Friday, April 25, 2014

COURSE DESCRIPTION...PERFORMANCE ART IS LIFE-ART


Resting/ Performing Our Chakras/ Glands – Linda Mary Montano

TEACHING IN BERLIN

 

Course Description:
 
 The course is a chance to let go and enter into focused experiences and sensations inside our physical and psychological bodies so that past stories, memories, present sensations can be felt and then translated into a performative language that alchemizes and transform memory into seen meaning. Our delete, like and share, control, alt and cap link buttons are on constantly internally and externally or else our text-ed thumbs are anesthetized by use, over-use, mis-use to the extent that we are basically in need of rest. Not only our thumbs but our beautiful CHAKRA/GLAND lights inside need quality attention.
The 7 chakras-7 glands workshop will structure our time together so that day 1 we explore Chakra 1&2, day 2, Chakras 3,4&5, day 3 Chakras 6&7. To allow these seen experiences that we will share feel natural/un-judged, we will perform many warm-up, moving, sounding, sensating actions and visualizations which will lubricate our information and our group process so that sharing found information will be both self-affirming and received with ease in this instant community of “face-time” co-performers. If you WISH, bring clothing/scarf from one of the colors of the rainbow, but definitely a wig or a facsimile of a wig.
 
 
Course Goals:

1. See the value of having a template for structured performative actions.

 2. Discuss performance and the components of public/private/life-art practices and what the components are for each mode.

 3. Learn about the performative aspects of everyday life and the ways inner focuses can be considered valuable ways to be “always creative”.

4. To appreciate the vibratory aspects of group processes that eventuate in changes in consciousness for the better.

 5. To evaluate the role of judge/critic/applause meter in not only the arts themselves but in work that is outside the barometer of theoretical discourse.

 6. To share what has been internally/externally found in a safe and encouraging environment.

 7. To PLAY with the deeply intricate and densely theological Hindu chakra system in respectful and transformative ways.

 8. TO PLAY.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

SCULPTURE AND VIDEO RETROSPECTIVE

SCULPTURE RETROSPECTIVE/VIDEO RETROSPECTIVE
 
PURPOSE:
To show past and present "sculptures" with a corresponding catalogue to articulate Montano's 4-part sculptural evolution:

1. OBJECT MAKING  1965-PRESENT

2. CONCEPTUAL/LIVE OBJECT PRACTICE: CHICKEN SHOW   (live or virtual chickens)

3. PERFORMANCE OF SELF AS A "LIVING SCULPTURE":  CHICKEN BED, 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART

4. VIRTUAL SELF-SCULPTING VIA VIDEO (45 ENTRIES)

BACKSTORY: 
 MONTANO studied classical sculpture in Tuscany where she received a sculpture MA and at  the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she received a MFA in sculpture with the presentation of THE CHICKEN SHOW, 9 live chickens in three 20 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet cages.
In the 70's she literally entered her work as  a "LIVING SCULPTURE" and became THE CHICKEN WOMAN; lying down, sitting , dancing and singing as that persona.

THE SHOW:

1. 7 EARLY SCULPTURES: WOOD, METAL, STONE: RELIGIOUS ART, TORSO, HEAD, etc.

2. THE CHICKEN BED, THE CHICKEN SHOW etc.

3. NUMEROUS PHOTOS OF SCULPTURES FROM THE ARCHIVE.

4. OBJECTS IN VITRINES FROM EARLY PERFORMANCES.

5. THE ENTIRE 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART SHOW. See You Tube: SHHHHH

6. A WALL OF 45 MONITORS EARPHONED SO THAT A "SCULPTURAL" EFFECT IS CREATED BY REPETITION. EACH WILL HAVE ONE OF MONTANOS VIDEOS FROM 1970'S-NOW.

7. A CATALOGUE/BOOK WITH IMAGES OF EACH ENTRY AND A POSSIBLE DVD OF VIDEOS.

CONNECTION BETWEEN ENDURANCE AND PERFORMANCE

ENDURANCE&PERFORMANCE



In 75 I began morphing into 7 different imaginative people and sat in front of a video camera for a year talking in different accents as these people. see the video: LEARNING TO TALK

I call this work "CREATIVE SCHIZOPHRENIA".

The 7 people were all survivors in their own given professions and fields.

In 1975 I blindfolded myself for 3 days, taking away sight, knowing that this brought me closer to my real self because sight is so judgmental-making. I called this becoming a Guru.

When I moved to NY State and began seeing my birth family again I realized that a few of us look like Bob Dylan, especially my brothers,  and so I began performing as Bob so that I could be like my brothers having always wanted to be a man as a child, knowing that they were always getting the better cultural deal.

Theologically I was being introduced to the paradigm of not being identified with body or mind and getting out of my body as a spiritual practice gave me access to this teaching.

After being bent over with a neurological chronic condition called dystonia, I heard an inner voice say, "Linda you look just like Mother Teresa, all wrinkled and bent over." Voila, Mother Teresa was born.

The mechanical lift appeared in my work the day John Lennon was murdered. Endurance appeared in my work in my mother's womb which I distinctly remember.




PADRE PIO AND MY FATHER/ULA COMES AND VISITS 9 JOHN STREET





STORY 1: PADRE PIO AND MY FATHER

As a child, my grandmother who immigrated from the place very near where Padre Pio lived and also close to his church and hospital in the Abbruzzi area of Italy, talked to me about two Catholic saints: St. Maria Groetti, the young woman who chose death over forced sex with her neighbor, and St. Padre Pio, the mystical stigmatist and confessor.

 The memory became even more powerful because this was her only message/words I can remember her ever saying to me and I think she power pointed the saint-lesson even more forcefully  because she showed me photos of them both, although I'm not certain if it was one photo or two. This is the grandmother who was a selective mute, silent, self-contained, dignified, distant but powerful. This is the grandmother who woke up from the Spanish Flu to be handed a photo of her coffined 3 year old daughter who died of the same disease that ravaged so many in 1918. For the rest of her life, Grandma went into an even deeper silence although she hardly talked at all anyway since she must have felt so isolated since the Montanos were the only Italian speaking family in Saugerties. Her language became silence. Grandma would sit at the front room window in her priest son's room and say litanies of rosaries, hour after hour.   Real Silence. Mourning? Healing? Seeing Ula? I remember this .

And her beautiful son, my father, who was the real saint of the family, the real beauty, the one who gave his mother an insulin injection every day; the one who was the brains of the family and brilliantly kept over 25 people afloat and prosperous; the one who had a deep interiority that shone and demanded that you observe his silence and see the light coming from him; the one who kept it all together and used music as medicine; the one we all wanted as friend and advisor; yes, this father was the recipient of slack, dangerous and fatal medical care in PT when he was pushed beyond his 89 year old limits by a faulty and un-professional therapist and had an accident which was not then addressed properly.

This father became the recipient of a miracle as a result?  That is such convoluted thinking on my part!!! Was dad physically harmed by inefficiency so that he could have a hemmoragic stroke and be reduced to 24-7 bed care for 3 years and because of this,  merit a visit by Padre Pio? Remember that Padre Pio who was known for his bi-locations, had an  ability to be in 2 places at once, before and after his death. Was a medical faux pas a trade off because from that tragedy, my dad was visited by Padre Pio  on December 27th, 2001 between 1 and 4 pm at 9 John Street, Saugerties NY.

I would not have known about this miracle had I not brought a large Padre Pio  poster to the hospital to Dad's bedside on December 30th, 2001, a few days after his stroke. He energetically and happily took it from my hands and said in a voice that was compromised by non-word recognition because of faulty wiring in his medically damaged brain, for example when he called out to my mom, Mildred,  he called her Milicent . So it was no surprise that my beauty father began talking even more gravely and Italian-like and said, "Oh that's Joe Pio. He's the one who came to help me."
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
"I have made a pact with the Lord: when my soul has been purified in the flames of purgatory and deemed worthy to be admitted to the presence of God, I will take my place at the gate to paradise, but I shall not enter until I have seen the last of my spiritual children enter." PADRE PIO
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 STORY 2:  ULA VISITS 9 JOHN STREET
 
Dad was home for 3 years. In fact he was buried on December 27th three years to the day he hit his head in PT. We brought a hospital bed into the living room and I was the doctor, nurse, care manager, daughter and detective...watching out for his best interests.  24-7 caregivers.
 Twice his sister Ula came to help. She was short, three years old,  and just a grey "presence" in form, walking from one side of the dining room to the other. Twice. Dad and I were at the kitchen table so in facing the dining room I was able to see her.  By that time nothing was a big deal!!! It was all equalized by the "unreal", Dad's favorite word. I never told Dad that I saw her at  9 John Street.
Dad was six years old when Ula died. ...Ula his sister, his playmate. I have old sepia photos to prove that they loved each other.
And after a relative visited with a baby he thrashed in discomfort and agitation, shouting after they left, "I didn't do it, I didn't do it"!!  "Think quick, Linda. We need a miracle of miracles," I said to myself, more courageous now than I had been when we could have discussed Ula and all of this 40 years ago. And intuitively, spontaneously, miraculously, happily I was able to remind Dad that she died of natural causes, the Spanish  Flu. "Nothing to do with anything you did Dad. She was sick and you were six years old and nothing you did harmed her." By then the gates were open and I added, "Just like I shouldn't feel guilty that Mitchell was murdered after I left him. Right Dad?" Confessions/absolutions. That day was a two-in-one at his bedside.
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"PRAY, HOPE, DON'T WORRY. " PADRE PIO

WALK IN YOUR CHAKRAS FOR DOMINIQUE REY CLASS



WALK WITH/IN YOUR CHAKRAS

FOR 3 DAYS WEAR ONE COLOR OF THE RAINBOW.

ALL RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN ,BLUE , PURPLE, WHITE

DONT BUY ANYTHING NEW , BORROW CLOTHES.....DONT SPEND $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

AT THE END OF THREE DAYS, GO TO MY WEBSITE  WWW.LINDAMONTANO.COM AND READ CHAKRA STORY

ON SKYPE, DISCUSS ONE BY ONE WITH ME , WHAT YOUR COLOR TAUGHT YOU.
 

PHOTO OF ME AS PAUL MCMAHON BY NAO BUSTAMONTE

Lina Mary Montano

LINDA AS BOB DYLAN BY ANNIE SPRINKLE, 1989

LINDA MARY MONTANO ENDURES AS BOB DYLAN MAY 24, KLEINERT WOODSTOCK


             


Inline image 1



Linda Montano endures as Bob Dylan
View this email in your browser
Where: outside the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, 34 Tinker St., Woodstock, NY 12498
Time: 12-7pm
Date: Saturday, May 24 (rain date: Monday, May 26, 2014, Memorial Day)
Admission: Free


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
LINDA MONTANO ENDURES AS BOB DYLAN ON HIS 73rd BIRTHDAY



Woodstock, NY: On Saturday May 24, in honor of Bob Dylan's 73rd birthday, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild will be hosting a performance by artist LINDA MARY MONTANO. Montano will lip-synch to Dylan's songs for 7 hours, positioned on a 14-foot lift stationed outside of the entrance to Byrdcliffe’s Kleinert/James Center for the Arts on Tinker Street.

Since the 1960s, Montano’s career has addressed questions of time, the deeply personal, and the life-affirming, with underlying currents in theology and feminism. She performs rites of emotional passage, mirroring life experiences, and experiments with making the interior exterior, or the private public.  Starting her career as a sculptor, Montano’s performance practice began in 1975 with a technique she refers to as “creative schizophrenia.” She “began morphing into 7 different imaginative people,” said Montano in a recent interview with the event’s organizer, long-time Byrdcliffe supporter Alan Baer. “I sat in front of a video camera for a year, talking in different accents as these people. The 7 people were all survivors in their own given professions and fields.”

Montano’s performances, sometimes called “endurances,” can last anywhere from three hours to fourteen years.  She is known for her sensory deprivation endurances of the 1970s. From 1983-1998, she wore clothing all of the same color for each individual year, corresponding to the Hindu map of the Chakras. The Dylan endurance outside the Kleinert/James stems from her realization that members of her family bear a striking resemblance to Bob Dylan. She began performing in the persona of Dylan in order to “be like my brothers, having always wanted to be a man as a child—knowing that they were always getting the better cultural deal.” The mechanical lift that will be part of Montano’s performance on May 24 is a tool she began using the day of John Lennon’s death; in 2013 she completed two different 7-hour singing endurances on a lift at SITE Santa Fe. Her interest in and/or performances of Dylan, Woodstock legend Paul McMahon, and other historical figures including Mother Theresa are intricately linked to Montano’s investigations of the blurred boundaries and interconnections between art and life--between being, having been, and wanting to be—or not being anyone at all.

Montano has taught her methods and performance art theories for many years and has written four books about her findings.

Organized by Alan Baer, Linda Montano’s Bob Dylan performance on May 24 will also give visitors the opportunity to see the exhibition of international, contemporary artists, BASH, on its last day in the Kleinert/James. An additional art-related event (details TK) will occur in the gallery on Monday, May 26, when the gallery will remain open to the public. Monday May 26 is also the rain-date for Montano’s performance.
 
Credit lines:
Left and right: from video LINDA AS BOB DYLAN.  Video editor, Tobe Carey; Camera:Diane Teramana
Center: Annie Sprinkle
 

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW: MONTANO/ESTEVEZ



INTRODUCION: Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Dumit Estévez use e-mail as the channel through which they engage in a Q and A on Linda’s archive of four decades and the archive's recent journey from the


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INTRODUCION:
 
Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Dumit Estévez use e-mail as the channel through which they engage in a Q and A on Linda’s archive of four decades and the archive's recent journey from the Art/Life Institute in Kingston, NY, to the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University. During this discussion Montano, a seminal figure in performance art and the art of everyday life, talks about her art-life in relationship to consumerism, the environment, the spiritual, aging, death and creative renewal.
 
THE ARCHIVE FLIES THE COOP, says Linda Mary Montano
 
" More than anything I wish to thank everyone who mentored me, supported the archives over the years, encouraged me, helped me put things in boxes, hugged me and on the last day videotaped and performed to celebrate the archive flying the coop." Montano.
 
NDE: Linda, I had the opportunity to see the video documenting your recent celebration in Kingston, New York. Was this your official farewell to your archives as they got ready to journey from the Art/Life Institute to the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University?
 
 
Linda Mary Montano: Nicolas, yes, this was a send off of about 100 boxes to Fales, although I've kept back about 20 more boxes which will be sent there in the future and I am absolutely grateful to Marvin Taylor and Lisa Darms for inviting me into their art-safe-place. 
 
Because I've been thinking archive for sometime, I have mused on why archives are so in the zeitgeist right now! Is it because as living baby boomer artists we are facing some inevitabilities as we:
 
1. Look around and see all of our tons of  "stuff" piling up around us.....
 
2. Realize that paper, like dinosaurs, is "over" and that the future of saving is virtual and internet and invisible....
 
3. Age and know for sure that our relatives might landfill our art when we die.....
 
4. Watch too many hoarding reality shows and don't want to be identified as one and really know we are one.....
 
5. Realize that the next and next and next generation of artists might like to see what we were thinking...
 
6. Call our art our baby, our only child and insist on finding a final home for her/him/them.....
 
7. Watch global weather patterns and wonder how much longer our "stuff" can survive undamaged in our studios.....
 
8. Etc.
 
Recently Franklin Furnace gave a call out for an archive project which addresses every single question or issue you might have about archives and I include the post now in it's entirety because I liked it so much and it might be of use to someone wanting to become part of this project. The post follows: 
 
*
 
RADICAL ARCHIVES CONFERENCE
NYU, Friday, April 11-Saturday, April 12, 2014
 
Call for proposals for panels, papers, and performances
Deadline: Friday, January 10, 2014
 
Radical Archives is a two-day conference organized around the notion of archiving as a radical practice. An international contingent of archivists, artists, artist-archivists, activist archivists, theorists and scholars working within a range of archives and archival practices will be invited to present and discuss archives of radical politics and practices; archives that are radical / experimental in form or function; how archiving in itself might be a radical act in certain moments or contexts; and how archives can be active in the present, as well as documents of the past or scripts for the future.
 
The conference will be organized around four major themes, include a number of presentation formats, and be supplemented by / documented through an online catalogue. We are calling for contributions relevant to these themes. Proposed formats could include panels, roundtables, individual papers or artist talks, performances or performance-lectures, screenings, interactive screen-based projects or live participatory projects.
 
Archive and Affect
Possible topics could include, but are not limited to: embodied/ performed archives; archive and repertory; buildings as archives; oral and informal histories; private versus public archives, and transitions between those states; warm versus cold data
 
Archiving Around Absence
Possible topics could include, but are not limited to: disappearing archives; deliberately destroyed archives; inadvertently preserved archives, or unofficial histories within official histories; reading for the shadows; strategies of resistant or counter-archiving
 
Archives and Ethics
Possible topics could include, but are not limited to: stealing from archives; stealing as the foundation of archives; strategies of refusal or resistance to archiving; ownership of archived testimonies; intellectual property versus intellectual propriety; the afterlives of archives designed for specific purposes, e.g. archives of protests, activist movements, and human rights initiatives; the ethics of open access; FOIA and its discontents
 
Archive as Constellation
Possible topics could include, but are not limited to: archive as method; the artist's archive; the expanded archival field or notion of the archive; linking of archives across networks; film as archive; subversive or experimental uses of metadata, cataloguing and classification; archive and database, database and interface; how standards and interfaces shape our understanding of collections and the information they contain
 
To propose a paper or panel, please send an abstract (max 1 paragraph per paper) and brief speaker bios. To propose a contribution in another format, please send a 1-page description of content & form and up to 3 pages of relevant images/links.
 
Please send your proposal as a text, rich text, or PDF file to archive@kabul-reconstructions.net
 
Proposals due Friday, January 10, 2014
 
If you have any questions about proposal/contribution format or topic, send us an email. Index of the Disappeared (Mariam Ghani & Chitra Ganesh) archive@kabul-reconstructions.net
 
The conference is presented by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, where Ghani and Ganesh are the 2013- 2014 Artists-in-Residence, and co-sponsored by the NYU Archives & Public History program.
 
Please contact Amita Manghnani at A/P/A if you are interested in co-sponsoring: amitam@nyu.edu
 
*
 
NDE: I understand that your art practice of more than four decades must have generated a significant amount of materials, including photographs, letters, and props. How do you feel about parting with them and how does this endeavor relate to your concept of “Spring Cleaning” as an art and life pursuit? 
LMM: What an art colonic event that was, preparing every single item, paper-by-paper, document by document, letter by letter, because in cleaning out the amassed materials I found, yes, everything:
galleys of 5 books
my letters home when I was in a convent which might make an interesting book
 . 100 never published interviews with performance artist's from PERFORMANCE ARTISTS TALKING IN THE 80'S
 .  Chicken Wing drawings from my MFA show
 .  the VHS of my students' good-bye performance for me at UT Texas
Mitchell Payne's photos of all of my early performances
my father's incredible and Zenish paintings after he had a left brain stroke
then Texas Governor George Bush's letter of support for my performance art job at  UT Austin
letters of apology to my mother when I was  4
.  and lots of other things to laugh and cry over.
But honestly, because I never had a child I began feeling very precious about my past art adventures as I aged and developed some health issues.....and I wanted my materials and documents to be safe and happy and secure. The added benefit is that I now have a new openness, an actual and mental space, a feeling of been there done that and a chance to breathe in a new direction. It is a happy retirement feeling. The timing was organic and natural because years ago I would never have been able to part with the surrounding comfort of my creations and when it did happen and they drove off with those boxes, I wondered if this meant that death was right around the corner (which it always is), or if I was getting ready to live LIFE as ART.
NDE: Archives, together with social engagement and pedagogy have become a hot topic within the arts.  How does the subject of archives fit into your seminal practice?
LMM: My practice has always been to listen to my voices. Sometimes they are not correct but in general they guide me to do what I need to do. For some 10 years I have been performing/thinking the word "archive" and putting out the desire to have my work saved from the wrecking ball. My video ARCHIVE FOR SALE, was made maybe 5 years ago as a reminder to the air that I was thinking archivally and whenever I put out a request to the "air", then I feel a collaboration with the possibility of things happening. In some circles this is called Prayer....Put the idea out, visualize it as  happening, don't doubt.
NDE: Was there a specific item in the banker’s boxes that was difficult to part with? Do you feel comfortable elaborating on this?
LMM: So funny Nicolas, BANKERS BOXES!!! Don't you remember I was once a nun and grew up in war years and the depression mind? Those boxes are the correct way to do it...all lined up equally and strongly and perfectly. Like BANKERS!!! The boxes I used were hippie-looking, arte povera, wine boxes and raggedy packing boxes from grocery stores. And the joy of collecting 100 of these was an action of consequence in itself because every day I would go to the liquor stores on my way to Kingston, get 4 or more, and that became such an important dance step in this process of performing the handing over of my things to NYU.
NDE: I am curious as to the future performative lives your art archives may lead to at the Fales Library and Special Collections. Is the material culture that your art practice has generated open for reinterpretation? These days there is so much buzz about “re-performing.”
LMM: Who knows what will happen. Someone might do things with it. But I have no desires right now for any re-staging or repeating or reseeding of my work.  If it happens, fine. Performance is not a hidden Iron Mountain specialization anymore. Everyone performs and Youtubes their life.....If my performance language from  40 years ago would be of value, then I hope it will be used, but what is happening now is just as insightful and inspiring. Basically I like going down in the history as one of the elders and grandmothers of the 70's form. No big deal, just a grandmother talking a strange language.
NDE: Only you, LMM, would think of biblical food in the context of a goodbye archives party. Can you talk about any possible connection between the two? I can’t stop thinking about the biblical manna. After all, this item can be linked to the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, and it certainly speaks of pilgrimages, and journeys through the wilderness.
LMM: For the archive party, I indicated on the invitation, that there would be "biblical" food, popcorn (manna) and wine (Communion). Also there would be a prize for the best popcorn so that the opening would feel participatory. Women who want to be Catholic WOMENPRIESTS, as I always did,  (there are now about 150) will do anything to link their art to the priest-priestess vehicle. 
Nicolas, because you went to Union Theological Seminary and studied all of that theology, you are reading even more beauty-theology into my intentions which I totally like. Popcorn had always been a symbolic food that I used in past performances because of its association with my father and his showing love for us by making popcorn. The love is in each kernel, till this day and isn't that what Communion is all about?
NDE: How does it feel to let go? Any advice for those of us artists and art and life practitioners still weighed down by file cabinets of slides, photographs, half-chewed loafs of bread and bits of scabs from past pilgrimages?
LMM: Oh BABY! I wish luck to all archive-wanters.  It is such a double-edged sword......making, storing, keeping, recording, saving, sharing, recycling. If only it was as easy as a SHARE BUTTON...........which is actually the next life of all of these papers/documents and things. Yipee, a fast-track to eternal salvation. There eventually will be a robot who can sort it all, archive it all. Wait a few years.
NDE: I visited you once at the Art/Life Institute. Now that your archives are at New York University, how do you see the role of this space in terms of your art practice?
LMM: Selling it, although I totally love this space. Paring down.
NDE: Any tips for archiving art and life and the performative aside from video, film and photography? 
LMM: The Web.  And pay the fee now, pay $$$$ ahead of time and reserve our website for the next 40 years and then we are guaranteed that it will always be there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or is this just a deep, unconscious yearning for posterity and heaven, not hell.
Having an archive is really a way to dislodge a deep and abiding FEAR OF DEATH AND DYING. All this legacy talk about sharing my work with others is total bull. I'm really afraid of being totally nothing.
NDE: You are one of those artists who have the capacity to keep reinventing themselves. What are the implications of this in your existing archives or in an incipient one?
LMM: Now when someone wants to give me a paper or book, I run away screaming. 
*


Linda Mary Montano (born January 18, 1942, Saugerties,NY)
 

Montano's work investigates spiritual energy states, silence and the cessation of art/life boundaries via intricate, life-altering ceremonies, some of which last for seven or more years. She is interested in the way artistic ritual, often staged as individual interactions or collaborative workshops can alter and enhance a person’s life. www.lindamontano.com


Nicolás Dumit Estévez (b. 1967) treads an elusive path that manifests itself through experiences where the quotidian and art often overlap. During the last seven years he and Linda Mary Montano have performed several collaborative endurances. Estévez holds degrees in art and theology. Born in Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic, he was recently baptized as a Bronxite; a citizen of the Bronx.


LIST OF IMAGES SUBMITTED:
 
Montano_01:  Photograph courtesy of Linda Mary Montano
 
Montano_02: Photograph courtesy of Linda Mary Montano
 

Montano_03: Photograph courtesy of Angelika Rinnhofer



     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
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    INTRODUCION: Linda Mary Montano and Nicolás Dumit Estévez use e-mail as the channel through which they engage in a Q and A on Linda’s archive of four decades and the archive's recent journey from the

    lindamontano@hotmail.com