Tania Bruguera Perfomance Retro

Artnet
27.01.2010

From: Artnet. “Tania Bruguera Performance Retro.” Artnet. The art world online, New York, United States.

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artnetnews/tania-bruguera-neuberger1-27-10.asp

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TANIA BRUGUERA PERFORMANCE RETRO

ARTNET NEWS

Jan. 27, 2010

Sometimes great ideas strike in many different places at the same time, and this winter the idea is major museum shows of performance art. At the Guggenheim Museum is “Tino Sehgal,” Jan 29-Mar. 10, 2010; at the Museum of Modern Art is “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present,” Mar. 14-May 31, 2010; and at the Neuberger Museum of Art in nearby Purchase, N.Y. — less than an hour away from Manhattan on Metro North — is “Tania Bruguera: On the Political Imaginary,” Jan. 28-Apr. 11, 2010. The show is organized by chief curator Helaine Posner and accompanied by a 144-page catalogue surveying 27 works, the first major book on the Cuban-born artist whose works engage political and social themes with admirable directness and power.

The survey encompasses 18 of Bruguera’s works, and features multiple daily performances throughout the run of the exhibition, undertaken by students at Purchase College (whose curriculum includes performance art courses). Among these are Burden of Guilt from 1997-99, perhaps Bruguera’s best-known action, in which she ties a lamb carcass to her naked body and ritualistically consumes dirt and salt, to represent a suicidal conflict between Cuba’s indigenous people and Spanish invaders. The show features the debut of a new performance, called Survey, in which guided tours of the museum are conducted by blind docents, as well as a new action by Bruguera herself — details as yet unannounced — who splits her time between Cuba and the University of Chicago. Some of the work in the show has been deemed unsuitable for younger audiences, and visitors under 18 years of age are admitted only with a parent or guardian. For more info, see www.neuberger.com.

Translated for the website by Ernesto Alvarez Valdivia