Gustavo Alvarez
ARTIST STATEMENT GUSTAVO ALVAREZ
Alvarez plays with broken silences, using the performance as a ritual space (liminal space) where spectators are confronted with situations generated in the action, always encouraging them to participate directly in the action, proposing a joint creation, creating an atmosphere with the permission and participation of those involved in the performance; managing to create what Hakim Bey calls Temporary Autonomous Zones, in which the conventional rules of exchange and etiquette are at least questioned or completely abolished.
- Alvarez acts in the public space very effectively, he skillfully plays with the boundaries between the private and the public, tensions between what should remain private and what is perfectly appropriate to let off steam in a public sphere, his actions are meant to be a kind of rite of passage for the present and the performer himself.
- He likes to interact with people either in public space, galleries and even museums, but prefers to meet unexpected spectators or "accidental audiences", in each of his actions he leaves remains (symbolic objects) that are becoming installations as altars.
- Alvarez implements in his performative discourse tools that come from symbolic anthropology, playing with a resignification of the space where he acts and the use of objects as symbols of his own and of a collective imaginary, which allows him to weave an action where "the other" plays an active role giving rise to a dialogic process.
- We can observe a search to exalt the plastic dimension of handcrafted objects of the Mexican popular culture such as wrestler masks, indigenous crafts, popular toys, all used as a plastic and symbolic tool that together form a process of exchange of symbols.
In many of her works, the body is present in dialogue with the natural landscape, never as a scenography, but rather promoting a state of contemplation for nature, so important in the middle of the ANTROPOCENE where the human being has been devastating the environment, so her performative actions allude to reestablish the order of the cosmos.
Alvarez plays with broken silences, using the performance as a ritual space (liminal space) where spectators are confronted with situations generated in the action, always encouraging them to participate directly in the action, proposing a joint creation, creating an atmosphere with the permission and participation of those involved in the performance; managing to create what Hakim Bey calls Temporary Autonomous Zones, in which the conventional rules of exchange and etiquette are at least questioned or completely abolished.
- Alvarez acts in the public space very effectively, he skillfully plays with the boundaries between the private and the public, tensions between what should remain private and what is perfectly appropriate to let off steam in a public sphere, his actions are meant to be a kind of rite of passage for the present and the performer himself.
- He likes to interact with people either in public space, galleries and even museums, but prefers to meet unexpected spectators or "accidental audiences", in each of his actions he leaves remains (symbolic objects) that are becoming installations as altars.
- Alvarez implements in his performative discourse tools that come from symbolic anthropology, playing with a resignification of the space where he acts and the use of objects as symbols of his own and of a collective imaginary, which allows him to weave an action where "the other" plays an active role giving rise to a dialogic process.
- We can observe a search to exalt the plastic dimension of handcrafted objects of the Mexican popular culture such as wrestler masks, indigenous crafts, popular toys, all used as a plastic and symbolic tool that together form a process of exchange of symbols.
In many of her works, the body is present in dialogue with the natural landscape, never as a scenography, but rather promoting a state of contemplation for nature, so important in the middle of the ANTROPOCENE where the human being has been devastating the environment, so her performative actions allude to reestablish the order of the cosmos.