Radical art, radical communities, and radical dreams: Guillermo Gómez-Peña at TEDxCalArts

[@christopherkarlwilde8745]

One of the most brilliant, beautiful, and powerful thinkers and artists.

[@venusmoctezuma]

i'm mexican and i'm tan orgulloso of watching Gómez-Peña charla TED! :)

[@jetblackstripes]

Easily one of the most powerful, fun AND provocative statements on Art & Tyranny ever. I always return to it for inspiration.

[@taniamurphy217]

Loved every second - real performance to challenge thinking and our ways - I'm part of your community Señor Pena. In hope I live and art I do

[@christyamar]

"The country I would like to live in only exists in planet poetry, in performance. Imgination is my nation and that's where I wish to live and die." GGP WOW! im in love with him. viva la raza carnal.

[@kikeheebchinkjigaboo6631]

Christina Amar meanwhile u still have to pay taxes in this country lol

[@jetblackstripes]

thought provoking, witty, inspiring and yes.. loving. cuts to the heart of things.

[@jessdreamingoutloud6679]

Wow that was truly inspirational. I feel exactly like him on so many different levels. About politics, about religion, about community. I do feel like a conformist on a certain level. I feel like I lost the edge of my teenager days when I did have edges...sharp ones. And like...yes....i'm going to bring that back. Because when I truly look down the deep deep well of myself...I see no choice other then to be an artist. And to be an artist....we have to truly dig deep and bring our "unique" identity to the surface, regardless of persecution or difference.

[@samu_lab]

Gran aporte para la reflexión sobre el arte como práctica de resistencia y no como mercado egótico.

[@anairda-arte]

Maravillosanamenteprovokativa!! Larga vidaventura al maestro Guillermo!

[@greymase]

Both a balm an d a cleanser for the wounds of ordinary discourse and infinite voices aimed at the same micron of activity and meaning in the Balkanized and Democratized public square. The off Broadway of cultural consideration is where the best, most enriching, if less well produced, concepts are put out on the buffet table - all you can digest. Thank you, don Guillermo.

[@christyamar]

got to the end... wow, stellar, simply magnificent!

[@andyhouston625]

It's great that he jams the corny TEDx media look, before he begins to enlighten us. Gómez-Peña is the bomb!

[@balazsmolnar5797]

YES. YES. YES.

[@sam.mickaela]

LOVE HIM

[@jessdreamingoutloud6679]

I as well would love to live in this world. IN MY WORLD......Poets and Artists would rule the nation to a much much higher degree. They are constantly testing democracy. Without us...certain things would never be thought of....ideas would not be tested out. Politics would not be challenged and imagined in a different way.

[@correlationsbodywork]

what a fantastic Juneteenth presentation!

[@anielin926]

Love this. Go Guillermo! Does anybody know what language he's speaking in the end?

[@Pitacado97]

He's speaking Nawat!

[@mannahart1485]

Agree with your views, Guillermo. Intellectuals are heard seriously in some corners - Peter Singer for example. Their think tanks and writings do have influence, but can take a 100 years or more to filter down and into the general zeitgeist - as with Freud's now well recognised unconscious or Derrida's gaps between artificial and priviledged binaries. Artists can sometimes, rarely, affect major reactions and counter-reactions - like the strike in response to Diego Rivera's 1932 mural on the RCA Building of the Rockefeller Center, at which people rioted - and then the CIA counter to manipulate Modernism. But tracking back through the history of arts in all cultures, artists have almost always been slaves or paid less than workers, less than enough for survival and health. And most of those paid were paid to represent the cannons of the patrons. In this Western world, the cognoscienti of the art worlds expect freedom of expression - can achieve it at considerable personal cost - but are only rarely celebrated (Nobel and Pulitzer) for declaring inconvenient truths that those in power prefer not to hear. It takes a kind of courage - for which I celebrate and love your boles.

[@aliciaduff5917]

I enjoyed this video very much; is there a transcript available?

[@frankie15]

Probs super late, but I transcribed it: Corny. I love it. So, from my multiple performance personas, today, I am a Mexican, Scottish vernacular philosopher. In the name of art, people have crucified themselves as a form of protest. People have created fake corporations to denounce environmental injustice and printed useless money and conceptual passports to invent their own countries. In the name of art, people invent mysterious languages, religions, communities, and architectures that are more congruent with our needs and aspirations. Artists and writers have envisioned a parallel universe in which our contemporaries can engage in meaningful forms of freedom and creativity. I mean this means that true democracy can only exist only exist in the imagination of art and literature.

[@frankie15]

So, dear audience, today, I am your mirror and you are my temporary community. I am in love with you and you are a bit scared of me…of the possibility of me asking you to do something outrageous in the name of art. Like, taking your clothes off in ritual time while singing a punk mariachi opera. ‘Cause that’s the reputation of performance artists. But, I won’t do it this time. And I say, “I love you” because my only hope is in your eyes. Because, as my audience, you are my salvation and source of hope and, together, we can change the course of history, even if only for the duration of this talk. I say, in my world, there is food, clothing, housing, medical attention, and education for everyone. In my world, there is no difference between sameness and difference. And borders are easy to cross, especially those from South to North. In my world, there are no ‘illegal aliens,’ no ‘others,’ no ‘good or bad guys’; there are no terrorists or crime cartels. In my world, there are no guns, because there is no fear. In my world, there is a place for everyone, even if only for the duration of a talk. I say, in my world, peoples solve their disagreements through dance, performance rituals, and psycho-magic actions. In my world, the laws of poetry and quantum physics rule everyday life and all TV stations are run by artists and poets. Beautiful statements, que no? But are they true? In my world, they are.

[@frankie15]

But, if I say, for the duration of this talk, racism does not exist in this theater, or, no one here hate immigrants, gays, or lesbians, is this an accurate statement? Well, yes. In the sense that artistic reality can overshadow social reality for eighteen minutes. But, if I say that art can save lives, is this a correct statement? How so? When a man or a woman comes out of a performance determined to leave her violent husband, I’d say, art is working. When a gangbanger emerges from a performance thinking, “Hey, symbolic acts can be powerful weapons to express my anger; I’m exchanging my gun for a video camera.” I’d say, “We’re definitely making a difference.” But, let’s face it, there are more efficient ways to save lives, que no? Like, what about volunteering for Doctors without Borders? Or creating a citizen watchdog group to monitor police brutality in Los Angeles with video cameras. The fact is that, first and foremost, we make art because we love it and doing good with it is an effect we welcome. But, we don’t like to talk about this because we badly want to believe that art is necessary. Is it? I think it is. I think…I think democracy cannot thrive without art. I think democracy cannot thrive without the critical voice of the artist constantly testing its limits and possibilities. Imagine a world without the “Yes Men.” Democracy cannot exist without the ethical mirror of art reflecting the distorted features of power. But, do you think that I am exaggerating? And if the answer is no, then the US is not a democracy. You follow my logic. Because it has obviously not listened, it’s not listening to its artists and intellectuals. Is this an accurate statement? Or a mere, poetic overstatement? I mean, I may be exaggerating a bit for pedagogy’s sake, but the fact is that democracy, if done right, is the most difficult and painstaking form of government. It has to be a daily, conscious project for every citizen, like performance artists for me. Democracy is not working here because most of us don’t want to put the effort to have a democracy, so we mostly elect stooges, like [mouths words], or don’t vote at all, or allow ourselves to be tricked, or all of the above. The question here is: why is society not listening to its artists? Why are so many artists and intellectuals currently unemployed and uninsured, like myself? Or surviving from a job unrelated to our art? Why is this a much higher number than, say, unemployed doctors, lawyers, or computer programmers? Does this have anything to do with anti-intellectualism? Hm. With racism, perhaps? I’m just raising questions; that’s a job of critical artists. But, now, let’s bring the discussion home.

[@frankie15]

Is this place, the Red Cat, our setting, a democratic institution? If the answer is “yes”, does this mean that I can say and do whatever, whatever the [redacted] I want? And I won’t be censored? Even if Mickey Mouse does not agree? And if the answer is “no”, then why the [redacted] am I allowed to talk about these delicate issues so openly? What is at stake here? Nothing, really. Does the fact that nothing is at stake mean that critical thought no longer matters? That we are living in a society beyond content? And that I can, in fact, say and do whatever, whatever the [redacted] I want? And it does not make any difference? I mean, short of committing suicide as a performance right here, I can do everything else, like burn my green card or my bra. Burn a photo of the Pope or auction my left testicle. And tomorrow, it will be just an anecdote on Facebook, que no? So, no, carnales, I won’t celebrate the Democratic Party. The fact is that I don’t believe in government. I don’t think that it is possible to correct the “problem” from within the system. We have all tried. It does not work. The system is the problem. And politics is the act, the art, of manipulating the system to perpetrate problems. Being a radical within the system is a mere prestidigitation act, part of the spectacle of radicalism that maybe a consumer can acquire to feel alive and authenticate their extreme, designer identities. In my world, the vatos that I would propose as political candidates are not even politicians. They are artists and literati: visionaries, not functionaries. The country that I would like to live in only exists on Planet Poetry, Planet Performances, where imagination is the only law, art is part of everyday life, and everyone practices what they believe. Imagination is my nation; that’s where I wish to live and die. The crucial question here is “Where does one find the spiritual energy to continue when you don’t believe in mainstream politics and institutionalized religion gives you the creeps? I mean, what to do when you are too old to belong to a sub-culture and participate in the global rave? And too strange to get a chic job in academia, like Cal-Arts? Where do we locate our dissent when dissent is a corporate product, an HBO special, a perfume?” Dissent of dissent. [French] Or when kids can simply wear a t-shirt that says “Art is Resistance” and think that the job is done. What to do when all the master discourses and epic narratives of hope are bankrupt? Which is the best energy drink? Do male enchancers really work?

[@frankie15]

Since 9/11, as my meta-horizons began to fade, I became obsessed with hope. With finding its spiritual source and location. Is hope a deep feeling of expansion located in the chest, the abdomen, or the sphincter? Is it a distant marker on the horizon that directs our actions? Or a mysterious spiritual energy that propels you into the unknown, against the laws of gravity? Is hope a matter of quantum fury, a form of poetic will? Is hope, by definition, illogical and unreasonable? Does hope put you at odds with the state? Will I vote in the next elections? Did you vote last week? Or, unlike the presidential candidates, my hope isn’t connected to God, country, or economy. My hope is located…somewhere else, in obscure books, films, and performances, in small communities that exist under the radar of the media, in the political streets of our cities, in the eyes of my students, in late-night conversations in a bar full of outsiders, in animal species that I have never seen, in the wisdom of indigenous cultures; my hope is always located on the other side of the border, or the mirror, and, at this very moment, my hope is located in your arms. I want to hug you. But, there is a formidable border that separates me from your body, from your gorgeous body. It’s a 3000-year-old theatrical convention and, despite a century of attempts by the avant-garde to destroy it, it remains intact. Even in performance art! Especially in the Red Cat! Is love still an option? Love in times of war, disease, and global warming? Love amidst earthquakes and floods, under red alerts and a suspicious purple moon, colored by smog and chemical waste? Is it possible to love as if 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, and Newtown never, never happened, as if America was a true democracy and an active member of the world community? Can we love as if the PATRIOT Act didn’t exist, as if the Earth wasn’t mortally wounded, as if we had open borders and open hearts? I think we can. Love can certainly help us continue, but only so far. A few more miles, a couple of months, and then we encounter yet another abyss. Like, right now, I’m facing another abyss. My beautiful audience, can I stage dive at 57? I would love to stage dive! Into your arms! But, if I miscalculate, the risk! One of you will sue me or CalArts TEDx. But, what if I call my stage dive “performance art”? Can I get away with murder? Should I?! No, nonononono, not tonight. And what about art? Is art our salvation? In the past, art has saved me from deportation, jail, and mental hospitals. Naming my anti-social behavior “art” has saved me from the jaws of the police, the border patrol, and the IRS. But, I talk about art as critical thought and embodied theory [fury?], not as subject or market. I talk about art as in uncompromising art practice, not as in “the artwork”. But, let’s face it, the art world is full of compromises: humiliation rituals, complicated power negotiations; it takes a very special skill to survive it. And, if you comply too much, you lose your voice, your sharp edges, your culo. You become someone else you dislike and, one day that you least expect it, they send you back to the margins, where you wait and wait for a second chance that rarely comes. Or, should you succeed in preserving your ethics, uncompromised, you will eventually be rendered so marginal that no one will know that it was your choice in the first place to remain inconsequential! And what if my art leads to my own death? What if I die in the service of art, like the Italian artist Pippa Bacca, who was tragically murdered in Turkey as she traveled across Eastern Europe as a bride for peace? So, being an art world darling, culipronto, and being poor and bitter, I’d rather choose to be an uncompromising dandy, an insider/outsider, a mariachi with a big mouth, a performing contradiction, if you will. Contra Diccion is the name of my favorite lotion; my job as a performance artist is to avoid simplistic definitions, trends, and adjectives, to remain slippery, while I ask irritating questions in original ways. What a bizarre job. And I get paid for it! …Kind of. Negghhed! I feel so moved today! Like an existential who went to sleep in the Arctic Circle and woke up on the rooftop of a Manhattan skyscraper. Awooooooooooooo! Gwah. I wonder if community is a source of hope. Community is one of our obsessions. We long to belong to a larger “we” because we are obsessed, precisely, with what we lack. But, you know, locos/locas? Communities of sameness drive me up the wall, conjure my asthma, give me acute vertigo and claustrophobia. My community is not confined by ideological, national, or ethnic boundaries; mine is a community of difference. And, therefore, it is fragmented, ever-changing, and temporary and that’s how I like it. Besides, no one belongs to only one community, not even the Christian Right, not even my Chihuahua Siegfried Ne Babalou. He hangs out with rodents, marsupials, and ghosts. And, like Babalou’s, my peers are scattered all over the pinche planet, howling outsiders, jumping all over the planet. Some of you are my peers, others are total strangers in a virtual community of strangers. I long for my peers every night and, hopefully, you long for me, as well. And every now and then, when we get together, we lick each other’s wounds and dance until the morning after, like rabid kangaroos, and then we fall asleep in a circle of accidental bodies and we dream of a better place and a better present. And in this imaginary place that we dream about, artists and writers are actually needed and taken care of. We all have universal, medical insurance, a decent low-rider car, a great studio space in the Bohemian hood of our choice. We don’t have to write grants! And we get paid decently for what we do and what we do matters. We make important decisions and fix concrete problems for society. In this imaginary place that we dream about, schools, hospitals, prisons, and even airports are reconceptualized and redesigned by artists. The daily papers are written by philosophers, novelists, and poets. We have ongoing access to electronic media that make people think, remember, imagine, and laugh. Politicians and religious leaders consult our opinions before making important decisions. We collaborate with progressive doctors, activists, educators, lawyers, priests, socially-conscious scientists in the great project of coimagining a better future for the borderless community of humankind. Sounds so pinche corny, but so appealing, que no? In this imaginary place that we dream about, there is a place for everyone. Well, almost everyone.

[@floculina]

Thanks for posting! Can you please fix his last name on the video title? It should read Gómez-Peña.

[@calartscenterfornewperform8962]

+floculina Apologies, when we originally uploaded the video to youtube it kept removing the diacriticals in his name. TEDx manages the account now and I'll ask them to change it!

[@guanduldanza]

Thanks floculina 🌸 I found the same misspelling on a journal article that talked about Gomez-Peña and interculturality.......

[@rodoza66]

In the era of TrumPutin....needed now more than ever!

[@chickenalaking1319]

Both Trump and Putin bow at the Wailing Wall........

[@josemiguelmaciasvocar2690]

"Beautiful Statements, ¿Qué No?"

[@jeanettenevarez3203]

plato's ideal polis

[@nosideup21]

I can't tell if he's using sign language or just talking with his hands

[@evelynl7220]

nosideup21 that's part of his performance art. Watch his other pieces.

[@chickenalaking1319]

It's a part of the spell casting

[@JsAnChEz1315]

I watched this more than once, I still think he might be drunk

[@evelynl7220]

Johnny Sanchez for my personal experiences with Guillermo, this is exactly how he is.

[@balitronicagomez3783]

He IS like this, yes, but I assure you he may have had a Jameson before!

[@tctarheelfarmin358]

How to not give a speech 101