Nostalgia de la boue is a series in which the “model minority” status of Jews and Chinese is cracked open with re-enactments of fin de siecle era racialization, which was then seen as natural reflections of both “races”. In “longing for the mud” of the past leads to performances of the appealing but syphilitic Jewess (as Europe saw her) and the malevolent Chinee (as America saw him), both posing the shared symbol of the rat.
Performance at Autonomie Gallery for the Foundation for Art Resources opening. I’m in whiteface singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ in Yiddish to a live rat, while audience members perform an entirely fictional Fluxus score by an entirely fictional failed Fluxus artist, Bert Hoyk, himself the son of an entirely fictional failed immigrant Tin Pan Alley songwriter.
Maya Gurantz 