AGING AS ART: Curated by Nicolas Dumit Estevez

AGING AS ART :  Curated by Nicolas Dumit Estevez

An evening with Linda Mary Montano and Curmano

This event will bring together two of the movers and shakers of the performance art and art in everyday life fields in the U.S. for a participatory engagement with the audience dealing with the presenters’ experiences with aging and dying. Montano sees her body as a canvas, a sculpture that is chiseled by time as she grows older. Curmano has daringly orchestrated his own funeral in order to perform for the dead, and as an act of self- transformation: a rite of passage.

Montano says: “We all age. This is inevitable. Artists age, non-artists age. As a performance artist, my body is, has been and will always be my canvas, my clay, my paint, my material, and aging has brought an incredible menu to the table...a smorgasbord of physical, mental, physical, psychological and spiritual issues for me to choose from and work with and present to myself and others. One such issue is THE NURSING HOME! The dreaded last stop for many of us. And my theory is that if we prepare now, if we take care of our fears and angers and betrayals and jealousies, and rages NOW while we can still transform these obscurations into acceptance, then we will make it easier on the 40847 UNDERPAID nurses aides and caregivers who will feed, bathe and change our Depends. My presentation is an opportunity to bring up this subject as a discussion and then together watch my video NURSE NURSE, with participation from the audience as nurses and other personas that the video elicits. This presentation will last about one hour and it is not only a transformational experience but also a chance to heal unspoken fears and terrors regarding the fear of dying and death itself. After the event we will have a Q and A.”