For Art’s Sake: Pilgrimage to Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)

I modeled these actions after El Camino de Compostela in Spain, staging a series pilgrimages to seven museums in the New York metropolitan area. During my journeys, I carried a pilgrim’s credential that I asked museum directors or other cultural officials linked to the places that I visited to stamp and or sign.

As part of the fifth penance on October 28, 2006, I traveled on my knees from the offices of LMCC to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) at Bowling Green. On this occasion I carried in my hands a piece of casabe, a type of bread prepared from the indigenous cassava root, thus transporting a legacy of the Caribbean Taíno culture to be presented as a gift to the host institution. Peter S. Brill, NMAI’s Assistant Director for Exhibitions, Public Programs and Public Spaces, signed the credential.

For Art’s Sake was presented as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency Program and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, and in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Jersey City Museum, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Queens Museum, Longwood Arts Project/Bronx Council on the Arts, Local Project, Y Gallery, Steinway and Elmhurst Libraries in Queens, and the Center for Book Arts.

Funding for these pilgrimages have been provided by: The Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art (Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art is supported by Jerome Foundation and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency); The Center for Book Arts; Lambent Fellowship Program of Tides Foundation; The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture; The Michael Richards Fund, a program of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; The Center for Book Arts; The Urban Artist Initiative/NYC; and Queens Museum.

Special thanks to Dolores Zorreguieta, Martha Wilson, Sara Guerrero-Rippberger, Harley Spiller, David Hinkle, Geoffrey Jones, and Edwin Ramoran.