Michael Anthony Garcia: Huecos Chuecos I
Colette Copeland
January 2021
video by David Bellesen
Michael Anthony Garcia
Huecos Chuecos I: Carino Lamentado/ Carino Suplicado
Performed at ICOSA Collective, Austin, Texas
December 12, 2020
Night. Birds singing. Muted traffic. A masked, bare chested man encased in a window display, illuminated by a single spot light. Framed within a frame by natural fauna. Voluminous white skirted, many empty-pocketed wrap stamped with RAW. A Mexican ballad–a lamentation. The mask drops to the floor. Rib-squeezing bear hugs with a surrogate. The sound of a heartbeat.
Austin artist Michael Anthony Garcia’s poignant performance Huecos Chuecos I conjures the collective feelings of loss, isolation and alienation felt globally over the past nine months of the pandemic. During the 45-minute live performance, Garcia hugs a totem wrapped in clothing, while video projections of his friends and family play in the top left corner of the window space. The disembodied heads materialize and fade out like memories–present but fleeting. At the 2.24 minute mark in the excerpted video documentation, Garcia symbolically removes his mask, dropping it to the floor before commencing the hug. And this is not the socially polite, partial upper body air hug. This is a full-frontal, full-body contact, thoracic squeeze hug that literally takes one’s breath away. The removal of the mask is significant. It represents resiliency and perseverance in overcoming adversity, but also hope and a return to intimacy.
The title loosely translates to crooked hollows: regretted affection/begged affection. The English translation does not communicate the emotion and intensity inherent in the Spanish words. Lamentado evokes not just regret, but a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, a deep mourning. Suplicado is not a simple ask or beg. Derived from the Latin word meaning “to kneel”, to supplicate oneself is to make oneself humble, earnestly and prayerfully while petitioning. When I think about the word hollows as it relates to the pandemic, I think about physical and emotional loss. When loss is unbalanced, meaning not replaced with love or connection, each loss we experience creates more hollow space, until we are a husk or shell. Garcia’s plea is personal, but also one that calls out to the universe. See me. Hear me. I am alive, but need connection.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the impact of loss of physical touch on health. I read a few recent scientific studies that prove the physical benefits of touch including lower blood pressure, higher oxytocin levels, lower stress levels and better sleep. The studies also show significant positive effects to emotional well-being. Is it any wonder that we as a collective community are experiencing such high levels of anxiety, stress and depression?
Photo courtesy of the artist
Garcia’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in identity and Latinx Futurism. Growing up in El Paso, Texas, five miles from the Mexican border, his work navigates through his layered dual identities, exploring the personal and the political. At first, I had a difficult time understanding the concept of Latinx Futurist time bending. A binge-watching session of the Umbrella Academy helped. Garcia’s performance practice imagines parallel universes, in which the artist could project himself in the past, as well as the future as a way to heal himself and the timeline. In the artist’s words, “As a parallel to wishing I would have spent that time exercising more during these months rather than stress-eating, reading more rather than Netflixing, and taken in nature–even if just in my backyard– rather than cocooning in my home, this performance seeks to temporally project a regimen of hugging exercises. These would be projected both backwards to my quarantined self as well as to a future iteration of myself to prepare for an unseen moment when I will have wished I had done so now.”
The performance concludes with the unmasked artist writing on the window in Spanish within the leafy frame. The text was not preplanned, but an automatic writing inspired by the moment and experience. Garcia provided me with a partial translation. “That quality of which does not necessarily pertain to us, but is also this moment, that something of which to partake/enjoy and seek out in others perhaps.” I interpret that as a call to be imaginative in creating new ways to have meaningful and intimate human connections.
His exhibition Olas de Perturbación (Waves of Perturbation) is on view through January 9, 2021 at Ivester Contemporary in Austin, Texas. Visit →
Michael Anthony García is a multidisciplinary artist & independent curator, claiming both Mexican and US citizenship, while based in Austin, Texas. He predominantly focuses his practice around photography/ video, sculpture/ installation & performance. He is a founding member of Los Outsiders curatorial collective & has curated large-scale exhibitions of international artists, in & out of the US. He participated in the 2011 Texas Biennial & has won awards both for his curatorial & 3D work. He co-hosts an intersectional conversation podcast named El Puente and is publisher for POCa Madre Magazine. García has premiered work for The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Experimental Action Performance Art Biennale in Houston, The Contemporary Austin, SoundSpace at The Blanton Museum of Art, Mexic-Arte Museum, El Museo de la Ciudad de México, and ThreeWalls in Chicago. Website→ Instagram →
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Colette Copeland is a multimedia artist, art educator, writer and social activist. She has volunteered with Traffick911 for nine years as an advocate and educator, spreading awareness about the sex trafficking of children in the DFW area. Prior to covid, she volunteered teaching dance therapy to incarcerated teens. Website →
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