Guillermo Gómez-Peña

In a search for the mythological Cities of Cibola, a horseman finds himself in a race against another rogue seeking the valuable metals of the New Mexican desert. Spurred by the justification of moralistic 'dichos', the rival explorers come to learn about what truly brought them to this land, understanding their true identities, and finding they were only stealing from themselves.

A Thanksgiving Ritual

A Thanksgiving Ritual

Like a ghost from the future, "El Mad Mex’" narrates this hybrid-genre video, which envisions a queue of mojados who re-conquer lost Mexican territory to establish the new U.S. of Aztlan.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena's Identity Ritual

Guillermo Gomez-Pena's Identity Ritual

To the Masterminds of Paranoid Nationalism I say, we say: "We," the Other people We, the migrants, exiles, nomads & wetbacks In permanent process of voluntary deportation We, the transient orphans of dying nation-states la otra America; l'autre Europe y anexas We, the citizens of the outer limits and crevasses of "Western civilization" We, who have no government; no flag or national anthem We, fingerprinted, imprisoned, under surveillance We, evicted from your gardens & beaches We, interracial lovers, children of interracial lovers, ad infinitum We, who defy your fraudulent polls & statistics We, in constant flux, from Patagonia to Alaska, from Juarez to Ramalia, We millions abound, We continue to talk back...continue, continue

I talk. Therefore I am.

A witty satire about cultural stereotyping. In a series of 1992 performances, Coco Fusco and performance co-creator Guillermo Gómez-Peña decked themselves out in primitive costumes and appeared before the public as "undiscovered AmerIndians" locked in a golden cage - an exercise in faux anthropology based on racist images of natives. Presented eight times in four different countries, these simple performances evoked various responses, the most startling being the huge numbers of people who didn't find the idea of "natives" locked in a cage objectionable. This provocative video, directed and produced by Coco Fusco and Paula Heredia, suggests that the "primitive" is nothing more than a construction of the West, and uses comic fiction to address historical truths and tragedies.

In these seven short video performances directed by Isaac Artenstein, Gómez-Peña confronts Mexican-American culture clashes, stereotypes, and the Fourth World (immigrants). Speaking through a bullhorn or on the airwaves of mock-station Radio Latino FM, he broadcasts a message that will not be silenced. He delivers such comic comparisons as between “tacos without salsa” and “art without ideas” and such pointed statements as “thanks to marketing and not to civil rights, we are the new generation.” The taped monologues include Son of Border Crisis, El Post-Mojado, The Mexican Fly, Dear Californian, Employer Sanctions, The Year of the Yellow Spider, and The Year of the Hispanic.

Film becomes a metaphor for lost history and its “negative“ impact on successive generations who look for stability in an electronic world that lacks sufficient mediation. Video retrieves lost memories for the child who, through her camera, seeks to find her father.

Border Brujo is a ritual-linguistic journey across the U.S./Mexico border written and performed by artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña. In the guise of a cross-cultural shaman, Gómez Peña shifts into 15 different personas, each speaking a different language. The personas are symbolic of the borders between North and South, Anglo and Latino; myth and reality; legality and illegality; art and life. Border Brujo assaults and exorcises the demons of dominant cultures. He articulates fear, desire, trauma sublimation, anger and misplacement embodying ruptured and defiant communities with multilingual dexterity and humor.