Performance Art

What Is a Club?

Friday, April 21, 2017
6:30 pm鈥8:00 pm
Bernard and Barbara Stern Shapiro Gallery (Gallery 231)
Free performance ticket required. Limited availability: first come, first served. Performance tickets available at the Huntington Avenue Entrance beginning at 5:30 pm.
Members
Free
Nonmembers
Free

What brings us together? What sets us apart? Originating in London, gentlemen鈥檚 clubs became popular in much of the world during the19th century as exclusive private establishments for their upper-class members. In the United States, university clubs in Boston and Cambridge promoted social duty and intellectual activity among their members, but despite its declared social mission, the identity of a club is predicated on its exclusivity.

This evening of performances and lectures in 鈥淐lub Americano鈥 reflects on the history of the social club, tribalism, and the impulse to try to distinguish ourselves from others. Four presentations exemplify how some objects鈥攕uch as Paul Revere鈥檚 Sons of Liberty Bowl鈥攃ome to embody a sense of belonging while others were designed to distinguish and divide. The program addresses racial hierarchies as depicted in Spanish colonial casta paintings and examines through personal perspectives how this legacy survives in contemporary society. Academic and poetic lectures provide context on mestizaje in Spanish colonial music and contemporary culture, focusing on African influences. Helguera performs a negrilla, a type of 15th to 18th-century Spanish colonial carol incorporating elements of African slaves鈥 music and speech.

Speakers/Performers

Pablo Helguera

Pablo Helguera is a New York-based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art and performance. His most renowned projects include 鈥淭he School of Panamerican Unrest鈥 (2003鈥2006), a nomadic think tank that traveled from Alaska to Patagonia making 40 stops in between, and 鈥淟ibrer铆a Donceles鈥 (2013鈥2017) an itinerant Spanish-language secondhand bookstore addressing the lack of outlets that serve Latino communities. Drawing from his experience as educator, his artistic projects often incorporate pedagogical devices such as the classroom setting and lecture format. Since 1991 he has worked in a variety of contemporary art museums and currently serves as director of Adult and Academic programs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2008 he was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and also was the recipient of a 2005 Creative Capital Grant. Helguera is the author of Education for Socially Engaged Art (2011) and The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style (2007), among numerous other publications, and is the maker of Artoons, a series of cartoons poking fun of the art world.

Benjam铆n Ju谩rez

Benjam铆n Ju谩rez is professor of Fine Arts at Boston University, where he served as dean of the College of Fine Arts from 2010 to 2015. Benjam铆n has championed the music of Mexico, Spain, and Latin America as a researcher, conductor and educator for many years. He has released more than a dozen recordings of Mexican music from the 16th to the 19th centuries as well as orchestral repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has collaborated with many contemporary composers of this region for world premiere performances and recordings of their music. He previously directed the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City, running professional schools in music, dance, arts, theater, and film, research centers, the organization鈥檚 TV channel, and more than 20 theaters and performing spaces. Professor Juarez has also served as director of Cultural Activities for Universidad An谩huac del Sur and as head of Music and Dance at the National University of M茅xico. From 1992 to 2002, he led an international research project on Mexican cathedral music that provided for the transcription and performance of hundreds of works composed between the 16th and 19th centuries. The work, underwritten by UNESCO and other funders, were favorably reviewed by international music critics and received a Latin Grammy nomination.

Zaira Meneses

Zaira Meneses, Mexico鈥檚 鈥淔irst Lady of the classical guitar鈥 (Diario de Xalapa) is a cutting-edge 21st-century artist celebrated on the concert stage, in the international press and on the web as 鈥淢exico鈥檚 cultural ambassador on the international circuit.鈥 Praised by the New York Times as 鈥渁n arresting performer full of colorful touches,鈥 Meneses has built a stellar reputation for her warm sound, limpid technique, and superb natural musicality. She has performed in many of the great concert halls of the world including New York City鈥檚 Alice Tully and YMHA halls, Boston鈥檚 Jordan Hall, and the Great Hall of the Shanghai Conservatory. In addition to her performing career, Zaira Meneses is also director of outreach at Boston Guitar Fest where each year she forges new connections between the festival and the community. Meanwhile, she directs the guitar performance seminar for classical guitar majors at the and also teaches younger students through the NEC Preparatory School and .

Yvette Modestin

Yvette Modestin is a writer, poet, and activist born and raised in Colon, Panama. Modestin has been named one of 鈥30 Afro Latinas You Should Know鈥 and one of the 100 Most Influential African Diaspora Leaders in the world. Locally, she has been profiled by the Boston Globe as 鈥淭he Uniter鈥 for her work bringing together the Latin American and African American community, and for her activism in building a voice with the Afro Latino community. Modestin is founder/executive director of of in Boston and a co-founder of . She is a contributor to several books, including Afro-Latin@s in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism (2016) and the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography (2016). Her poetry book, Nubian Butterfly: The Transformation of a Soulful Heart will be released in Panama in 2017.

Liz Munsell

Liz Munsell is Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Special Initiatives at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and was a visiting curator at from 2012 to 2017. She received a Fulbright Scholarship to Chile in 2006. Since 2012 she has worked to establish the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播 as one of the first encyclopedic museums in the US to fully integrate performance art into its exhibitions, programs, and collection. Munsell鈥檚 latest exhibitions include 鈥淓mbodied Absence: Chilean Art of the 1970s Now鈥 at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University (2016鈥17); 鈥淢arilyn Arsem: 100 Ways to Consider Time鈥 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (2015鈥6); 鈥淧ermission To Be Global / Pr谩cticas globales鈥 at CIFO Art Space, Miami, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (2014); Her writings have been published in print and online publications such as MoMA鈥檚 post: Notes on Modern and Contemporary Art around the Globe and artforum.com

Darianna Young

Darianna Young is a member of the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播鈥檚 Teen Arts Council.

Sponsors

Performance Art at the 澳门六合彩开奖现场直播 is supported by Lorraine Bressler.