WEBVTT

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(ambient electronic music)

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(Train rattling)

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(group chattering)

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TANIA BRUGUERA: The strategy of the Immigrant
Movement project

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is to open the door to things you already
know.

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So by you coming into something you already
know,

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you feel that you understand what's going on

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and then, after, walk you
towards other places you don't know.

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(crowd chattering)

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For me, the most important moment for an art
piece

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is when people are not sure if it's art or
not,

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and this is the most, for me, productive moment.

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(lively traditional music)

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I am an artist, and I need to defend that
because I'm going beyond art,

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because I'm trying to do things
that are not being seen as art.

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As a political artist,
I always want my work to have real consequences.

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The major goal of Immigrant Movement at the
beginning

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was to rethink the political representation
of immigrants.

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Why?

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Because once you become an immigrant,
the first thing that is taken from you

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is the opportunity to talk about politics
and to talk about yourself as a political

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being.

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(plucky string music)

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I feel that I needed to do an immigrant movement
in the United States because

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when you say, "Where do you want to live?"
to anybody in the world, they say, "United States."

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(lively traditional music)

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(singing in foreign language)

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The people in Immigrant Movement are using art

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to empower themselves and to change as people
and to change as human beings.

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I'd like to welcome you to this gathering

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at the end of this cycle of Immigrant Movement.

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We are very happy with everything

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the teachers

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the people that come here

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who have made

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Immigrant Movement their home.

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(train rattles)

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Immigrant Movement has been very different
from other projects.

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(horse hooves clopping)

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For other pieces, I have opened different
doors.

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The whole idea of the series of Tatlin's Whisper
came out of uncomfortable feeling I had with

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the news,

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the fact that, as viewers of the news,
we are in a way anesthetized by some of the

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issues.

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I had other series, but the two pieces
that survive

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are Tatlin's Whisper 5 and
Tatlin's Whisper 6,

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and in the first one, I wanted to bring the
mounted police

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and ask them to do their normal job,

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but instead of doing it with protestors,
doing it with people in the museum.

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[OFFICER] Are these your children?

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[VISITOR] Yes.

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Could they stand with dad or with mom?

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That's it, so they're not too close.

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That's lovely.

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Well done.

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Okay, the horse is now gonna walk forward.

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Could you just stand aside, please?

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That's lovely.

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Thank you very much.

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Just wait there.

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[TANIA] I always felt it was too easy
to look at the news of something happening

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somewhere else

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and just sit and change the channel.

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And I wanted people to understand,

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when you have the police coming with a horse
towards you

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and telling you, "Go there, go there," how
that feels.

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(horse hooves clopping)

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So I think it was very interesting

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when you stage repression, knowing that what
you're doing

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actually is protecting people.

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The second one, Tatlin's Whisper #6,

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is a piece where I use all the theatrics,
the spectacle of a political event in Cuba,

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which is mainly the podium
and a very simple moment of the expectation

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of a speech.

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And also, it was interesting that at that
point,

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Fidel had disappeared from the news

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but is somebody that we felt the emptiness
of the leadership.

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Even if the brother has came in,
he had not done enough changes yet or enough

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presence.

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So the piece work in two way.

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It can be a monument to the absence of a leader,
or if people intervene,

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it can be actually a performance piece
where they exercise their right to say things.

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You have the podium, the microphones,
and you have two people dressed with military

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outfits.

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Once everybody was there, we gave
200 disposable cameras,

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and we announced that anybody can say
whatever they wanted for one minute.

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[VISITOR 1] Millions of children are starving.

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None of them are Cuban.

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[VISITOR 2] Why do we need a podium to say
what eats up our soul?

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[VISITOR 3] I am 20 years old.

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This is the first time I feel so free.

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(VISITOR 4 Screaming)

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After one minute passed, whatever was happening,

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they removed the person.

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[VISITOR 5] What

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is more

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important.

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to talk

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[TANIA] That piece I like a lot, in part because,
for the first time, I was able to freeze power.

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It was really satisfying to not having
anybody after

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being incarcerated, or there is always some
repercussion.

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They talk to me, whatever, but I feel like
it was well done

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in the sense of very controlled.

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My childhood was a little different from other
Cuban kids

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because my father was a diplomat,
so I was traveling around the world,

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when in Cuba, I was not permitted to travel.

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Because my parents represented the country,
I was witnessing all this propaganda.

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And when I was 12, everything changed

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because my parent divorced
and I started living the reality of Cuba.

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I think once I had a normal life
in the Cuban reality,

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I started seeing the distance
between the promises and the accomplishment.

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I still believe in a dream.

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And as an artist, I feel that everything
that I have been trying to do

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is trying to kind of force
or redirect reality towards the dream,

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but with the knowledge that propaganda

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is different than reality, and trying to,
in a way,

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push people to be realistic about the goal

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and about the political means
instead of presenting us with just a dream.

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I am committed to be a Cuban.

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I am committed be in Cuba and to work in Cuba.

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When I do work about Cuba, I do it in Cuba,

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because this is whom I want to talk to about
those issues.

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Displacement.

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It was a piece that was done
originally the day of Fidel's birthday.

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I decided to do this piece where I dress as
a Nkisi Nkondi,

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which is a figure from Congo.

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People can ask for something, and each nail
is one wish,

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but you have to give something back.

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Like, okay, if you if you give me this,
I will do this for you.

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I will bring flowers or cut my hair or whatever.

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If you don't give back the promise to the
Nkisi,

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it will go after you and punish you severely,

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so that's why people are afraid of it.

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So what happened is I dress like that,
and I was in as in a sculpture in the gallery,

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and then I "woke up" and went to the streets.

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And it was beautiful because it was the first
time

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I went out to the street as a performer,

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and I was a little nervous because I was thinking,

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"People might be, 'What the hell is this?

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It's not carnival time.'"

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The piece was about all the things
that were promised during the revolution

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that were not being fulfilled
and that we're still waiting for them.

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At one point, a policeman came and said,
"What's going on?"

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because we're not supposed to do that
in the street that day, wherever for that

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matter.

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And then a kid was saying,
"No, it is a art work,"

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because he was hearing something people talking.

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There were people from the arts as well.

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And the policeman was quiet, and I couldn't
see it,

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but I could hear he was...

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He was quiet, then he said, "Oh, okay, okay.

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Proceed.

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Proceed."

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And that was the exact moment when I realized
that art can go places other people cannot

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go.

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(train rattling)

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We also have the meeting

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for the selection of the Useful Art Committee
that...

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Something like this?

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Yes, it's better.

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I would like us both to present it so that
you could

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introduce me again and we can talk about...

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I will introduce you, and you explain it.

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Yes.

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Perfect.

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And what will you be explaining?

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Just inviting them to the Useful Art Committee
and...

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Let's tell them that we will be having artists-in-residence

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who are also immigrants.

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Exactly.

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So that it's all pertinent

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and that it's all about Useful Art.

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So the idea is that we will be having a meeting.

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We'll be serving coffee and little cupcakes.

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It will be very delicious.

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Buying the public's vote, I see?

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No, the idea is that it will be delicious!

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It doesn't have to be all business!

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It's like fun business, Tania!

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I know.

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I have to learn that part.

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(relaxed music)

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INSTRUCTOR: And remember you have
those little wood chips, Brandon,

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so you
have to put a lot of pressure.

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I see the role of the artist
as somebody that can propose things,

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whether that be creating an environment
for something to happen,

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or will that be giving the tools
to people to do certain activities on their

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own?

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And that's the role I think we have now,

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showing people this is what we can do, these
are the tools.

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Take it.

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The Van Abbe Museum invited me to do a solo
show.

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And after thinking, I realized that it was
the best place

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to bring Arte Útil to a museum and use the
opportunity

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to be in a museum to do multiple things.

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What is the use of a museum in the 21st century?

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And challenge also the idea of a spectatorship.

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How can you eliminate a spectator from a museum?

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All of these ideas came together,
and then I decided to create

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what I call the Museum of Arte Útil.

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We have so much to cover.

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It was, like, impossible, so we decided to
create a focus

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on the idea of the archive.

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[ANNIE] When Tania came up with this idea
of making a Museum of Arte Útil

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it immediately brought up the question, what
do museums do?

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Do they make history?

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Do they brand a movement?

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Are they the authoritative voice that says,
"This is minimalism, this is performance art,

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this is Arte Útil"?

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So we thought, "Okay, how would we do that?

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How would we gather together this archive?"

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The fact that we call it Arte Útil,
the intention was to be in Spanish.

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The word "útil" in Spanish has two connotations,
whereas in English it's only one.

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The two connotations are
the benefit you can get out of something,

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something that can be useful to you.

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"Útil" is also a tool.

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"Un útil de trabajo" is a tool, a working tool.

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[ANNIE] You saw that facade outside,
and this wall cuts through all of the spaces.

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It seemed necessary to us
to break with the pattern of the white cube.

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It's totally a theatrical device,
contradiction number one in the show,

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because we kind of really tried to avoid metaphor,
symbols in our selection of works.

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We tried to think about a practice of art
history

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that is not about the metaphor.

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It's rather about generating a kind of engagement
that needs a user and an initiator.

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To do this project was a team effort.

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I wanted the project to grow naturally.

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I didn't want to come and impose an idea.

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For me, it was very important
from the beginning, as an artist,

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I should not be the author of the project
but the initiator,

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which is one of the categories we use about
Arte Útil.

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[ANNIE] We had Laurie Jo Reynolds on a residency here with her cat, contained in the tents

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most of the time.

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But she is an extraordinary artist
who campaigned for 10 years

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to close down a high security supermax prison
in the states.

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Her work has been archived
over the last six weeks here in the museum.

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She just left yesterday.

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The biggest project here is the Honest Shop.

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This shop works in a really successful way
in Britain.

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The shop has nobody running it except for
the participants.

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Anybody who wants to contribute to the shop,
there's a series of rules.

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They have to be amateur, creative people,

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so they can't be professional artists
or professional designers,

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things that you feel that are kind of creative
and that you do as an amateur hobby

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that you would like to sell.

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♪ Green hills I like the firestone ♪

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♪ I like to walk alone ♪

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♪ do waka do waka do waka do waka ♪

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♪ I like the flowers ♪

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♪ I like the daffodils ♪

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♪ I like the mountains ♪

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♪ I like the green hills ♪

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♪ I like the firestone ♪

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♪ I like to walk alone ♪

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(train rattling)

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[TANIA] I'm very happy that an immigrant movement
has happened

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and is working very nicely.

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I think the culture of the place have been
established.

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The principals of the project have been established.

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[INSTRUCTOR] When we do this excercise
our circulatory system gets activated

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and we activate the entire body.

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[TANIA] Once we gave the project to the community,
the project doesn't need me, which I'm very

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happy with,

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because I think part of the homework
that socially engaged art have to do

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is try to rethink the way in which the project
survive

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beyond the artist's presence.

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[INSTRUCTOR] Now we raise our arms, palms
up.

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This exercise helps us re-energize ourselves.

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This excercise at the same time

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stretches the organs.

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The liver

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the stomach

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the intestines

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They are all doing their own Zumba right now.

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[TANIA] I don't see socially engaged art
being preserved by three photos and a video

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in a museum.

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I see real good, socially engaged art and
political art

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live beyond the life that the artist has given
it

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by being taken by other people
who are reproducing the models,

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changing those models, being inspired by that.

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(lively music)
(singing in foreign language)

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[TANIA] The art that we should be doing today in the

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21st century is art that is not for the museum.

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It's art for the street and people's life.

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(lively music)

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(ambient electronic music)

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To learn more about "Art in the Twenty-First
Century"

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and it's educational resources,

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please visit us online at PBS.org/Art21

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"Art in the Twenty-First Century" is available
on DVD

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To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS

00:18:15.257 --> 00:18:20.018
(ambient electronic music)