PROJECTS — Jorge Lucero

EATING JESUS

On June 15, 2012 Alberto Aguilar hosted a "white dinner" at The Hyde Park Kunstverein. He asked me to deliver part of the after-dinner entertainment considering the evenings theme, white. In a hot room filled with white objects, after having had a five course dinner of just white colored foods, I delivered a white paper called Eating Jesus: Into the heart of the relational; art, pedagogy, and the feast. This is a first draft of an essay that I've been asked to contribute to a book about the art education/spirituality intersection. You can download the full transcript of my lecture here.

Screen shot 2012-08-27 at 4.58.10 PM.png

Screen shot 2012-08-27 at 4.58.21 PM.png

GUEST LECTURE ALL DAY LONG

Photo courtesy of Alberto Aguilar /MCA event announcement / video by Jorge Lucero / NOTE: A critical essay about Guest Lecture All Day Long (14 hours) is already underway! On this page you find the take-away I authored, which was designed and manufactured by the MCA (it includes a bibliography of the books I "lectured" from); an image of the early hours of the lecture; and a video of the very last half-hour of the lecture. In this video clip I'm reading from Néstor García Canclini's "Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts".

I THOUGHT I WOULDN'T SEE YOU

I thought I wouldn't see you.

Two performances done on/with Robert Smithson's partially submerged Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake, Utah.

SON OF A METALWORKER: SHUTTLE RUN THE SPIRAL JETTY

In the winter of 2012, Lucero was invited to give an artist lecture at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. On the morning Lucero was set to leave Utah, he drove out to the Great Salt Lake at sunrise to see Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Struck by the minimalism of the auditory "landscape" and by the pristine iridescence of the salty lake's appearance, Lucero created two videos using the Spiral Jetty as both a stage and an instrument. The reflectivity of the pearlescent lake surface serves as a background for the diversity of sounds initiated by human interaction with the materials of the jetty.

SON OF A METALWORKER: SHUTTLE RUN THE SPIRAL JETTY is the part of the two-part work that uses the jetty as a stage (above). Here Lucero walks along as much of the jetty as was allowed by surfaced boulders. STONE WALK (after John Cage)(below) plays the jetty as an instrument. Lucero's shoes, covered in the granular salt and sand that peppers the jetty, rub against the precariously touching stones, creating a percussion work after John Cage's germinal "Water Walk".

The two works are meant to be seen sequentially, long (above) and then short (below); but they can also be played simultaneously.

December 2012

STONE WALK (after John Cage)

PAINTING BACKGROUND

In their foundational years, artists Alberto Aguilar and Jorge Lucero primarily studied painting. Since those developmental years their art practice has gone in many directions, which include everything from art education, social engagement, performance, video, installation, sound, and curatorial projects. All of these formal/material investigations have been filtered through an intentional discourse, which considers the “everyday” and “everydayness” as art. This multifaceted conceptual shift in their practice–from a straight studio practice to a more integrated one–had Aguilar and Lucero placing the act of painting on the “back burner”. Although not actively painting in their recent investigations, their painting sensibility continues to inform every aspect of their continued inquiry. For the first time since 2003, Aguilar and Lucero presented new paintings together at the Beverly Art Center. These works are evidence of a renewed plastic moment in their practice, which has been clarified and refined through this somewhat “accidental” painting sabbatical. For this new painting installation at The Beverly Art Center, Aguilar and Lucero actively considered the placement of the painting moment/object in the often forgotten or obscured places of the art gallery.

18 different flavors of paletas (200 total) were given out at the exhibitions opening.

PLACARD BOMB

READ LETTER

TEACHER AS CONCEPTUAL ARTIST

Lecture delivered at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2/6/2013. Click here for audio. Here is a PDF of the document that was handed out at the event.