Migration and Visual Art

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Final Paper- Breaking the Border: Gender & Identity

Stefanie McLaren

Art 309: Migration and Visual Art

Spring 2010

Greene

breaking the border: gender and identity

What is a border? A border is the line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions.[1] In other words, it is a boundary, or a way to create separation. When looking at border art, artists Ursula Biemann and Guillermo Gomez-Peña both explore the border and the concept of bordered identity throughout their work. In particular, Biemann’s video essay Performing the Border and Gomez Peña’s Border Brujo both examine identities, and gender, at the U.S/Mexico border.

Ursula Biemann, born in Switzerland in 1955, became interested in the border after her first trip to Ciudad Juarez in the 1980’s where she took many photographs of the women and their working conditions in the free trade zone at the border. Of course many aspects of the border changed after the signing of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.[2] However, her interest in the new meanings and identities, especially the female identity, prospered and eventually led her to produce, Performing the Border in 1999.

In Performing the Border, Biemann brings light to the women who live at the border and their formed identities when it comes to labor, prostitution, and a new sense of empowerment and outward sexual desire in entertainment. The female identity definitely changed with the creation of NAFTA, and the establishment of the first maquiladoras. Maquiladoras are factories that manufacture goods for client’s across borders, sometimes importing materials duty-free and then exporting and distributing the products. In an interview, with Imre Szeman,

Biemann states,

“Nimble fingers make for better and faster precision work in electronic assemblage operations; adolescent girls have no experience in the public sphere and are thus less likely to organize into unions; young girls can be paid much lower wages because they count as secondary income to a household; and they are generally the most vulnerable segment of the population because they have the least autonomy within their families but high responsibilities towards their members.”[3]

The border and the maquiladoras have blurred the boundaries of the Mexican female identity. With the women in the work force and the reversal of income, the social customs changed, thus giving a new sense of independence and empowerment to the women of the border.

However, along with the labor identity, many of the young women even go as far as to prostitute themselves on weekends, because the factories, paying minimum wage, do not provide them enough money to fully support themselves and their families. Juana Azua, a former sex worker, was forced to begin selling her body on the border at the age of 31 in order to help pay for her brother’s accident costs, as well as help with his seven children. She stated that the money was always present with the passage of American men through the border, however the war put an end to the crossing and the money eventually dried up in Juarez.[4] This demonstrates how much influence the border has on the lives of the women and their roles in society, and also how the women influence the border itself.

Performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Peña was born and raised in Mexico. Coincidently, both he and Biemann were born in 1955 , and were able to observe and experience the border pre NAFTA, and also later, post NAFTA. Gomez-Peña moved to the United States in 1978 and went to the California Institute of Arts for post-studio art.[5] In 1988 he developed Border Brujo, a solo perfermance piece in which he sits at an altar and transforms into 15 different personas, or stereotyes, representing American perceptions of Mexican identity, history and culture.[6] This demonstration is quite intriguing, in that, although it is somewhat comical on the surface, it is extremely powerful in showing the cultural heterogenity that occurs, as well as the a culural misunderstanding of identity across borders.

Unlike Biemann, Gomez-Peña places himself in his film, and uses various costume pieces and accessories to help represent these different identitites. One thing I found to be quite interesting is the use of various streotyical and gender related articles. For example, in the section Identity as an Optical Illustion he is seen in a hot pink boa, which is more generally associated with more of a female, or flamboyant, character. One interesting aspect about this part is when he declares, “Can anyone document me please?... Can anyone be so kind as to authenticate my existence?” This was somewhat thought provoking after watching Performing the Border. This makes one reflect upon border culture and the idea of women being dehumanized , in a way, and turned into what Biemann describes as, “a disposable, exchangeable and marketable component.”[7] This idea put forth by both artists that sometimes border residents don’t really have an acknoledged identity in society is quite fascinating when thinking about their lifestyles and the role that they play.

Throughout Border Brujo. Gomez-Peña blurs the boundaries of identity with race, as well as gender by becoming a ‘transvestite’[8] with some of his guises such as the earlier mentioned pink boa, the different earrings he wears, the long haired wig he places on his head, and the personality and feelings he expresses during different parts of his performance. In Dressing Across the Border, Robert Neustadt describes Gomez-Peña’s act of cross-dressing as a way to ‘underscore and efface the boundary.’ So basically, a way to draw attention to the concept of ‘border’ and eliminate the lines between identities. He states that Gomez-Peña, “does not move towards a permanent resolution of binary oppositions but instead delineates a fluid, non-fixed, condition that is subject to continuous change.” Border Brujo demonstrates that the identities formed by the border are not just one race or one gender. Neustadt also describes Gomez Peña’s process throughout Border Brujo as a type of ‘cross dressing’ in itself, a cross-dressing of borders.[9] He relates it to how transvestites move between genders, just as Gomez-Peña moves between personalities.

In comparing the two artists, Ursula Biemann uses footage and interviews of real life people from the border to depict their lifestyles and how the border creates their gendered identities. I feel as though she generally remains neutral with her view of the border and represents it how it is, and what causes it to be, and transform. Whereas Guillermo Gomez-Peña is the sole person in his film, performing a multitude of identities, which blur the boundaries, for the viewer to reflect on and analyze their own thoughts and feelings. He uses a very outward, confrontational technique and sometimes a feeling of negativity in his perspective. He is somewhat distrought by the negative stereotypes that he, himself, is portaying in relationship to Mexican identity.

Both Gomez Peña in Border Brujo and Ursula Biemann with Performing the Border depict gendered identity in different ways, and show how identities are either blurred or transformed by the both the conceptual and the physical border. Gomez-Peña demonstrates the identies and social roles that the border defines; he crosses the line between North and South, American and Latino, and male and female. Biemann identifies the multiple facets of the Mexican female and how there has been a shift in identities and social roles with the border. Both artist bring attention to the concept of the ‘border’ and gender and represent the strive of residents and their formed identities.

[1] The Free Dictionary;”Border,” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/border. accessed 04/04/2010.

[2] Imre Szeman, “Remote Sensing: An Interview with Ursula Biemann” (2002), 2.

[3] Szeman, 2.

[4] Ursula Biemann, Performing the Border, Switzerland/Mexico, 1999.

[5] Guillermo Gómez-Peña Biography - (b. 1955), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/National Autonomous University of Mexico, Border Brujo. http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/3916/Guillermo-G%C3%B3mez-Pe%C3%B1a.html. Accessed 04/10/10

[6] Gómez-Peña, Guillermo, Border Brujo, Dir. Isaac Artenstein. San Diego: Cinewest Productions: Sushi Inc., 1990.

[7] Performing the Border

[8] Robert Neustadt, “Guillermo Gómez-Peña: Dragging Representation” http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/neustadt.html

[9] Neustadt

Monday, May 3, 2010

Border Brujo

http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?BORDERBRUJ

Friday, March 19, 2010

Breaking the Border

Stefanie McLaren

Art 309: Migration and Visual Art

Spring 2010

Greene

Breaking the Border

What is a border? A border is the line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/border). In other words, it is a boundary, or a way to create separation. When looking at the art world, there are many artists who utilize the concept of ‘border’ in their work. Artists Ursula Biemann and Guillermo Gomez-Pena demonstrate this concept throughout many of their pieces. Gomez-Pena has explored the Mexican and U.S border when looking at culture, identity, and politics. While some of Biemann’s work explores issues of identity, and gendered migrant labor near geographical borders. Although they both touch upon similar themes, they do so in varying approaches.

In the early 1990’s, Gomez-Pena made several solo performance videos using the border between Mexican and American cultures. In “Border Brujo” (Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 1989, USA), Guillermo sits at an altar and goes through 15 different personas, or stereotypes, representing American perceptions of Mexican identity, history and culture (Fig 1). This demonstration is quite intriguing, in that, although it is somewhat comical on the surface, it is extremely powerful in showing the cultural homogeneity that occurs in relationship to identity, as well as this sort of cultural misunderstanding across borders. “Son of Border Crisis” (Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 1990, USA) is another one of his works dealing with the clash of Mexican and American cultures. It is one of seven different video performances, once again by Guillermo himself, which have this sort of comical approach, yet speak to this greater idea of a mix in cultural identity and understanding.

Founded in 1993, Gomez-Pena’s organization “La Pocha Nostra” also breaks national borders by collaborating, what he calls, ‘rebel artists’ from different generations, disciplines, ethnicities and genders with a focus on citizen diplomacy. Most of this work is comprised of performance/installation, which is often interactive with the audience members. Gomez-Pena states,

“The basic premise of these collaborations is found on an ideal: if we learn to cross borders on stage, we may learn how to do so in larger social spheres. We hope others will be challenged to do he same” (http://pochanostra.com/).

He uses this idea of breaking the boundaries, as we know them, between how we view and distinguish identity and stereotypes. Furthermore, he crosses the line between performer and audience by encouraging the viewers to partake in the act after the first hour of the performance. Audience members are able to ‘explore’ the performers, speak freely into a microphone, have the option to choose a temporary identity, can stay as long as they choose, and have complete creative control. There are no constraints, or boundaries, and this idea of freedom and creative expression is truly inspiring. Gomez-Pena describes it as letting, “the demons loose; to open the infected border wound” (http://pochanostra.com/).

One of his more recent works “Performance Karaoke” (Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 2008, La Pocha Nostra, USA) breaks the borders, once again, but this time between photography and performance, involving audience members and people from the San Francisco area. La Pocha Nostra provided them with a large selection of costumes and accessories and shot a series of performance photos. The photograph below (Fig 2) from “Performance Karaoke” exemplifies the way the line between gender and age has been crossed, in that, the person appears to be an adult male who is dressed as a female, also holding doll. Even the facial expression demonstrates a naïve persona and an this sort of ‘imagined identity.”

When taking a look at Ursula Biemann’s work, she experiments with ideas of crossing borders, both physically with geographical borders and conceptually with exploration of identity and gender roles (http://geobodies.org/). Her video essay “Performing the Border” (Ursula Biemann, 1999, Mexico) also explores the Mexican-U.S. border. However, unlike Gomez-Pena, for this video she goes to the physical border in the towns of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. She touches on issues of exploitation and ‘unstable identities’ formed by the migration of teenage girls from central Mexico to start new lives, as well as the dangers and struggles that they face (Fig 3 & 4). Additionally she addresses sex violence and prostitution by interviewing Mexican girls who were formally in the business to obtain their perspectives. One interesting aspect of her interpretation of the ‘border’ in the video, is when she compares it with, “a wound that has to be heeled, that has to be closed that has to be protected from contamination and disease” (Biemann, Performing the Border). It is a good metaphor because it brings up the idea that the physical boundary is a division between countries as a way to provide a sense of security and health. Ironically, Gomez-Pena, as stated earlier, also speaks of the border in relationship to the idea of ‘wound’ by implying that we must open it, or break it.

Another work by Biemann, from the same series as “Performing the Border”, is “Europlex” (Ursula Biemann, 2003). In this video essay she films Moroccan women who cross the border for their jobs, as well as a look at smugglers and what they go through on a daily basis at the border (Fig 5). It deals with migration and by crossing the border they are blurring the boundaries of identity because they associate with both countries. The idea of migration and the desire of the young girls to start, or have, new lives across the border is really powerful. Her videos provides us with a look at the issues that result in the physical border and the developed identities of the adolescent girls and Moroccan women through their experiences.

As one can observe, through Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s use of theatrics and video performances he breaks the boundaries of identity, ethnicity and culture. Whereas, Ursula Biemann’s video essays demonstrate the power of the physical border, the collision of culture and how dual identities are formed through migration. Both artists seek to represent different areas of migration and the idea of ‘borders’ and they are both successful in their varying approaches.