Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican artist, performer, visionary, and social critic. Some of his work has been humorous, but it has all been pointed.
Back when he was collaborating with Coco Fusco, another brilliant cultural critic and performer, they performed at the Portland Art Museum. After that, a new museum director started having prayer meetings in the museum at lunch time and refocused the museum on old French impressionist masters. The contemporary art program exited. John Weber went to SFMOMA, now he is director of the Schnitzer Museum at UofO in Eugene. Kristy Edmunds formed PICA with support of several Jewish members of the museum board who the new director made uncomfortable. Edmunds is now at MassMOCA nee UCLA and Melbourne.
He brings 2 events.
For The Pandemia Chronicles, he uses the John Cage method to randomly select material to present and perform. "Utilizing a casino roulette spinner to select his live spoken word texts and props, he is unplugged, thinking out loud and articulating the challenges and possibilities of reinvention during confinement and in the midst of multiple pandemics." He is joined by his wife and performance partner Balitronica Gómez. That event is at Pacific University.
He is doing a similar remix in a brief one hour retrospective performance from his archives at the Portland Art Museum. Much of Wednesday is poetic reading. Friday he started with his birth and about the first 30 of his performance years. You can start with the show announcements, see the performances, then dig into his work as you like. Much of his historic work would be considered contemporary today.
Wednesday Pandemic Chronicles https://pacificuniversity.ticketspice.com/2022-benjamin-and-elaine-whiteley-distinguished-lecture at McCready Hall, Taylor-Meade Performing Arts Center, Pacific University, Forest Grove. Tickets required. 7PM Free
Friday Multiple Journeys: The Life and Work of Gómez-Peña https://portlandartmuseum.org/event/multiple-journeys/ at the Portland Art Museum in the Mark Building-Masonc Temple Kridel Grand Ballroom 1219 SW Park 7PM-8 $5
