Radical Disobedience
Virtual
A special screening of multidisciplinary artist Deborah Castillo’s iconic performance, “Slapping Power,” followed by a moderated artist talk and Q&A. This event will take place on the 214th anniversary of the first raising of the Venezuelan flag and is the final program for our seven week-long project, Notions of Exile.
In “Slapping Power,” Castillo physically disfigures the clay bust of a man, a figure of power. Her hands destroy rather than create, transforming a sculptural act—that of molding and shaping—into a confrontational performance against the patriarchal system.
About the artist
Deborah Castillo is a Venezuela-born, Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist. Castillo has been granted numerous awards and residencies including the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program (2015) and The Banff Center Artist-in-Residence Program (2015). Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), New Museum (NYC), Rufino Tamayo Museum, (Mexico City), Carrillo Gil Museum (Mexico City), “SIART” the Bolivian Biennial (La Paz), ICA (London), and Palais de Tokyo (Paris), among others.
About this project
Notions of Exile is a virtual exhibition and series of programs, co-curated by Fabiola R. Delgado and Faride Mereb. The project explores the cultural influence of the largest recorded refugee crisis in the Americas—the forced migration of six million Venezuelans from their homeland—using Venezuelan writer and journalist Aquiles Nazoa’s stories of exile and migration as a metaphorical “table” around which the co-curators have gathered artists from Venezuela and its diaspora. The participants include Génesis Alayón, Leonardo Almao, Miguel Braceli, Deborah Castillo, Alexander Chaparro, Gabriela García, Mercedes Golip, Samoel González, Franklin Hurtado, Diana López, Henry Rueda, Henry Solórzano, Ugo Ulive, Graciela Yáñez Vicentini, and Luis Moreno Villamediana.