ESCOBAR-MORALES: Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye at the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO. Opening on Friday, February 1, 2013, from 5 to 9 pm. Show runs until February 23rd, 2013.
In the New Media Room, the Bruno David Gallery presents a single-channel video work titled “Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye” by Escobar-Morales. The 21-minutes video originated from a performance at the closing for RICH-OO-UH'L, RICH-OO-UH'L at Jolie Laide Gallery in Philadelphia, with sound by Armando Morales.In the Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye (2011), 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.ESCOBAR-MORALES is a team comprised of Maya Escobar and Andria Morales. The two artists, based in Chicago and New York respectively, have been working together over the Internet since 2010. They produce digital media and performance art that explores the role of self-representation in visual culture and its ability to deconstruct ingrained ideological conventions. By locating their performances online where they are free from restrictions of time and place, Escobar-Morales is able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously creating a unified hybrid self.Maya Escobar was born in Chicago, IL in 1984. Andria Morales was born in 1982 in New York, NY. Escobar received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis (2009); Morales received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (2008).Photo by Armando Morales
Updating About Me
Maya Escobar is a conceptual identity artist.
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SELECTED STATEMENTS
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Bio for About Page 2010:Maya Escobar is a performance artist, Internet curator, and editor. 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. Her identifications as a Latina-Jewish artist, dyslexic blogger, activist and educator are indexed by the blogs she keeps, the visual and textual links she posts, the books, articles, and blog posts she cites, the public comments she leaves, and the groups she joins.Escobar received her MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited work in Spain, Guatemala, United States, Germany, Venezuela, and Chile.Twitter Bio for @Maya_Ate_This 2010:I am a 2nd generation Latina artist, nutrition buff, and fitness enthusiast. Here, I'll be tweeting what I am eating as well as sharing beauty and fitness tips.Artista Disléxica Del Internet pt 1 of audition video for Reality TV Show on Discovery En Español 2010:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T_8KzV8kLw]Short Bio for Acciones Plásticasプリクラ 2009:Maya Escobar is a Guatemalan-Jewish digital media and performance artist, currently living in St. Louis. Her work addresses issues of cultural hybridity, gender, placelessness, and the construction of identity.Bio for Conney Conference on Jewish Identity 2009:Maya Escobar is a Guatemalan Jewish digital media and performance artist. She received a BFA with an emphasis in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently completing her MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. She can usually be found on the web blogging, tweeting, or youtubing. Escobar also serves as the online art editor for Zeek: A Journal of Jewish Thought and Culture. She has taught, performed and exhibited work in Germany, Spain, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and the United States.About Me for Maya E. on Jewish Wedding Network (2009):I have always lived between multiple worlds, I come from a Guatemalan Jewish American family of activists and educators. The planning of my wedding is like most things other things we do, a familiar and communal affair. In addition to the Bosa Nova band that will perform, my fiancee's band rock band Cavalry will be covering various Jewish tunes such as hava negilah and more.Breaking Down the Elephant Blog Post 2009:Some people think that I am the true representation of the elephant.It is true I am an elephant, but not the only elephant.I try to break up the conception of being the only elephant.Some people see a small portion of my work and think it is the whole- the representative elephant.Others understand that each piece connects to another piece and that individually they are only fragments.When breaking the elephant up into pieces, information slips in through the cracks.People also respond to this new information- creating a bigger more amorphous elephant.The amorphous elephant is broken up again and again, so that it is relevant to new individuals new experiences…Manifesto for MFA Thesis Exhibition Catalog 2009:As an artist and an individual, I am in constant conversation with the values transposed through multiculturalism. I seek to challenge notions of sameness, unity, and political correctness with pieces that affirm a sense of community for some, while paradoxically alienating others.Major influxes in international travel, technological advances, immigration, adoption, and intermarriage are causing the borders and boundaries between countries to merge together at an increasingly rapid pace. The imagined spaces of individual cultures are no longer autonomous.Therefore it is with a conscious move that I, and many colleagues and contemporaries, unapologetically go forward, breaking through traditional conceptions of art and artistic practice. No longer tied down to medium-specific practices, we produce work derivative of a multitude of discourses. The works that we produce, however, are distinct from those in the fields that our work represents. We are concerned with the past, but we will not allow the past to solely delineate the future. We hope to form a new definition of artistic practice that will include our constantly shifting environment.Short Web Bio for Stumble Upon 2008:MFA Candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. Current art/research centers around mental constructions of space and the social and political implications that result from these imagined boundaries. On this blog I share my random thoughts on hybridity, transnational and transcultural identities, liberal multiculturalism, critical pedagogy, feminist theory, latinidad, jewish life in america, youth culture...Bio for Acciones Plásticas at the Bruno David Gallery 2007:Maya Escobar is a Guatemalan Jewish interdisciplinary artist and educator. She is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received a BFA with an emphasis in Art Education. She has taught, performed and exhibited work in Spain, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and the United States. Currently, Escobar is pursuing a MFA in Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.Bio for Camp JRF 2007:Maya Escobar is a Guatemalan Jewish interdisciplinary artist and educator. She is currently completing her degree in Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sharing her non-traditional approach to exploring Jewish identity, Maya will expose campers to a wide variety of contemporary artists, artistic mediums and processes. Campers will have the opportunity to work both independently and as a collective, to produce work that inspires and participates in ongoing personal and communal dialogue.Artist Statement 2006:Through the performance of actual and fictitious moments of my life, I explore my personal identity as the daughter of a Guatemalan father and Jewish mother. I compare the complexities of projected societal, cultural, and gender-determined roles to the lived experiences of Latina and Jewish women in our contemporary American culture. My work translates ongoing anthropological and sociological investigation into accessible narrative forms, incorporating technical skills in multiple mediums. As a commentary to the objectification and exoticization of otherness that I have personally experienced, I reclaim ownership of myself; I transform my body as well my “self” into an object used within the performed ritual, which is then documented through analog and digital photo, video and collage.
el es frida kahlo at the gallery
el es frida kahlo is currently on view in the New Media Room at the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO.
el es frida kahlo, 2007-present
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. Viewed from a tiny pinhole, dressed as Kahlo, I stand before a reproduction of one of her self portraits. With a mixture of rage, anxiety, and complete fear, I chant “el es Frida Kahlo, ella es Frida Kahlo, el es Frida Kahlo, yo soy, yo soy, yo soy Frida Kahlo,” he is Frida Kahlo, she is Frida Kahlo, I am, I am, I am Frida Kahlo. As I yell, the painting behind me begins to fall. I violently tear down my braids and smudge off my makeup while continuing to scream “I am Frida Kahlo, I am Frida Kahlo, yo soy Frida Kahlo!”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BJmaYn5IIE]
el es frida kahlo at the Bruno David Gallery (video filmed and edited by Felicia Chen)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlMPoFXRT18]
el es frida kahlo YouTube video
FREE el es frida kahlo animated gif avaliable on MayaEscobar.com
link to translation of recent review by David Sperber in Ma’arav Israeli Arts and Culture Magazine:
Frida Kahlo at the synagogue: Maya Escobar and the young Jewish-American Creation
free el es frida kahlo animated gif
el es frida kahlo will be on view at the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO from 1/22-3/6. In conjunction with the exhibition, I am offering a FREE embeddable animated el es frida kahlo gif on mayaescobar.com.
Talented Female Artists: Eleanor Dubinsky
Eleanor Dubinsky is a musician, choreographer, video and visual artist whose performances and installations create the experience of travel and a sense of immersion in the unknown. Eleanor's work embraces and inspires imagination and explores our connections to our bodies and to one another. She is interested in expanding who gets to participate in art-making and wants to engage audience members in a sense of wonder, questioning and creativity about their everyday lives. To this end, she rehearses, installs and performs her pieces in public spaces such as train and subway stations, parks and storefront windows. Eleanor’s artistic roots are in music, beginning with classical cello at the age of three. Based in New York since 1999, she has performed and created in France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Argentina and throughout the United States.
be sure check out her myspace page to hear her awesome music...[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yycdvyycBx4]
Get on the Guagua
coming soon....Eleanor's pieces Fast Body (2007) and Get on the Guagua: a film about getting on the bus and around in general in Havana, Cuba (2006) were selected for the Danca em Foco International Videodance Showing in 2008, which will take place from August 7-24th at Oi Futuro, Rua Dois de Dezembro, 63/4º andar – Flamengo – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. www.dancaemfoco.com.brEleanor will be in Turkey from July 12-29 participating in a week-long intensive workshop in music and dance improvisation with master teachers Julyen Hamilton and Barre Phillips, followed by a week-long performance residency in Cappadocia with the Paris-based dance and music collective Emma Jupe, of which she is a member. They will be developing and performing new work and performing daily for the local residents in public spaces.