This exhibition features DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática, the most recent in a series of artists’ books by Felicia Rice in collaboration with contemporary Chicano/Latino artists and writers. DOC/UNDOC is a mixed media artists’ book housed in a hi-tech aluminum case seven years in the making. It includes Felicia Rice’s images, performance texts by artist/writer Guillermo Gómez-Peña, critical commentary by art historian Jennifer González, video by artist Gustavo Vazquez, and sound art by Zachary Watkins. But the object itself carries a crisis of identity: What is it exactly? A border kit to face the uncertainty of future crossings? A traveling case for apprentice shamans? A reliquary for imaginary saints? A toolbox for self-transformation? It is all these things and it is also an original book, a performative artists’ book in search of a new format and a new audience. Each element stands by itself, but together they form an indescribable whole.
DOC/UNDOC is an interactive, immersive work of art that combines 19th-century print technology with 21st-century digital typography; performance art and poetry; video and sound art; Old World traditions of the cabinet of curiosities with New World Mexican and Chicano traditions of altar making. This exhibition will also include works from Rice’s Latino and Chicano series.
More information at http://www.docundoc.com/
Support for Center for Book Arts’ visual arts programming is provided, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.