Coco Fusco: Cuba Portraits
Posted by | Nicky Ni | Posted on | November 5, 2018
Coco Fusco in person
Coco Fusco, still from La confesión, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist
For more than 30 years, interdisciplinary artist Coco Fusco has explored notions of race, identity, and power through video and performance. In recent years, Fusco has examined a number of legendary stories that lack pictorial representation due to institutional censorship or an absence of governmental documentation. She presents two intimate artist portraits centered on concepts of the body, state control, and expurgation, investigating their effects on artistic production and political discourse in Cuba. Both created in 2015, La confesión explores the public confession of poet and accused counterrevolutionary Heberto Padilla, while La botella al mar de María Elenafocuses on the state intimidation of political reformer María Elena Cruz Varela. These portraits examine the relationship of art and artists to our contemporary political moment while charting a legacy of regime power and control of information.
Presented in collaboration with the Video Data Bank.
2015, Cuba / USA, multiple formats, ca 65 min + discussion
Coco Fusco is a Cuban American interdisciplinary artist and writer. She is the Andrew Banks Endowed Professor of Art at the University of Florida and the recipient of several fellowships and awards, such as a CINTAS Fellowship (2014), Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), Absolut Art Writing Award (2013), Fulbright Fellowship (2013), United States Artist Fellowship (2012), and a Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2003). Fusco’s performances and videos have been presented in the 56th Venice Biennale, two Whitney Biennials, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, the Biennale of Sydney, Johannesburg Biennale, Kwangju Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, InSite_O5, Bienal do Mercosul, transmediale, London International Festival of Theatre, Videobrasil, and Performa 05. Her works have also been shown at the Tate Liverpool, England; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Spain. She is represented by Alexander Gray Associates in New York.
About
Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
