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OSORIO: It's hard to explain to people 
what I'm trying to do as an artist,

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because I do not fit the artist description.

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I'm always doing everything so subvertive.

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Like always differently.

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My work deals a lot with contradiction.

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I embrace contradiction.

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Contradiction can coexist with 
beauty—it can coexist with anger.

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It can coexist with the different 
emotions. The human body.

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[ latin music ]

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In "No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop," 
it's about recreating my memory.

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When I was five years old, my father 
took me to get my first haircut,

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right around the neighborhood.

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What was meant to be a celebration, 
became a disastrous event.

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This barber, he was not used to 
dealing with kinky hair, curly hair.

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I was crying a lot, I was scared. I was 
traumatized by the sound of the hair clipping.

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There was a combination of race, a right 
of passage into becoming a little man,

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and I think that they both 
came together simultaneously.

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"No crying allowed in the barbershop" 
deals with the issue of machismo,

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but as a whole.

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And as a whole, it connects 
to the universe, somehow.

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The piece pays homage to my 
father, a man of African descent.

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I often feel that as people of African descent,

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we were completely displaced from 
the community that we come from,

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which is, which is a contradiction, but 
it makes sense in Puerto Rican reality.

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MAN: when he was about eight or nine years old,

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I noticed that he painted the 
ceiling of the house, of his room.

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It was beautiful, you know, it looked 
beautiful, so later on I got happy.

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LUISA: He always—everything, 
he wanted always to, to—

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he was doing all kinds of articles like, like 
houses, trucks, cars and everything, he would.

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And we enjoyed seeing him working, 
because I want him to make,

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at least to have a trade.

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Coming from a working-class family, 
being an artist is not an option,

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it's more of a challenge than anything else.

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I just cannot remember ever saying, 
"I'm going to be an artist."

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It was not a possibility, 
It was not an alternative.

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I was working as a social worker, 
and I put that role in my pocket.

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I always had to have two things 
happening simultaneously,

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just in case one didn't go good, well 
then I had the other one to survive.

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The only way that I can connect 
Is by doing installation work,

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because I feel that I needed to say something 
that had to be beyond something on the wall.

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I need to create a space that is overpowering.

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I'm very much aware that my 
work, it's one that provides,

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aesthetically, an uncomfortable 
reaction in many people.

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It's interesting, because a lot of the 
people ask me, "Do you live like this?"

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"Is this how your home is?" And it isn't—I 
am making a very calculated intervention.

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When this piece, "The Scene of a 
Crime," was at the Whitney Museum,

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it almost felt as if I had 
taken a piece of the South Bronx

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and placed it in the middle of Madison Avenue.

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The Latino community has been portrayed 
as one that is very accessible.

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And in, specifically "The Scene of a Crime,"

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it has a yellow ribbon where 
people are not allowed to come in—

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because I have delineated 
these very specific spaces

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and very specific issues as sacred spaces.

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And as you stand and you're not allowed 
to come in, then you need to reflect.

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And you need to confront yourself—

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almost as if I stand a giant 
mirror right in front of you.

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Every time I create a work of art, and I go 
into different, other sectors of society,

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to gather information, and the work is 
created when I bring together where I am

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and where the rest of society is.

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MAN: okay, I just want to know if this, do 
we have to keep on visiting you behind bars,

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or are we going to live like a family already, 
'cause you in jail and us two out here,

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you know mom is probably, ain't barely 
making it, you know what I'm saying?

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MAN: I used to get up in the middle of 
the night to change your pampers, to…

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You pissed on me a couple of 
times, you used to cry and,

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and I remember all of that.

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I remember the first words that 
came out of your mouth was "daddy."

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I didn't pass this year, 'cause 
it was one death after the other,

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and then you getting locked up.

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And it was just like everything, 
you know, just falling on me.

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OSORIO: What I would love people to 
come out is thinking who they are

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in relationship to what they have 
just seen, and start a negotiation.

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Not only with the artwork, 
but the public at large.

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Who I am. Where do I stand?

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MAN: I love you now, son.

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OSORIO: I'm very much aware that what 
I wanted to do is to provoke change,

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not only socially, but physically and spiritually.

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MAN: You've done public art projects in 
barbershops,in taxi cabs, in basketball courts.

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Is this the first time you do a 
project within a domestic setting?

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OSORIO: No, I've worked in Santa Barbara.

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It was called "state of preservation."

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And it was about plastic.

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I went with the whole issue of the stereotypical 
imagery of Latino family using plastic.

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And I went into this very open-minded 
family, a very wealthy family,

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and we plastified the whole house.

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[ laughter ]
And they lived like that for about three months.

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Every single precious object was plastified.

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And it was incredible—they 
were really open-minded people.

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"Home Visits," it's loosely rooted in religious, 
popular tradition of the visiting saint.

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When I was a kid, we were visited by a niche 
of a virgin of Guadalupe, sent by the church.

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And I thought, what about the 
same thing with contemporary art?

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WOMAN: It almost looks like 
there's flame in there.

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OSORIO: Why can't contemporary art visit 
one home after the other for the week?

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The idea of the new century, 
it's about… a renewal, for me.

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I wanted to go back and renew all this—

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my mission, my philosophy, 
my way of looking at art—

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and I know there's something missing 
that I wanted to find or create again.

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Who's that in the front?

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GIRL: That's the...

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[ laughter ]

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GIRL: Telling a story.

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OSORIO: Telling the story of how it happened.

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The story's based on Tina and her two daughters.

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Tina lost her house and all 
her possessions, due to a fire.

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Shortly after it happened, she put 
a little blanket over the girl.

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And, you know, so there's a lot of 
stories inside that the family told me.

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I was intrigued by the idea that I've gained so 
much, yet the possibility of losing it overnight.

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So, moving right along, I've got to take 
it to another place, another opening.

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I'm going to miss the house, 
'cause it's been here for a week


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and it's going to feel funny 
having this space opened.

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Since childhood, I have felt that 
somehow there is one piece missing.

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When I got to New York, I spoke 
English, but it wasn't good enough.

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So then I just felt that somehow I couldn't 
understand completely what was going on,

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but I got a picture of it.

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But it wasn't so good that it 
didn't get the real picture of it.

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And sometimes I feel that I'm eternally, 
you know, displaced, that I'm there,

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but I'm not quite there.

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But I think that, as an artist, I've been able 
to resolve one thing—to find my own place.

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I have a very clear mission. I know 
exactly what I wanted to do with my work,

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and how my displacement somehow seems 
perfectly fine for the people out there.

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Because there are many of 
us in the same boat as I am.