Consequences of a Gesture emerged within Culture in Action — a landmark 1993 public art program in Chicago curated by Mary Jane Jacob that reimagined what contemporary art could be when rooted in community engagement, participatory practice, and social context rather than static objects.

Consequences of a Gesture (absurdist, carnival, hot parade) “was a work that commemorated several significant events in the city’s history of immigrant labor, including the Haymarket Riot. The artist initially conceived of the piece as an “opera in four parts,” but ultimately arrived at a more open-ended performance inspired by Mardi Gras parades and labor demonstrations, one owing more to the indeterminate dérive of Guy Debord than to Monteverdi. Working collaboratively with composer Kara and with community organizations in Chicago’s working-class Mexican American and African American communities, Martinez planned an exuberant procession that took participants to historically loaded sites far from the city’s usual parade routes. Accompanying that work was 100 Victories/10,000 Tears—a monument for workers that was intended to complement the parade. Martinez obtained massive granite slabs that once served as an elevated sidewalk at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and resituated these as a low platform near the Maxwell Street Market—a site significant for its history of immigrant business, sometimes referred to as the “Ellis Island of the Midwest.” The artist adorned a chain-link fence surrounding the site with signs bluntly informative (HAYMARKET SQUARE / DESPLAINES + RANDOLPH MAY 4, 1886 / 176 POLICEMEN ATTACK 200 WORKERS 4 DIE) or emphatically poetic (BENEATH THE PAVING STONES, THE BEACH—a favorite slogan of the soixante-huitards). Flat and expansive but encircled by language, the monument was in some sense an arena or stage for an unspecified action (or reaction), with the signs functioning as a libretto.” (Michael Ned Holte for Artform)