L A B o R A L
Performance and Immersive Environment, 2016
December 20, 2016, 7:00-10:00 pm
GLASSHOUSE PROJECT
246 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
LABoRAL is a durational performance and immersive environment that reflects on the present position of labor and politics in the United States. Part experiment, and part social criticism, the project is based on Canonge’s incursion in various communities in New York City where undocumented workers: day laborers, sex workers, restaurant servers, and street vendors, among others, are forced to take low paying jobs. LABoRAL has been an experiential laboratory, a window to labor relations, and an instrument for the artist to record personal stories/histories. Canonge will develop his new work over a period of 3 hours transforming kinetically the main floor space of Glasshouse. Through LABoRAL, the artist explores possible workspace relations and labor interactions inviting, at times, the participation of the audience to follow the carefully constructed actions. The presentation will culminate in a 20-minute performance in the style defined by the artist as “generative performative exploration.”
Biography (short):
Hector Canonge is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and cultural entrepreneur based in New York City. His work incorporates the use of new media technologies, cinematic narratives, performance, and socially engaged art to explore and treat issues related to constructions of identity, gender roles, and the politics of migration. Challenging the white box settings of a gallery or a museum, or intervening directly in public spaces, his performances mediate movement, endurance, and ritualistic processes. His installations, interactive platforms, and performance art work have been exhibited and presented in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. As cultural entrepreneur, Canonge created the annual Performance Art Festival, ITINERANT, and directs the programs ARTerial PERFORMANCE LAB (APLAB), a transcontinental initiative to foster collaboration among performance artists from the Americas; PERFORMEANDO, a program that focuses on featuring Hispanic performance artists living in the USA and Europe, and PERFORMAXIS, an international residency program in collaboration with galleries and art spaces in Latin America. Canonge teaches Media Arts at City University of New York, and conducts workshops in Performance Art as a guest artist for universities and cultural organizations. From his living-studio in Queens, MODULO 715, Canonge directs projects, programs, and initiatives like CONVIVIR, the international residency program for co-habitation and collaboration, and the new Performance Art initiatives TALKaCTIVE, LiVEART.US, and CENTIPDE hosted at Queens Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and JACK respectively. The artist is currently finishing his long term Franklin Furnace Award project, LABoRAL to be presented at Glasshouse Project on December 20, 2016.
More information: www.hectorcanonge.net
