In 1992, Fusco and Guillermo Gómez-Peña toured the United States, Spain, England, and Australia as representatives of the fictional, “undiscovered” island of Guatinaui. Confined within a gilded cage, the duo performed made-up “traditional tasks,” such as lifting weights and watching television. Although the performance was intended as a satirical reenactment of ethnographic exhibitions of humans—a practice that reached its peak during nineteenth-century world’s fairs—many viewers believed they were real captives. Viewer responses, documented in this film, ranged from debates over the performance’s authenticity to calls to the Humane Society. Fusco later recorded some of the responses as engravings (also on view here), which reference early forms of mass media that popularized images of exoticized “others.”
2024
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Coco Fusco
Cuban-American, born 1960 2 works onlineThe interdisciplinary force of Coco Fusco is as raw as it is necessary. Born in New York City in 1960, the Cuban American artist’s relationship with Manhattan, Cuba, and the world forms a transformative and critical dialogue.
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Intaglio
A general term for metal-plate printmaking techniques, including etching, drypoint, engraving, aquatint, and mezzotint. The word comes from the Italian intagliare, meaning “to incise” or “to carve.
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