Artists
Puerto Rico
Laura Sofía Pérez
Without a Song
23.02.14 16.03.14
Laura Sofía Pérez most recent projects, often in collaboration with musical acts, consist of installations dominated by a dynamic and experiential paradigm of space. Through projections, light, sound, and embodiment she evokes experiences of intimate space that allow for a deepening and expansion of the conscience.
WITHOUT A SONG (by Laura Sofía Pérez)
This body of work is informed by African tradition of music, dance, and ritual; one that is characterized by being community-based, inclusive, and participatory. Through performance, video projections, and autobiographical as well as collected documents, I seek to embrace black and mixed heritage by alluding to the rich legacy of denominated “others” in music, ancestry, and the collective unconscious. Driven by the desire to provoke thought about classifications of race, gender, and social class, I will revisit rituals and traditions by embodying the invisible, hence taking the form of mythical characters.
The mythical character is an emblem of renouncement to existing roles of servitude placed upon the designated African Americans, Latinos, queer folk, and women. It is also a manifestation of the dilemma of the multifaceted being as emancipated individual, as well as a form of decoding, re-shaping, and defining an identity.
The title of this work, Without a Song, is a direct reference to a popular song published in 1929, written by Vincent Youmans with lyrics by Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu. This song has been recorded and popularized by many African American musicians.
Play video here
BIO
Laura Sofía Pérez
San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Lives and works in New York City, USA.
STUDIES
BFA in Fine Arts, Parsons, The New School for Design. New York City, USA.
EXHIBITIONS
Group exhibitions and galleries from the United States, Glasshouse, Amo Studios, Throat Art’s Gallery Truck Show, and in San Juan de Puerto Rico and the East Coast the Old Arsenal of the Spanish Navy in Old San Juan, and the urban art festival “ Santurce is law ”.
OTHERS
Set design collaborations at Zebulon (Brooklyn, NY), Tisch School of the arts, and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.
Related Activities
Exhibitions
Without a Song
Laura Sofía Pérez
12.03.14
The plantain, once an offering from a seductive plant, is displaced to Buenos Aires and separated from its bunch or racimo, a recurring image in Puerto Rican painting history and a symbol Afro-Caribbean culture. In an attempt at resistance, the artist forcibly and unsuccessfully ties the fruits together and replicates this offering by embodying the invisible and generally displaced individual. This ritual proposes ways of decoding, reforming, and defining a lost identity. It also invites participants to reap a fruit not commonly harvested in this city.
This action, wich lies somewhere between offering and resistance is accompanied by music by Hernán Sánchez on trumpet and percussion, Fernando Kiener in
keyboards and percussion, and Luciano Peralta on bass. The musicians arrange and perform the songs Watermelon Man and Cantaloupe Island by Herbie Hancock on slower tempos, sporadically introducing phrases as well as other musical and sound elements, thus creating a meditative and introspective atmosphere that aludes to the collective unconscious.
Without a Song emphasizes African tradition of music, dance and rituals, which is characterized by being community-based, inclusive, and participatory. This exhibition also includes a panoramic projection that is part of an investigation on the African diaspora in the Río de la Plata, as well as a series of masked individual made from found images that are hybridized with album covers.
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´aceNITE, Exhibitions
Iluminations
Pérez / Kelly
12.03.14
We invite the public to see the exhibitions of our artists in residence Alicia Kelly and Laura Sofía Pérez: Sunlight; Moonlight and Without a song, available the night of 03/12.
About ´aceNITE
Is an event that occurs periodically, on Wednesdays from 7pm to 10pm. During this time ´ace opens its doors and exhibition spaces to the community in order to: show projects made by the artists in residence in forms of exhibitions, installations and audiovisual presentations; art works of Argentine and Latin American artists selected in a free way through Fusionarte Contemporaneo; present books, art critics, hold performances or doing everything together!
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