Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Mextasy! An Interview-->MEXTASY Lands at San Antonio College, Thursday, September 22, 2011 @ 10:50am NAHC 218

original posting 11/4/10 | revised 12/11/2010 | Revised again, September 2011  

MEXTASY Lands at San Antonio College, Thursday, September 22, 2011 @ 10:50am NAHC 218 




An excerpt from an unpublished interview with Lorena Nava Ruggero

LNR: What is Mextasy? Why did you create it?


WN: Mextasy is an art exhibition featuring outrageous stereotypes of Mexicans and other Latinas/os; additionally, it contains sculptures, drawings, photography, and other media that attack the notion of Mexicans as less-than-human in American mass culture. The show I opened along the Rio Grande river in McAllen (September, 2010) and in Laredo this December, Mextasy, is dedicated to the old motherland and my peculiar fatherland.

Mextasy is more than a representation of ecstasy about or for Mexico; it is about the sensuous tracings Mexican culture leaves both sides of the border. More existential state than archive, Mextasy speaks to the living organism of Mexicanicity as it moves between the bodies of Mexico and the United States--an overt and covert delicious miasma that arouses as it excites, excites as it provokes. ¡Que viva Mexico!, within and without its borders.

LNR: How does Mextasy parallel your book?

WN: Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America features over 200 illustrations, with 16 pages in full color; many of these illustrations are stock representations of Mexicans (the sleeping Mexican, the bandit Mexican, the hot, Latina femme fatale). However, the book also includes original art, digital, photographic and hand-drawn, created by me. You know English Professors are known more for tweed and pomposity than their Picasso-like skills--for that reason I publish all my art under the name of Guillermo Nericcio García, what my name would have been if I had been born 10 blocks south of where I came into the world in Laredo, Texas--a bordertown with Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.

LNR: You're primarily a writer, but this is an art exhibit -- what was it like to create this kind of "content"?

WN: I have been drawing since I was three--I made my own comic book with my sister before I was ten; after that, I was the political cartoonist for my high school newspaper (most infamous drawing? of Vice-Principal Shoup as a zeigheiling facsist for his punitive pedagogy--I was almost expelled and the nuns at St. Augustine tried to censor the paper).

LNR: What will you focus on in your lectures in Texas (I noticed two speaking engagements at libraries)?

WN: I will be focusing on my ongoing forensic work on American visual culture--so I will be dealing with the image of Mexico in the United States but also with our changing optics-obsessed culture in general--from Avatar in 3-D to the IPad, we are living through a watershed moment in textual reproduction where the turn to the visual (the semiotic) is accelerating at a mind-blowing pace. Next year, my new book appears with the University of Texas Press; it is entitled Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race--parts of my talks will be drawn from that work.

LNR: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

WN: I love visiting South Texas--it is like a return to my roots; and though Northern Mexico and South Texas are in cultural chaos right now, the fallout of the Narco Wars hitting this locale hard, I think its important to remind yourself of where you come from. You would think that Southern California and South Texas are the same, but they are like worlds apart.


Friday, September 9, 2011

John McCain Cuts Powerline Outside Yuma in Order to Sabotage CHICANOHOLICS ANONYMOUS at the Centro Cultural de la Raza | Mextasy UPDATE

Mextasy Closing Ceremony Update--click for the link

Ok, so I am lying--at least I will cop to it; McCain, he-who-blames-Mexicans-for-fires, may some day utter a mea culpa; I am not holding my breath.

So Chicanoholics Anonymous did not take place.  I want to apologize for all the inconvenience this caused folks who tried to get to the show; and I want to really thank LOS HOLLYWOOD, Gustavo Arellano, and Josh Kun who ALL actually made it down to the Centro before we had to pull the plug and call it a no-go. A big thank you to Ozzie Monge, Centro producer for MEXTASY and CHICANOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, and to Victor Payan, who was there to the end when we made the call to cancel the show.

Folks have been asking if the show will be rescheduled...  sabrá dios, as my mother would say--god knows.  We are down.  We are disappointed.  But we will be back!

Remember, the MEXTASY show, info below, continues till the Centro closes at 4pm on Saturday--I will probably be at the Centro Saturday afternoon for the last couple of hours and to strike the show after closing.  Come by and check it out!  I will have books and signed prints available.

Thanks to all who ALMOST made this happen!

Bill Nericcio
Textmex, Editor in Chief





Mextasy: Seductive Hallucinations of Latina/o Mannequins Prowling the American Unconscious is a traveling stereotype {freak show/art exhibit} based on the work of William "Memo" Nericcio and Guillermo Nericcio García--it has previously toured appearing in the august hallways of the American Studies Program, Ann Arbor, Michigan (University of Michigan); San Ysidro, California (as Xicanoholic) at theFront, Casa Familiar; McAllen, Texas at South Texas College's Pecan campus Art Gallery; Laredo, Texas at the the Laredo Center of the Arts; at the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa (April 8, 2011); and, most recently, at the Fullerton Public Library!

Mextasy both reflects and expands upon Nericcio's 2007 book with UT Press, Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the Mexican in America. In addition to racist artifacts from American mass culture (the bread and butter of Uncle Sam's unconscious), the show also features works that are "xicanosmotic," that is, works by Mexican-American artists where the delicious tattoo of the Mexican/US frontera is writ large as in the deliriously compelling semiotic tracings of Perry VasquezIzel Vargas, and Marisela Norte.


Mextasy was originally curated by South Texas College (STC) Art and Art History Professor Rachael Freyman Brown, with the assistance of Amanda Alejos (not to mention the meddling of the artist, Guillermo Nericcio García). The Centro Cultural de la Raza show as well as the San Antonio show are curated by Eduardo Santacruz Cortez, Eddie Vasquez, and Brenda Lozano and produced with the assistance of the Centro (especially Ozzie Monge y Brent Beltran).

The Centro Cultural de la Raza will have a FIESTA GALA entitled CHICANOHOLICS ANONYMOUS the night of Thursday, September 8, 2011! Expect a night of delirious surprises with Gustavo Arellano of ASK A MEXICAN fame hanging out and reading pieces from his new book (and fielding questions!????); Josh Kun, wizard music/cultural studies maven (the author of AUDIOTOPIA) reading from new works; Bill "Memo" Nericcio harassing the audience with passages from TEX{T}-Mex, and, closing the night, a live acoustic set by LOS HOLLYWOOD. More to come!    
Like all the images on this page, click to enlarge!

Video teasers? of course....

Gustavo Arellano on the COLBERT REPORT
Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Josh Kun with OZOMATLI

y LOS HOLLYWOOD


promostrips.... mextasy 2011@ the CENTRO!


Monday, September 5, 2011

Thursday, September 8, 2011 @ 8pm at the Centro Cultural, San Diego | The Mexicans are Coming! The Mexicans are Coming! MEXTASY and CHICANOHOLICS ANONYMOUS @ the Centro Cultural de la Raza!!!



Mextasy: Seductive Hallucinations of Latina/o Mannequins Prowling the American Unconscious is a traveling stereotype {freak show/art exhibit} based on the work of William "Memo" Nericcio and Guillermo Nericcio García--it has previously toured appearing in the august hallways of the American Studies Program, Ann Arbor, Michigan (University of Michigan); San Ysidro, California (as Xicanoholic) at theFront, Casa Familiar; McAllen, Texas at South Texas College's Pecan campus Art Gallery; Laredo, Texas at the the Laredo Center of the Arts; at the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa (April 8, 2011); and, most recently, at the Fullerton Public Library!


Mextasy both reflects and expands upon Nericcio's 2007 book with UT Press, Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the Mexican in America. In addition to racist artifacts from American mass culture (the bread and butter of Uncle Sam's unconscious), the show also features works that are "xicanosmotic," that is, works by Mexican-American artists where the delicious tattoo of the Mexican/US frontera is writ large as in the deliriously compelling semiotic tracings of Perry Vasquez, Izel Vargas, and Marisela Norte.

Mextasy was originally curated by South Texas College (STC) Art and Art History Professor Rachael Freyman Brown, with the assistance of Amanda Alejos (not to mention the meddling of the artist, Guillermo Nericcio García). The Centro Cultural de la Raza show as well as the San Antonio show are curated by Eduardo Santacruz Cortez, Eddie Vasquez, and Brenda Lozano and produced with the assistance of the Centro (especially Ozzie Monge y Brent Beltran).

The Centro Cultural de la Raza will have a FIESTA GALA entitled CHICANOHOLICS ANONYMOUS the night of Thursday, September 8, 2011! Expect a night of delirious surprises with Gustavo Arellano of ASK A MEXICAN fame hanging out and reading pieces from his new book (and fielding questions!????); Josh Kun, wizard music/cultural studies maven (the author of AUDIOTOPIA) reading from new works; Bill "Memo" Nericcio harassing the audience with passages from TEX{T}-Mex, and, closing the night, a live acoustic set by LOS HOLLYWOOD. More to come!    
Like all the images on this page, click to enlarge!


Video teasers? of course....


Gustavo Arellano on the COLBERT REPORT
The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gustavo Arellano
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive


Josh Kun with OZOMATLI


y LOS HOLLYWOOD



promostrips.... mextasy 2011@ the CENTRO!