For Art’s Sake: Pilgrimage to Bronx Museum

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.

On the second pilgrimage on June 28 and 29, 2005, I forged my way walking backwards from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to the Bronx Museum of the Arts, spending the night on a hard bed of art catalogues provided by Longwood Arts Project/Bronx Council on the Arts. The strenuous two-day journey came to an end when the Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Olivia Georgia, officially greeted me at the door of the Museum and 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.

USA Paradisiaca / Super Merengue / Las Frutas Tropicales / Learning to Drive / La Papa Móvil / The Fountain of Youth / Recuento de mis 15 / She tans. He sails. She swims. He surfs. She shops. He dives / 3 1/2 Hours to Paradise / The Passerby Museum / Amigo Express / Fellatious