by LuLu LoLo
There is anonymity living in New York City that appeals to the multitude who flock here from small towns across America and around the world. One encounters total strangers who know nothing about you – and you can take on any identity you wish – as no one knows your history. You are INVISIBLE!
In six Art in Odd Places performances over the last 15 years, I was INVISIBLE in my visibility – taking on different personas to illustrate timely issues: 2009: SIGN:14th Street NewsBoy hawked the history of 14th Street in weekly newspaper editions – when the festival was one month long; 201l:RITUAL: The Gentleman of 14th Street honored tradition with a flâneur gentleman who respectfully acknowledged passersby with a tip of the tophat; 2013:NUMBER: Loretta the Telephone Operator: Remembrances of Phone Numbers Past captured touching stories of familial telephone numbers; 2015:RECALL: Joan of Arc, Where are the Women? highlighted the lack of monuments to women in NYC and beyond; 2017:SENSE, Blessings from Mother Cabrini, Saint of the Immigrants focused on immigrants of the world, and 2018:BODY focused on the fragility of the aging body by walking while wearing a chair offering A Seat for the Elderly: The Invisible Generation.
A Seat for the Elderly gave rise to the concept for AiOP 2019: INVISIBLE celebrating the indomitable spirit of artists who are sixty years of age or older—undaunted by the passage of time—supported by their intergenerational collaborators: parent/child; mentor/ protégé; partners; lovers. The artists’ proposals were an actual telephone call. Their proposals were not seen, only heard. Forty-four projects by 86 artists in a mosaic of disciplines highlight the INVISIBLE that people choose not to see: the fragility of aging, even the beauty of aging, the homeless, the plight of immigrants, detained children, gentrification, mass incarcerations, and the lack of compassion in the world.
As a life-long New Yorker I have remembrances of what existed on 14th Street in the past. In my performances over the years from one end of 14th Street to the other I have come to know 14th Street’s grid intimately and have witnessed what has been erased by gentrification and become INVISIBLE. Gentrification has made it difficult for artists to maintain their housing in this city and affected many of the artists in this year’s festival with landlord conflicts and even a fire that rendered an artist and his mother homeless.
My artistic practice rooted in public spectacle and influenced by the religious processions of my childhood in East Harlem inspired me to confront the INVISIBLE by inaugurating a Promenade of Visual Flâneurs/Flâneuses featuring artists who will walk with their paintings, sculptures, music, words, costumes, and creations en mass the entire 2.2-mile length of 14th Street.
To make the INVISIBLE visible with the truth of the spoken word, I am introducing Spoken Word: A Band of Bards/Bardesses on the Boulevard performing from the POEMobile. Sadly two legendary “Spoken Word” artists Steve Cannon and Steve Delachinsky recently passed away, poignantly highlighting the fragility of aging.
AiOP 2019:INVISIBLE will make VISIBLE: the indomitable spirit of older artists, the beauty of intergenerational work, with a visual promenade of older artists strolling 14th Street, and the voices of spoken word artists all of which will jolt the public rapt/wrapped in their cocoon of technology.
Photo Credits:
Paul Takeuchi Photos: AiOP2009: Sign: NewsBoy; AiOP2011: Ritual: The Gentleman of 14th Street; AiOP2013: Number: Loretta the Telephone Operator; AiOP2017:Sense: Mother Cabrini, Saint of the Immigrants; AiOP2018:Body: A Seat for the Elderly: The Invisible Generation
Keka Marzagao Photo: AiOP2015: Recall: Joan of Arc, Where are the Women?
Composite Photo: Emily Markert
