Staged Confrontations between Public and Private spaces (Pepón Osorio) | Art21

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

because I do not fit the artist description.

I'm always doing everything so subvertive.

Like always differently.

My work deals a lot with contradiction.

I embrace contradiction.

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

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

[ latin music ]

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

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

right around the neighborhood.

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

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

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

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

and I think that they both 
came together simultaneously.

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

but as a whole.

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

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

I often feel that as people of African descent,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

at least to have a trade.

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

it's more of a challenge than anything else.

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

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

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

I always had to have two things 
happening simultaneously,

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

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

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

I need to create a space that is overpowering.

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

aesthetically, an uncomfortable 
reaction in many people.

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

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

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

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

and placed it in the middle of Madison Avenue.

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

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

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

because I have delineated 
these very specific spaces

and very specific issues as sacred spaces.

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

And you need to confront yourself—

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

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

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

and where the rest of society is.

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

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

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

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

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

and I remember all of that.

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

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

and then you getting locked up.

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

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

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

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

Who I am. Where do I stand?

MAN: I love you now, son.

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

not only socially, but physically and spiritually.

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

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

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

It was called "state of preservation."

And it was about plastic.

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

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

and we plastified the whole house.

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

Every single precious object was plastified.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wanted to go back and renew all this—

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

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

Who's that in the front?

GIRL: That's the...

[ laughter ]

GIRL: Telling a story.

OSORIO: Telling the story of how it happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but I got a picture of it.

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

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

but I'm not quite there.

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

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

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

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