarks revered by American ancestors. Come for the women in hot summer fashions. Stay because you're welcome.
when physical appearance equals reasonable suspicion
Public Airways is an artwork that aims to help viewers imagine the consequences of proposed immigration laws that inevitably lead to increased racial profiling. Arizona's SB 1070 would make it legal for law officers to use someone’s physical appearance as a form of “reasonable suspicion” to demand proof of citizenship. Similar laws have been proposed in South Carolina, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Mississippi. Perhaps rightful citizens and casual world travelers subject to profiling will soon seek to avoid such destinations altogether: a 21st century "Non-White Flight."
follow @PublicAirways
WE GUARANTEE YOU'LL KEEP YOUR CARD IN YOUR WALLET FOR GOOD
TAKE ACTION AGAINST ANTI-IMMIGRATION ARIZONA LAWS
visit: AMericanMEdiaOutput.com/arizonawelcome.html
click hashtags #SB1611 and #SB1070
embeddable images of the Arizona Welcome Promo Girls will be avaliable soon...
Andria, The Fat Free Elotera, and I are featured in JEWCY
Jewcy Art: Maya Escobarby Margarita Korol, February 24, 2011
In 2007 we dubbed her the Anti-Feminist Feminist Jewish Latina. We stumbled upon performance artist/ Internet curator/ editor Maya Escobar again at the GA in New Orleans where her video installations were making a Marina Abramovich-style scene near Jewcy’s booth. She uses the web as a platform for engaging in critical community dialogues that concern processes by which identities are socially and culturally constructed. She performs multiple identities, sampling widely from online representations of existing cultural discourses.
click here for full text
Internet Art & Activism- the #delValleMural
I am a Chicago-based digital media and performance artist. I created this grassroots, social media, portable mural in support of Miguel del Valle's campaign for Mayor.
follow hashtag: #delValleMural to see how the mural was created.