“The trick narratives Barbosa Landois has collected and curated, performed live, are some powerful hoodoo, and present us with nowhere near the agitprop they would’ve in lesser hands. Barbosa Landois unmoors these male utterances from both an expected social context, and from a strictly-punitive gaze. You can feel the artist’s bewildered exasperation with the U.S.-side ‘johns,’ even as she allows them an utterly human-scale and vulnerable voice through Sanden’s performances of the short monologues, and, amazingly, through her own portrayal of these boys, delivered deadpan and uncaricatured.”
SARAH FISCH, GLASSTIRE
This multimedia performance mixed original prose with text from interviews and Internet testimonials about sex tourism on the U.S./Mexico border. The dialogue was offset by popular songs whose lyrics complemented the text in unexpected ways, and the performance culminated in an explosive animated projection. Culo de Oro/The Golden Ass was first performed with musician Erik Sanden, in conjunction with my solo exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary in 2011. The work was also featured in the 2012 Fusebox Festival and the 2013 Texas Biennial.
The completion of this work was made possible by a Media Arts Grant from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and a residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute.
Images courtesy Walley Films, Dayna DeHoyos, and the artist.
julia barbosa landois 