HUMBERTO VELEZ at the Art Gallery of York University (4700 Keele, Accolade East building), to June 26. 416-736-5169. See listing Rating: NNNN
In the new genre of museum interventions, UK-based Panamanian artist Humberto Vélez plays a unique role. Instead of rearranging or commenting on collections, he travels the world orchestrating performances that bring the art world together with local communities it usually ignores.
At the Tate Modern, Vélez staged The Fight, a non-competitive pugilistic event involving a South London boxing club. At the Cuenca Biennial he held a beauty contest for the llamas of indigenous Ecuadorians, and at the Liverpool Biennial he put on a march with asylum seekers and refugees. He’s worked with body builders, water polo players and working-class marching bands.
York’s show Aesthetics Of Collaboration contains video, photo documentation and ephemera from these and other performances.
Vélez’s three-year association with York culminated in The Awakening, a May 14 performance in the AGO’s Walker Court with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation and members of the Monkey Vault parkour club – a celebration of native ceremony, powwow-style dancing and street athleticism.
A former labour lawyer, Vélez doesn’t make the usual collaborative project that’s eventually refined into a personal statement. He doesn’t perform himself the community members he collaborates with are the material and subject of his work.
This raises questions: Does an art context change a parade, political speech or youth rap and dance performance that might ordinarily be part of a street festival or protest? Are popular cultural forms like hip-hop that make millions for marketers, or sports like boxing any more or less ethical than the art world of galleries and biennials?
Given the appropriation of aboriginal culture, what do First Nations ceremonies mean when performed in museums? His ambition (and heart) is big – “to re-imagine the ethics of current modes of artistic production.” Maybe his work will be part of a process of change for art institutions and the communities they serve and exclude.
art@nowtoronto.com
