Join us on Friday, October 16th, 2020, 6 -8pm ET for an Opening Reception of The Immigrant Artist Biennial 2020 Virtual Exhibitions, with the TIAB 2020 Team, artists and a performance by Kevin Quiles Bonilla.
Register via Zoom HERE
Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Self-portrait (with Tarp Mask), 2019
Kevin Quiles Bonilla
Presidential Alert (America, Lip-Sync for your Life)
In this performance, the artist lip-syncs to America, the iconic song from the musical West Side Story, detailing life in America as a Puerto Rican. Unearthing the asymmetrical power relations that plague the island, this 1961 recording is interrupted by voices from past and present: the current president of the United States giving a speech following Hurricane María in Puerto Rico in 2017; Pedro Pietri, a member of the latino youth group Young Lords, reciting his poem Puerto Rican Obituary (1969); and a recording of Hawaiian activist Haunani-Kay Trask speaking about stolen lands from 1990. Informed by the use of lip-syncing in drag to (re)claim space and language, Quiles Bonilla’s work energetically portrays acts of colonization alongside those of resistance and resilience.
website
instagram
About the artist: Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). His work has been presented in Puerto Rico, the United States, Mexico, China, Belgium, and Japan. He is the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award from The John F. Kennedy Center (2017). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019), and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He explores ideas around power, colonialism, and history with his identity as context. He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.