Hoesy Corona is the Nov/Dec 2024 MoCA Arlington Innovation Studio Artist in Residence!

Hoesy Corona (Baltimore, MD) is a Latinx Queer artist of Mexican descent creating uncategorized and multidisciplinary art spanning installation, performance, and sculpture. In the studio, Hoesy’s work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. Corona has exhibited widely in galleries, museums, and public spaces in the United States and internationally.

He is the recipient of many honors and awards including the Mellon Foundation’s MAP Fund Grant; the NALAC Fund For the Arts Artist Grant; the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Grit Fund Grant; and a Ruby’s Artist Grant. He has attended residencies at Ox-Bow Artist Residency, Wabash College AIR, The Nicholson Project, and a Transformer Siren Arts Residency. His work has been reviewed by The Washington Post, Bmore Art Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Magazine, Washington City Paper, and The American Scholar among others.

Join them on Saturday, November 23 from 1PM - 3PM for a tote bag design workshop. Free to attend! Make sure to drop in with enough time to play — the process will take at least 30 minutes to complete.

Headshot by Anne Kim Photo | TNP

READ AT BMORE ART

Gallery Roundup: Hoesy Corona at Enoch Pratt, False Relations at C. Grimaldis Gallery, and Joyce J. Scott at Goya Contemporary

Spring Has Sprung, Thrice

June 10, 2024
Words: Dereck Mangus

This June, there are a number of excellent Baltimore art exhibits that feature painting, glass, installation, and collaboration. Three standouts are Crossroads by the Enoch Pratt Library’s artist-in-residence Hoesy Corona, False Relations, a two-person show from Markus Baldegger and Heejo Kim at C. Grimaldis Gallery, and Goya Contemporary’s Joyce J. Scott’s Bearing Witness and NOW, the latter featuring collaborations in glass with Tim Tate.

Reinvigorating a Public Space: Hoesy Corona’s Crossroads at Enoch Pratt
It’s a bewildering experience to enter a familiar place and find it completely transformed. You recognize certain features, but what once was identifiable is now somehow different, somehow altered.

With his new mixed-media installation Crossroads, Baltimore artist Hoesy Corona (b.1986, Yuriria, GTO, Mexico) has imaginatively reinvigorated the second-floor hallway of Enoch Pratt’s Central Library.

As its title suggests, Crossroads represents a conjunction of two bodies of work: several examples of Corona’s Climate Ponchos series are paired here with an assortment of his site-specific wall collages. Both projects were created while completing Pratt’s 2024 Artist in Residence Program. Corona is the second ever Artist In Residence (AIR) at Enoch Pratt. (The application for the next AIR is due at the end of this month.)

In his mural-sized collages, which were printed in vinyl and collaged directly onto the library walls, Corona introduces us to several scenes of anonymous travelers—some alone, others in small groups carrying luggage—making their way to parts unknown, up and down the hall.

Though appearing to wander, as still images they remain frozen in two-dimensional limbo. While walking down the stately corridor, we catch glimpses of different vignettes in media res, appearing between door frames, glowing through the windows overlooking the library’s courtyard, and filling the hallway with various brightly colored scenes to discover. Who are these travelers? It’s hard to say. Though they draw us in, they remain unidentified, their destinations untold.

Meanwhile, Corona’s ponchos are presented in groups of three within several of the library’s historic vitrines found along the walls. Some of the nameless wanderers in the wall scenes wear brightly decorated ponchos, the motifs of which are found on the actual garments in the cases. It’s as if the images across the walls are reenactments or hypothetical scenarios in which the displayed garments might be used.

While the Climate Ponchos are tightly formalized, evenly distributed within the frames of the glass cases, the unnamed figures on the wall run wild. Unlike the garments, they are not bound by the accouterments of the library, but rather interact with them. They are not static like wallpaper, an abstract pattern meant to be overlooked, but rather actively draw your attention to corners of the library you might not otherwise expect to find art.

A lone cactus grows near a water fountain, for example, where a group of nameless wanderers is gathered, reminding us of the need to stay hydrated when roaming the desert. Another band of figures silently walks past a fire alarm, a readymade symbol of emergency that blurs the line between our world and that of the travelers depicted in the murals of Crossroads.

A closing event with the artist will be held on Thursday, June 27th, at 5:00pm on the second floor of the Central Library in the Poe Room.

NALAC 2024

The NALAC Fund for the Arts: Artist & Organization Grants.
Supporting US and Puerto Rico-based Latino artists and arts organizations in the development, creation, presentation and sustainability of artistic excellence.

IN THE CATALOG | April 2024
Artist Hoesy Corona showcases his craft as the Enoch Pratt's second Artist in Residence.

At the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a bright-red rolling rack currently sits with a few stacks of books--works by Baltimore-based artists Jackie Milad, Rene Treviño, and Hoes Corona. They're all part of The Latinx Art Culture and Memory Archive, a pop-Up exhibition curated by Corona, on view until April 24. Corona, who is queer and of Mexican descent, aims to highlight the missing presence of Latinx voices in cultural institu-tions. As the Pratt's 2024 Artist in Residence, the up-and-coming multidisciplinary artist will host several exhibitions throughout the year, while also continuing to ply his own craft in the on-site studio.

BmoreArt

SWAB Barcelona Demonstrates Accessibility and Criticality aren’t Mutually Exclusive
Highlights from the Fair, and Why We Should be Taking Notes
October 8, 2023
Words: Michael Anthony Farley

It is the balmiest autumn in Spain’s history, and it feels strangely appropriate to be wiping sweat from my brow as I’m queued-up to see (among many other things) excerpts from Hoesy Corona’s Climate Ponchos series at SWAB Barcelona. The series depicts migrants who might be fleeing drought, famine, wildfires, floods—or the political instability exacerbated by all of the above—here rendered in industrial processes and materials to create armor-like yet unwearable garments. The association with protection and territory feels equal parts feudal and futile—the laser-cut armor can neither effectively shield nor comfortably sit on a body, but questions what happens when the implied absent bodies can no longer belong to a place on an overheating planet.

This year—SWAB’s 16th—the art fair finds itself at Fira Montjuïc, situated next to both Barcelona’s Oktoberfest and the reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s famed German Pavilion for the 1929 International Expo. It’s a fitting, surreal context for Corona’s work, between the greenhouse-like building that heralded the advent of modernity and the sight of lederhosen-clad partiers fanning themselves while sweltering in a heat once considered unseasonable.

“Of course, I wanted to show Hoesy here!” exclaims Gabriela Rosso, the gallerist behind Maryland’s RoFa Projects. “This is his first art fair, and it’s one with a youthful energy—it attracts a younger collector base.” There’s a palpable playful vibe at SWAB that’s refreshing in an art fair calendar ever more jam-packed with events that feel more obligatory than celebratory. (Is anyone actually looking forward to braving the bedbug plague for Paris+ par Art Basel next week?)

RoFa Projects, which has two locations in Montgomery County, specializes in showing Latinx artists in Maryland in dialogue with artists from the larger Spanish-speaking world. At SWAB, they’re presenting Corona’s work alongside Spanish artist Rosalía Banet and Peruvian artist Natalia Revilla. Banet’s mixed-media “Banquete” installations present food objects of desire in inedible materials, referencing the noxious chemical additives that make food more “appealing.” But it’s her 2D works that really steal the show. They more subtly reference the body and its relation to industrialization through collaged forms undulating between voluptuous pink blobs and silhouettes evocative of factory rooflines or machinery. They’re gorgeous.

On the other side of the booth, Natalia Revilla’s small wooden assemblages bear the index of a variety of techniques ranging from laser-cutting to drawing and dyeing using natural pigments from South American jungles. They are based on untranslatable expressions or words that only exist in one language—a personal obsession of mine—and the violence inflicted on their indigenous speakers and the landscapes they inhabit. They’re a sober reminder of colonialism’s lasting impacts and continuing processes in an otherwise largely cheery, technicolor art fair.

RoFa is just one of dozens of fantastic booths at the fair, but I am using it as an example of what’s great about SWAB and the opportunity it represents for galleries both local and abroad. I so wish more art spaces from the Baltimore/DC region participated in smart, well-curated smaller fairs like this—putting local artists in dialogue with international peers and in front of international audiences and kingmakers. For example, I bump into Omar López-Chahoud at the opening—a jet-setting curator and friend of BmoreArt, who serves on both SWAB’s advisory committee and as the Artistic Director of UNTITLED, one of our favorite big art fairs. He tells me SWAB is a great fair because there’s always something new to see. " [ Excerpt]

RoFa Gallery:

We welcome the uncategorized work of Hoesy Corona!

Hoesy Corona’s work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. Using the archetype of the traveler, who is seen holding suitcases and voyaging through a wide array of landscapes towards a better place, Corona tackles the reality of the human aspect of climate change while celebrating the lushness and vibrancy of flora, bodies of water, and geographic forms, and bringing attention to the multitudinous powers of nature.
@rofaprojects
@hoesycorona

ENOCH PRATT LIBRARY

The Enoch Pratt Free Library Artist in Residence Program aims to support the artistic and cultural endeavors of the Baltimore community by connecting established and emerging artists with Library resources and tools, creating meaningful connections with Library patrons, and contributing unique perspectives to the ever-evolving and growing city of Baltimore. The program provides all members of the community with unique opportunities to learn and engage with their fellow Baltimoreans.

Pratt's 2024 Artist in Residence is local artist Hoesy Corona, who will focus on crafting Climate Ponchos from durable alloy materials. These wearable sculptures are part of Hoesy's "Climate Immigrants" performance series, exploring immigration issues related to climate-triggered migration and US-centric xenophobia. The project aims to raise awareness about climate-induced global migration, particularly its impact on people of color.

During the residency, Hoesy will experiment with sustainable materials like water-soluble plastics and textiles, striving to reduce ecological impact. Additionally, he will use the artist studio space at the Library to create new Climate Ponchos and involve visitors in the creative process, fostering a stronger connection between art and the community.

Throughout the year, Hoesy will engage with Library visitors through workshops, talks, and exhibitions, providing valuable insights into his creative approach.

About Hoesy Corona

Pratt Library's 2024 Artist in Residence is Hoesy Corona, a Queer Latinx artist creating uncategorized and multidisciplinary art spanning installation, performance, and sculpture. His debut NY solo exhibition CLIMATIC SHOCKS is now on view at Praxis NY Gallery in Manhattan, NY through August 2023. Hoesy has exhibited widely in galleries, museums, and public spaces in the United States and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions All Roads Lead to Roam (2023) at Eric Dean Gallery at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN; Terrestrial Caravan (2022-2023) at Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD; Sunset Moonlight (2021) at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD; and Alien Nation (2017), at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden presented by Transformer in Washington, DC.

He is a current Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center Public Humanities Fellow 2022-2023 at the Johns Hopkins University's Sheridan Libraries. Completed fellowships include a George Kaiser Family Foundation Artist Fellowship 2019-2020 in Tulsa, OK and a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellowship 2017-2018 in Washington, DC. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including The Nicholson Project artist residency, The Mellon Foundation’s MAP Fund Grant, and the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Grit Fund Grant. His work has been reviewed by The Washington Post, Bmore Art Magazine, and The American Scholar among others. In 2022 he was named the inaugural Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist in Residence 2023 at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN. He is a current resident artist at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore, MD.

BMORE ART
Displacement and Arrival: Hoesy Corona
Envisioning a future that is better than our present in garments, images, and performance

July 31, 2023
Words: Suzy Kopf
Photography: E. Brady Robinson

In fabric and vinyl, artist Hoesy Corona tells the story of his family’s journey to the United States from Mexico as well as the broader challenges posed by the environmental racism immigrants face in 2023.

Depicted in changing landscapes reacting to the climate crisis, the figures in Corona’s fiber-based works are at once specific and vague. A suitcase might be decorated in a cherry pattern but the face and features of the person pulling it are obscured by cascading hair. Corona’s vibrant work is often wearable. He has made full costumes, ponchos, and blankets meant to be worn in performance and also displayed in gallery settings. As a result, his solo installations have the dramatic tension of a stage set for the curtain to rise at any moment.

In 2023, Corona is an artist in constant motion. He moved to Baltimore over eighteen years ago to attend Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) for an undergraduate degree in painting and participated in the thriving DIY arts period the city enjoyed in the 2010s. A fixture of the CopyCat building’s monthly happenings, Corona cut his teeth producing solo and collaborative performances with Ada Pinkston as co-director of Labbodies (2014- 2020), the now-defunct performance collective the two artists established to highlight underrepresented and queer artists of the region.

Labbodies received institutional support and recognition, such as grants from the GRIT Fund and Rubys, as well as invitations to perform at the Hirshhorn and Baltimore Museum of Art. Despite this success, Corona decided half a decade ago to shift the focus of his practice from performances back to painting because he wanted his work to be exhibited by institutions for longer than one night.

“I needed to create opportunities where people could envision my work in a gallery setting,” he explains and in 2022 saw this effort bear fruit. The current Creative Alliance resident artist mounted four solo shows, including one at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD, and received two inaugural fellowships—a Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University and an Artist in Residence at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. In May 2023, he mounted his first New York solo show at Praxis Art in Chelsea and perform at the reimagined Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art Festival in Reston, Virginia.

This would be a lot for any artist to pull off, but Corona is approaching 2023 with a tightly timed itinerary. For the first five months he’s been in production mode, preparing work for his upcoming shows, co-teaching a college class for the first time at Wabash College, and coordinating with his collaborators for the Tephra ICA performance. After May, he started a new body of work in the Johns Hopkins libraries, probing the historic collection in search of buried histories.

Corona never pursued an MFA. Instead, he home-schooled himself in professional development by taking notes on Creative Capital grant presentations and seeking out opportunities with more established artists. From his first-hand observations he recognized, “I need to be the most knowledgeable person about my own practice until somebody else picks up an interest and wants to dive into it.”

Beginning in 2017, with his Climate-Immigrant series, Corona created a series of wearable sculptures which address the plight of climate-induced global migration in the familiar shape of a poncho made from cut vinyl, acrylic paint, and polyester. The garments depict travelers in motion, wearing backpacks and hats, carrying suitcases and small children, and are directly inspired by his own family’s history of migration for farm work since the early 1960s.

He explains, “These were everyday stories that I heard while I was growing up; stories about the [Mexican/US] border, stories about fear and horrible stories around being deported or being caught, or people swimming across rivers.”

Corona lived in Mexico until he was seven, and absorbed the bold colors of his home country, a palette that still comes across in the lush flora that surrounds the figures on his ponchos, which were also inspired by Matisse’s cut-outs.

The climate ponchos are an opportunity to “pose questions about our moment of flux, the shuffle and reshuffle that we’re in with the changing climate and migration patterns,” he says. “I’m interested in the idea of people traversing spaces, which implicates land borders along with who belongs and who doesn’t.”

The migrants depicted are not necessarily Mexican: Corona regularly distorts or does not show facial features or skin tone in his gallery pieces and his performers are covered from head to toe in bodysuits and adornment that hide their skin. Instead, he is interested in depicting a universal immigrant moving through space and not yet arriving at a destination.

Corona recycles elements of performances back into the works he shows in a gallery setting. Fabric and vinyl costumes or faux flower headdresses worn by performers appear in the gallery on mannequins or as photographs the artist prints on fabric and hangs in the space. This reuse connects with the cyclical nature of the works he has been creating, some for over a decade now, on themes of displacement and arrival. For Corona, it means that the pieces can always be in a state of becoming.

The process by which he makes his climate ponchos has changed somewhat over the years. He started by cutting the pieces using a digital plotter, then shifted to hand cutting imagery from memory. He has worked with projected imagery, and finally, in this spring’s iteration, with digital prints of altered photographs as wearables. The return of the concept back to fabric, the original material of a poncho, means the body and its absence is ever present in our reading of the work.

Speaking with Corona, his belief in the power of art to inspire and engage audiences despite the heaviness of the subject matter is striking. He is interested in all possibilities, wanting to “envision a future that is better than our present. That’s a better way to live, I think, than to be doom and gloomy,” he laughs. For him, sharing his art in as many public venues as possible is “not fixing the world, but hopefully it’s creating a more layered discussion” with more voices like his, he says. “I’m never writing anything off—it is always a ‘maybe’ in the future.”

ESAA Talks About Art
How to Have Fun at Your Next Gallery Visit
June 28, 2023|Abstraction, Art World, Colorful, Medieval art, Paintings, Representation, Sculpture, Storytelling, Tapestry, Textile work, Work of art

By Abby Kane, Selina Yang, and Melissa Bieksha for Elizabeth Sadoff Art Advisory

Review of Hoesy Corona | Climatic Shocks at Praxis

(closes August 25, 2023)

How should a non-professional in the art world approach viewing works in gallery spaces? Join us as we explain why there is no right answer to that question through our varying experiences at Praxis New York.

Something that we like to do when we go into a new art space and look at new work is to ask ourselves these three questions:

Do I recognize any work?
Familiarity can be a comfort when you are in spaces with which you are not acquainted. If you see a work by an artist that you recognize, you may come to feel less out of place.

When I approach one work vs another: what makes me attracted to that piece?
What visual elements are you drawn to -- specific colors, shapes, or textures? Abstraction vs. representation? In the past, have you found yourself more attracted to sculpture than painting? Do you often like to see red versus yellow in pieces, for example?

When standing in front of a work of art, does this remind me of anything?
Making your own personal connections to a work of art is what makes art so great! You could see a shape that reminds you of a shirt your nasty 2nd-grade teacher always wore, while another person will be reminded of the flowers that grow on the side of their house! Interpreting art is all up to your individual experiences.

Abby’s Approach

After I asked myself these questions at Praxis, I felt more comfortable getting up close and personal with the artwork. These beautiful, colorful, shiny pieces caught my eye from across the street, so being right in front of them made them appear even more vibrant! The silhouettes and figures overlaid on the ponchos immediately reminded me of Kara Walker, so that answered question 1 for me.

Next, I found myself drawn to the sculpture works in the middle of the gallery space. I discovered that the juxtaposition of the stark white sculpture and the extremely vibrant poncho works was something that attracted me. It felt like a “break” for my eyes in a way. While the shiny, light-weight poncho works hung delicately on the wall, the solid-looking sculptures felt more grounding, and that made me feel more relaxed.

There’s question 2!
Once I saw Corona’s textile work hanging from the ceiling, I was immediately reminded of my mother and her personal quilting projects that she has been knitting away at for years and years. It reinforced my love for textile works and answered question 3!

Before looking at the press release for this show, I came to this conclusion about Climatic Changes; this show appears to be shining a light on how storytelling is an integral part of many cultures, and how art in general is a perfect vessel to carry out storytelling from all different perspectives.

Selina’s Approach

A glass wall welcomes in the natural light, turning Hoesy Corona’s holographic works into prisms. Rainbows dance along the surface of Corona’s vinyl ponchos, so that the negative space where shapes of travelers, families, and landscapes are cut out form shadows against the wall. With this incorporation of light, as I moved through the gallery, the figures almost appeared to dance out the story of migration, families, and interaction with the environment. With panels and panels of ponchos lining the walls, inadvertently, the gallery becomes a shadow puppet epic.

I note the use of form throughout Corona’s works. Namely, it is my first time seeing ponchos used as the medium for visual storytelling. This choice of clothing was not made to be wearable, as it would distort the image that was designed to be splayed open.

But the stories depicted serve the same function as a real poncho: to keep (a soul) warm, and cocoon a person. While my mind resided on the ponchos because of their radiating positivity, there were other objects in the gallery that continued the theme of using household objects for visual storytelling.

An elaborate tapestry reminded me of the tormented figures of Francisco Goya. Stark white vases where human heads are conjoined with sprouting flowers. If Corona’s thesis was that histories can be found in any object, what these choices in the medium do is make that thesis more literal, inscribing the history of an object directly onto it.

Melissa’s Approach

When entering a new gallery I sometimes find it intimidating. I love a welcoming gallery. We stumbled into Praxis because its door was open and its walls were filled with shiny objects. My immediate reaction to Hoesy Corona’s Climatic Shocks pieces was to be thrilled by the gleaming use of color. Along the walls are many decorated ponchos with scenes of travelers and backpackers trekking through and alongside grassy riverbanks filled with florals.

My initial reaction, however, was to not see them as ponchos, but rather as a plastic-y reflective modification of coat of arms banners (because of their shape and floral decoration), which made me think of the Medieval Art period.

This idea was encouraged by Corona’s tapestry pieces. The tapestry is an iconographic symbol of Medieval times. It's interesting that Corona chose textile work that has been embedded in history for centuries. Even the choice of ponchos (which is the real medium) is historic with its origins dating back to BCE.

In Climatic Shocks multi-colored silhouettes migrate through grassy fields of flowers that are bright purple, pink, blue, and yellow. You can see how color is such an important element here. It grabs our attention not only to look at the artworks but to recognize the struggle its contents are going through.

The theme of migration is evident here as the silhouettes transverse through nature scenes. Their everlasting travels reflect how humans have always been moving and will continue to seek improvement in their surroundings and environment. The choice of textiles as medium, such as the tapestry and poncho, bolster this historic theme.

The best part about visiting new galleries is getting to see refreshing artists and then interpreting for yourself the reaction this elicits. As someone with art history knowledge, I always jump into the historical context.

Yet, I love to see not only the artist’s own meaning but other visitors' as well. And while it can seem intimidating, everyone thinks and reflects differently which adds to the experience of witnessing art being so fun!

What did the Press Release actually say?
The press release made by Praxis specifically states the history of human migration and “...the archetype of the Traveler…” and how it is all connected to the damage humans have inflicted on the environment. This exhibition highlights the urgency of the environmental-based displacement of people and how humans, who were once very much connected to nature, “...have almost completely strayed away from it.”

The Star

Artist Hoesy Corona brings performance art to Adkins
Angela Price May 3, 2023

RIDGELY — In pieces spanning sculpture, textiles and performance, Baltimore-based artist Hoesy Corona creates and curates art that quietly confronts some of the most pressing issues of our time. On Sunday, May 7, Corona will present "Terrestrial Caravan," a work of site-specific performance art that explores the complex relationship between humans and the environment, at Adkins Arboretum. The free event runs from 1 to 3 p.m. All are invited to attend.

Presented in dialogue with Corona’s "Terrestrial Caravan" exhibition on view through August at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, the performance is part of the ongoing performance "Climate Immigrants (2017–present)," which both reflects the artist’s ruminations on climate-related displacement and highlights our connection to nature and the fragility of our settled experience. Using the archetype of the traveler, Corona tackles the reality of the human aspect of climate change while simultaneously drawing attention to the powers of nature and celebrating the lushness and vibrancy of flora, bodies of water and geographic forms.

Implicating ideas of land, borders and environmental displacement in the face of fires, changing climate patterns and rising waters, performers wear Corona’s Climate Ponchos — colorful full-body suits that hide their identities while making them hyper visible. While the form of the Climate Ponchos recalls a simple rain poncho, the wearable sculptures’ dynamic patterns tell colorful stories of migration and history, depicting mundane scenes of mothers and other travelers on their journeys and ultimately humanizing the anonymous silhouettes on the ponchos and on the Arboretum grounds.

Corona lived in Mexico, Utah and Wisconsin before moving to Baltimore in 2005 to establish a professional practice in the arts. He develops otherworldly narratives that center marginalized individuals in society by exploring a process-based practice that investigates what it means to be a queer Latinx immigrant in a place where there are few. He has exhibited widely in galleries, museums and public spaces in the U.S. and internationally, including at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Corona is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Nicholson Project artist residency, the Mellon Foundation’s MAP Fund Grant and the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Grit Fund Grant. He is a current resident artist at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore.

"Terrestrial Caravan" is presented in partnership with the Academy Art Museum. While the performance is free, advance registration at adkinsarboretum.org or by calling 410-634-2847 is appreciated to help with planning. In the event of rain, the performance will be rescheduled for 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 14.

La Voz Latina

La Voz Latina 2/17/2023

Exposition at STAMP Gallery features work of queer Latinx artist
By: Gabriela Tomasi da Silva

The Unfold Exposition at STAMP Gallery features the work of the Queer Latinx artist Hoesy Corona.

By exploring the different magnitudes of garments as a means of expression, the exposition invites the audience to reflect on clothing’s power to influence the binaries of human existence.

The multidisciplinary artist Hoesy Corona discovered art as a means of expression as a kid when they used drawing to understand their surroundings as they moved from Mexico to the United States.

Gifted from an early age, the artist recalls that teachers would point out their artistic inclinations; but it wasn’t until transferring to a private school during their first year of high school that Corona started to see the possibility of pursuing art as a career.

After deciding to become a professional artist, Corona strove to get a college education while working full time, often having to adapt their artwork to time restrictions. Despite the challenges, Corona didn’t compromise the effort and thoughtfulness behind the projects.

Inspired by Mexican culture, the artist has intuitively allowed bold color to become a highlight in their work. However, Corona’s Mexican heritage hasn’t always been celebrated in the artistic field.

The artist recalls their first experience with discrimination when using elements of Latin culture in their art. One of their college professors commented on their work being “Mexican” in a depreciative tone as if associating the elements with poor quality and distastefulness.

Corona recalled viewing the hateful comment as an opportunity to resignify the way his heritage was perceived. “Do you mean sophisticated and well done?” they replied.

Their Latin roots have also become a barrier in navigating the art field in the United States as Corona faced the challenge of honoring culture through artwork while also being an American artist.

The artist emphasized the harmful tendency of grouping Latin artists together and mentioned the increase in American artists using the term Latinx. The term allows U.S based artists to show their ties with Latin culture while not being excluded from the American category.

This distinction is relevant because it helps artists fight the tendency of being placed in the in-between space, which prevents them from fully being a part of the art scene in the United States.

“Latinos in the United States have always been the immigrant, the other, the foreigner. Even if you are many generations in,” said the artist. “At the end of the day we are American artists,” they added.

Inspired by their identity, Corona’s work explores the interconnectedness of social issues while gently inviting the audience to take a step further in their self-introspection.

In the 2017 Climate Immigrant series, Corona wanted to problematize notions surrounding immigration and climate change by focusing on how they interconnect.

In this series, the climate immigrants wear climate ponchos, defined by the artists as wearable sculptures that also exist in gallery settings as objects.

“The ponchos signify the concepts of living in relationship to nature and also having to protect ourselves from it,” said Corona.

This notion of wearable art is what connected Corona’s project to the Unfold Exposition.

The themes presented in the art pieces include the active displacement of people by natural situations, which affects the immigrant community’s definition of who they are as a community.

Additionally, in covering the performers’ faces, the viewer is reminded of the dehumanization of immigrants.

These aspects allow for open interpretation from the viewer inviting them to review their beliefs on immigration.

The UMD art history student Isabella Chilcoat appreciates the statement behind Hoesy’s art pieces.

“I think it’s great that Hoesy can connect those intersecting issues and bring them to the forefront with something that visually entices people and makes them want to talk about it,” said Chilcoat.

Corona has a busy year ahead as an artist. They plan to continue to invite viewers toward self-reflection through his upcoming projects.

Coming soon, in May, the artist will do a performance at Adkins Arboretum, which will include a selected pathway with performers carrying suitcases and bodysuits along the way, with audience members able to join the caravan.

Now, students can enjoy Corona’s artwork and engage in thoughtful conversations about clothing’s power to shape our reality by visiting the Unfold Exposition at STAMP Gallery. The exposition is free and open to the public until April 30, 2023.

The Diamondback

‘UNFOLD,’ new Stamp gallery, explores connection to clothes and textiles
Katharine Wilson
·
2/13/2023

“UNFOLD,” a new exhibit at the University of Maryland Stamp Student Union Gallery, explores people’s connection to clothing and textiles.

The show includes the work of four artists in the Washington metro area. The Stamp Gallery exhibits contemporary art from emerging to mid-career artists. The exhibit opened Jan. 30 and closes April 1.

Maura Callahan, an art history doctoral student, is the curator of “UNFOLD” and the graduate assistant for the gallery. As she began to piece the show together, Callahan said she viewed the collection as having four categories that describe different purposes or ways to frame clothing: gender, state, environment and labor.

“We usually think of clothing as primarily utilitarian or expressive of personal identity,” Callahan said. “There are many other dimensions of clothing and the way that it sort of operates in our lives and how we relate to each other as people, how we relate to our environments, to our political and social world.”

Here’s a look at the artists featured.

Elliot Doughtie

Elliot Doughtie’s work represents gender. His pieces use classic men’s socks, plastered to make them stiff, to represent the failure of fitting into gender norms. Doughtie grew up in Dallas, Texas, surrounded by “macho” culture — he didn’t feel like he fit in.

“I make these floppy objects hard and stacked on each other … because they defy what they are supposed to be in a way that’s supposed to be a metaphor for gender defying or the failure of prescribed gender,” Doughtie said.

Mojdeh Rezaeipour

Mojdeh Rezaeipour’s work represents how governments can control and define clothing. She is an Iranian-born artist whose pieces document the ongoing protests and uprising in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing a hijab in September 2022.

Rezaeipour is working to make their studio act as an analog newsroom of images coming out of Iran.

“Some of my most formative experiences were colored with these systemic experiences of fascism and gender apartheid,” Rezaeipour said. “As people have been resisting the overt oppression of [the Iranian] government, it’s always really spoken to me.”

For “UNFOLD,” she painted images of women holding their hijabs off of their heads and existing during the ongoing revolution on wooden canvases.

“It’s so much bigger than clothing, it is not just about mandatory hijab,” Callahan said about the movement. “Now, it’s about taking down this government altogether.”

Hoesy Corona

Hoesy Corona’s work tackles the environment and immigration through his “climate ponchos.” The artist paints scenes of figures immigrating over nature scenes to describe how climate change is turning people into immigrants around the world.

In the U.S., there is a lot of xenophobia directed toward certain immigrant groups but not all immigrants, Corona explained. He wanted to implicate as many groups of people as possible in his work. Incorporating climate change elements was their way to accomplish this.

Corona’s work features people traversing across land, with either solid bright colored or camouflage-patterned bodies, carrying suitcases and other possessions.

“We don’t know who they are, we don’t know their identities, we don’t know their intentions,” Corona said, “That stuff visually hints at the ways in which we weaponize dehumanization, to hurt other people.”

He made his art on ponchos because they can represent protection from the harsh, changing climate. The ponchos were created for his upcoming performance art showcases.

H.H. Hiaasen

H.H. Hiaasen, whose work represents how clothes represent labor, cuts gridded holes into traditional protective gear to create an anti-uniform. The garments used include coveralls, gloves and eye masks.

When Hiaasen moved to New York, they experienced a culture shock of the city’s grind culture.

“The first thing they ask is, ‘what do you do?’” Hiassen said. “It’s just a city that is constantly working … it just feels like you’re part of a huge mass production kind of grind culture all the time.”

Hiaasen said they felt they had no emotional connection to what they were doing. They then had the idea to cut the gridded holes into coveralls and began wearing them to work. Now, Hiaasen sells the garments — this gallery is the first time their garments have been displayed in many years.

The clothing also represents a “queer uniform” to Hiaasen.

“To me, the cut suit, like making mesh out of a work item … feels very queer, inherently,” Hiaasen said.

The gallery is free and open to the public on the first floor of Stamp Student Union.

UMD Maryland Today

Artist Hoesy Corona's "Climate Poncho," right, is part of the Stamp Gallery's new "Unfold" exhibit, which explores the political, cultural, environmental and religious implications of clothing.

Photos by Stephanie S. Cordle

ARTS & CULTURE
Dress Code: Tube Socks and Cut-Out Jumpsuits
Stamp Gallery Exhibit Explores Clothing’s Possibilities

By Sala Levin ’10 Feb 10, 2023

If every jumbled pile of socks were a work of art, parents worldwide would preserve their teenagers’ clothing-strewn rooms as if they had a Picasso on their hands. But in a new exhibit in the University of Maryland’s Stamp Gallery, socks take center stage—only they’re plaster, not cotton.

“Unfold,” which opened last month and has its opening reception tonight, examines what clothing can be beyond a functional—or even purely decorative—garment. The show’s ponchos, ventilated jumpsuits and scenes of protest explore how clothing can make statements on politics, religion, personal identity, climate change and more.

For Baltimore-based artist Elliot Doughtie, the unassuming tube sock, in all its red-striped blandness, is an avenue to unpack how clothing informs gender norms. In “Group Activity,” a drawing on paper, the mountain formed by dozens of the traditionally masculine socks “touches on the idea of gender performance as something that is enacted through repetition,” said Maura Callahan, a Ph.D. student in art history who curated the exhibit.

Hanging next to “Group Activity,” “Solo” depicts a sad, solitary sock, maybe one that vanished in the washing machine. Without the reinforcement of its army of other socks, this one seems weak and pathetic—everything a man isn’t supposed to be. On the floor beside the drawings, three structures appear to be heaps of socks, but are made entirely of plaster and weigh up to 80 pounds.

Along one wall, a series of small mixed-media pieces on wood focuses on the ongoing women’s revolution in Iran, sparked by the September murder of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, who was arrested and beaten by the country’s so-called “morality police.” Her alleged crime? Not wearing her hijab in accordance with Iranian laws. Amini died three days later as a result of her injuries.

Mojdeh Rezaeipour, an Iranian-born artist now living in Washington, D.C., was inspired by the incident and by the uprising that has followed, led by women protesting their repressive government. The pieces on display in “Unfold,” all untitled, are based on real photographs and are transposed onto wood. “I love that they're so small, because these are really monumental acts that we're seeing happen, but they're actually much smaller pieces in a far larger picture,” said Callahan.

Climate change is another theme in the exhibit. Baltimore-based artist Hoesy Corona’s “Climate Ponchos,” made of vinyl, silk jersey and faux leather, are printed with images of people escaping climate disasters. “The most fundamental purpose of clothing is to mediate contact between our bodies and the environment,” said Callahan. “That environment is now rapidly and dramatically changing, so Hoesy's work encourages us to think more deeply about the space in between ourselves and our surroundings that clothing inhabits, especially for those who have been forced to leave home."

The utility of clothing is also a question that interests HH Hiaasen, a Richmond, Va.,-area artist. For several years, Hiaasen has been creating what they call “ventilated clothing,” or clothing with lots of cut-outs. A jumpsuit, gloves, safety goggles and even a punctured N95 mask are all on display in “Unfold.”

“It kind of engages this idea of the relationship between labor and vulnerability, because these are all things that you would wear doing manual labor, but they're completely useless because they're filled with holes,” said Callahan.

Well, maybe not completely useless. Hiassen has sold many of the jumpsuits as ready-to-wear items. So, are they meant to be worn solo or with a bodysuit underneath? “It’s up to you,” said Callahan.

"Hoesy Corona, Wabash spring Artist-In-Residence, kicked off the semester with the opening of his collection "All Roads Lead to Roam" last Thursday. His pieces center around a suitcase-wielding wanderer, traversing the earth, prompting audiences to ponder the relationship between mankind and Mother Earth as climate change continually changes the world around us."

East City Arts

Journal Review

For the Journal Review
Wabash College announced that Hoesy Corona will serve as the campus artist-in-residence for the spring semester. Corona will open an installation of his work, “All Roads Lead to Roam,” on Thursday in the Fine Arts Center.

As part of the opening, Corona will host an artist’s talk at noon Thursday in the Korb Classroom. The opening reception will take place in the Eric Dean Gallery that afternoon from 4:30-6 p.m. The installation runs through April 7.

The featured work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. By using a traveler, who is seen holding suitcases and voyaging through a wide array of landscapes towards a better place, Corona tackles the reality of the human aspect of climate change while celebrating the lushness and vibrancy of flora, bodies of water, and geographic forms, and bringing attention to the abundant powers of nature.

Corona’s installation also features his Climate Ponchos, which double as wearable sculptures. The intricate ponchos are cut from industrial, weatherproof vinyl or furnishing fabric materials and finished with leather cording woven through the edges. While their form recalls a simple rain poncho, the dynamic patterns on them tell colorful stories of migration and history depicting mundane scenes of mothers and other travelers on their journeys, ultimately humanizing the anonymous silhouettes.

“This is the latest iteration of my ongoing series ‘Climate Immigrants’, a timely installation and poetic performance that considers the impending plight of climate-induced global migration and its effects on all of us,” Corona said. “These performances were designed for the camera and include digital collages printed on a variety of fabrics.”

Corona, who has been exploring climate migration in his work over the last decade, lived in Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin before moving to Baltimore, Maryland, in 2005 to establish a professional practice in the arts. He was a 2019 and 2020 GKFF Artist Fellow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a former Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow (2017-18) and a Nicholson Project Artist in Washington, D.C. Most recently, he was named the 2022-23 Winston Tabb Special Collections Public Research Fellow at John Hopkins University.

While in residence, Corona will engage with the community through school visits and gallery tours for local organizations. He is also co-teaching a course to Wabash students on socially engaged art. The Eric Dean Gallery will host a weekend community event at a later date.

“During my tenure as the inaugural Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist-In-Residence, I am most excited to work with students in devising creative and unexpected artistic interventions that may help bridge the Wabash and Crawfordsville communities, while laying the groundwork for the success of future artists-in-residence,” Corona said.

The Eric Dean Gallery at Wabash College is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Wabash College Press Release

Hoesy Corona, Artist-in-Residence, Opens Show
by Richard Paige • January 20, 2023


Wabash College announced that Hoesy Corona will serve as the campus Artist-in-Residence for the spring semester. Corona will open an installation of his work, “All Roads Lead to Roam,” on Thursday, Jan. 26, in the Fine Arts Center.

As part of the opening, Corona will host an artist’s talk at noon on Jan. 26 in the Korb Classroom. The Opening Reception will take place in the Eric Dean Gallery that afternoon from 4:30-6 p.m. EST. The installation runs through April 7.

The featured work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. By using a traveler, who is seen holding suitcases and voyaging through a wide array of landscapes towards a better place, Corona tackles the reality of the human aspect of climate change while celebrating the lushness and vibrancy of flora, bodies of water, and geographic forms, and bringing attention to the abundant powers of nature.

Corona’s installation also features his Climate Ponchos, which double as wearable sculptures. The intricate ponchos are cut from industrial, weatherproof vinyl or furnishing fabric materials and finished with leather cording woven through the edges. While their form recalls a simple rain poncho, the dynamic patterns on them tell colorful stories of migration and history depicting mundane scenes of mothers and other travelers on their journeys, ultimately humanizing the anonymous silhouettes.

“This is the latest iteration of my ongoing series ‘Climate Immigrants’, a timely installation and poetic performance that considers the impending plight of climate-induced global migration and its effects on all of us,” said Corona. “These performances were designed for the camera and include digital collages printed on a variety of fabrics.”

Corona, who has been exploring climate migration in his work over the last decade, lived in Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin before moving to Baltimore, Maryland, in 2005 to establish a professional practice in the arts. He was a The installation opens Thursday, Jan. 26, in the Fine Arts Center. The installation opens Thursday, Jan. 26, in the Fine Arts Center. 2019 and 2020 GKFF Artist Fellow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a former Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow (2017-18) and a Nicholson Project Artist in Washington, D.C. Most recently, he was named the 2022-23 Winston Tabb Special Collections Public Research Fellow at John Hopkins University.

While in residence, Corona will engage with the community through school visits and gallery tours for local organizations. He is also co-teaching a course to Wabash students on socially engaged art. The Eric Dean Gallery will host a weekend community event at a later date.

“During my tenure as the inaugural Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist-In-Residence, I am most excited to work with students in devising creative and unexpected artistic interventions that may help bridge the Wabash and Crawfordsville communities, while laying the groundwork for the success of future artists-in-residence,” Corona said.

The Eric Dean Gallery at Wabash College is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

JHU Announcement

ANNOUNCING THE TABB CENTER PUBLIC HUMANITIES FELLOWS

POSTED ON NOVEMBER 17, 2022 BY JOSEPH PLASTER

The Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce its inaugural 2022/23 Public Humanities Fellows: Hoesy Corona and Nicoletta Darita de la Brown.

Fellows are non-institutionally affiliated organizers, artists, cultural workers, and knowledge-creators who mobilize and creatively interpret materials from the Sheridan Libraries’ rare book, manuscript, and archival collections over the course of a yearlong residency.

Nicoletta Darita de la Brown is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist and chamána (shaman) who comes from a long line of healers. She is Black Latinx; proud to be a first-generation Panamanian born in the United States. Her performances have been staged at The Phillips Collection, Washington DC; The Smithsonian, Washington DC; and The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore MD. Her video and installations have been presented at The Tribeca Film Festival, New York, NY; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore MD; IA&A at Hillyer Gallery, Washington DC; and Cardinal Gallery, Baltimore MD. As a Public Humanities Fellow, de la Brown will explore and respond to Special Collections materials that center black women, through video artwork, self-portrait photography, and site-specific performance art. During her archival research she will ask a variety of questions: “How many black women are living in the archives? How many black women are hidden in plain sight? What happens to us when we are invisible? How can I feel seen as a black woman?” This project celebrates back women out loud, on purpose, and unapologetically.

Hoesy Corona is a Queer Latinx artist creating uncategorized and multidisciplinary art spanning installation, performance, and podcasting. He is the founding co-director of Labbodies (2014-2020), a performance art laboratory focused on creating opportunities for under-recognized queer and women artists of color, and is founding co-host of La Valentina Podcast. Corona has been a Tulsa Artist Fellow in Tulsa, OK; a Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist in Residence at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN; and a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow in Washington, DC. They are the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Grit Fund Grant. Their latest installation, Terrestrial Caravan (2022), is on view at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD through Fall 2023.

As a Public Humanities Fellow, Corona will conduct oral histories with Latinx artists and thinkers in the DMV area and archive them at the Sheridan Libraries, establish a collection that reflects Baltimore’s Latinx presence at a pivotal moment of its growth. Additionally, Corona will develop a culminating exhibition that mobilizes and remixes queer and Latinx texts and rare books from Special Collections.

Baltimore based Queer Latinx multidiciplinary artist Hoesy Corona has been named the inaugural Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist in Residence 2023 at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN.

During his residence Hoesy will present a solo exhibition titled All Roads Lead to Roam in the Eric Dean Galleries.

Washington Post

Washington Post article dives into the history of The Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD where Hoesy Corona currently has a year long commission on view.

"...Lelic, who grew up in Istanbul and is an accomplished photographer, says it’s paramount to support area artists who serve their community — among them Baltimore-based Hoesy Corona, who created a commissioned piece that hangs in the museum’s light-filled atrium. Corona’s piece alludes to both climate change and immigration; for me, it recalled Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration” series, 60 paintings depicting the journeys of millions of Black Americans who left the Jim Crow South in search of better lives elsewhere. ..."

Academy Art Museum

Hoesy Corona: Terrestrial Caravan
Sep 24, 2022 - Aug 31, 2023

Opening Reception: Friday, September 23, 5:30 pm

Hoesy Corona’s work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. Using the archetype of the traveler, who is seen holding suitcases and voyaging through a wide array of landscapes towards a better place, Corona tackles the reality of the human aspect of climate change while celebrating the lushness and vibrancy of flora, bodies of water, and geographic forms, and bringing attention to the multitudinous powers of nature.

The artist will transform the Museum’s Saul Atrium Galleries by creating site-specific vignettes that each picture a character journeying from a land made uninhabitable by global warming. The immersive, large-scale installation will also feature Corona’s Climate Ponchos, which double as wearable sculptures: while their form recalls a simple rain poncho, the dynamic patterns on them tell stories of migration and history.

The 2022-2023 Atrium Commission is generously supported by Donna and Jim Alpi, Carol Gordean, Joseph and Alzbetka Robillard, and Mary Ann Schindler.

The Washington Post

Art

Artist Hoesy Corona grapples with big ideas: climate change, the migrant crisis and inequality

Three concurrent area shows spotlight the work of the interdisciplinary Baltimore artist.

By Kriston Capps
Today at 10:00 a.m. EST 2/24/2022

To find Hoesy Corona’s artwork, prepare for a journey.

Seeing all three solo shows that are on view by the Baltimore-based artist takes a trek across the DMV, from a garden in Fairlawn to a museum in Foxhall to a garage in Arlington.

In pieces spanning textiles, sculpture and performance, Corona imagines wanderers who travel drawn-out distances toward uncertain destinations. His art is all about journeys, so it’s fitting that his work is scattered across the city. It takes three spaces for his broader project to unfold: a message about climate, identity and status, dressed up in a fauvist fantasia of color.

Start at the Nicholson Project, a community garden and gallery located east of the Anacostia River in D.C.’s Ward 7. The juxtaposition between color and content is the first thing that will grab viewers in the artist’s work. Bright tapestries along the windows showcase scenes from performances staged by the artist. In these images, elegant figures dressed in head-to-toe onesies and allover masks wear flowing wigs of flowers. Corona’s characters could be runway models for the French luxury house Margiela. Yet they’re saddled with carry-ons, duffels and trash bags, as if they’ve packed everything they own on their backs.

Corona developed much of the work on view across his suite of solos as an artist-in-residence at the nonprofit Nicholson Project in the fall of 2021. The result, “Wayfaring,” includes tapestries, as well as vinyl ponchos, plus ceramic-like sculpted objects. The migrants on his textiles face away from the viewer, staring out at walls and over rivers — borders both natural and man-made.

The artist, who identifies as queer, is of Mexican descent; folkloric motifs appear in his tapestries and ponchos. While the compositions on Corona’s “climate ponchos” especially might remind viewers of Matisse’s cutouts, they point (also) to Mexican crafts and graphic arts, even as his materials defy the traditions he references.

“Wayfaring” is a companion exhibit to “Weathering,” on view across town — geographically and socioeconomically — at the Kreeger Museum. Here, Corona’s work occupies what used to be the museum director’s office, repurposed during lockdown as a space for showcasing local artists and curators. A DIY garden in disadvantaged Fairlawn and a Philip Johnson — designed gem in tony Foxhall: The venues couldn’t be more dissimilar.

Corona uses this contrast to his advantage. At the Kreeger, his vase-like sculpted heads are the focus. “Plant People,” as they are known, depict environmental stewards in Corona’s fictional mythos. In another context, these heads might honor drag queens or ceremonial totems. Framed in pride of place by a window looking out over the museum grounds, they offer a clever comment on the way institutions absorb cultural artifacts, at times divorcing them from their context or message.

Corona has it both ways with his work: His ponchos depict scenes of migration and deprivation forced by climate change, for example, while the synthetic plastics he uses to make them indicate the industrial drivers of global warming. If he’s indicting capitalism, he’s charging himself along with it.

The artist’s third solo show adds another layer to his critique: fashion. At Friends Artspace, an art and design gallery in a custom-built garage-style space in Northern Virginia, Corona’s work is presented as collectible couture. A site-specific artwork on the garage door gives the room a pop-up feel. Archival-quality works such as “Wayfaring with Child” and “Moon Rest” (both 2021-2022) really feel like design objects here. In this white cube — style presentation, Corona’s reflections on the poor and dispossessed look ready for a jog down to the Art Basel art fair in Miami Beach.

The pieces in Friends Artspace’s “Earth Mother Bloom” resemble those at the Nicholson Project and the Kreeger, but each show has its own distinct sensibility. In an elliptical sense, these parallel views come together as a meta-exhibition about the relationship between art and commerce. The full life cycle of artistic production as it progresses from local craft to cultural artifact to commercial commodity is available.

The internal tensions in Corona’s work never fully resolve over these three shows. How could they? He’s grappling with big ideas, like the disparate impact of climate change, migrant movements spurred by inequality and competing impulses to promote and protect craft traditions.

And while there is some span in the quality of execution across these works, Corona is both prolific and consistent. In one of his prototype climate ponchos at the Nicholson Project, a figure in a purple outfit laden with baggage stares at a fire in the distance. It could be Corona, making his way by walking.


If you go:

Weathering
Kreeger Museum, 2401 Foxhall Rd. NW. 202-337-3050. kreegermuseum.org.

Dates: Through March 19.

Prices: $10 suggested donation; $8 for students, seniors and military personnel. Timed-entry passes required.

Wayfaring
The Nicholson Project 2310 Nicholson St. SE. thenicholsonproject.org.

Dates: Through March 12, by appointment.

Prices: Free.

Earth Mother Bloom
Friends Artspace. 2400 North Edgewood St., Arlington. friendsartspace.com.

Dates: Through March 12, by appointment.

Prices: Free.

Biz Journal

Hoesy Corona feature artist year long commission at The Baltimore Community Foundation.

Grit Fund Grant
La Valentina Podcast

Congratulations to all the Andy Warhol Foundation's Grit Fund Grant Recipients!

-Latin(X)equis | Baltimore, $5,000- Hoesy Corona and Stephanie Mercedes
-Baltimore Indians, $10,000- Ashley Minner, Tiffany Chavis, Stanton Lewis, Katie Lively, Dare Turner and Sean Scheidt
-Invisible Folx, $8,000- Ephraim Nehemiah, Kairo Miles, Kenneth Something, and Jabari Lyles
-Puppets, Masks, and Crankies: Shifting the Story, $7,000- Sheila Gaskins, Tara Cariaso, and Maura Dwyer
-PalatePALETTE, $7,000- Krystal C. Mack, Matt Freire, Sharea Harris, Émile Joseph Weeks, and Erin Nutsugah
-Community Weaving Studio, $7,000- Ọmọlará Williams McCallister and Najee Haynes Follins
-Funktopia Nation, $6,000- Petula Caesar, Jonathan Gilmore, Stevanie Williams, Jermeka Warren, Ben Pierce, Myles Gilmore, Phil Thomas, Mary Ellen Mink, Stephanie Edwards aka “Safiyatou.” Tamika Peters, and Chris Ashworth
-What The Water Gave Me/Things My Mother Taught Me, $5,000- Alexis Araminta Renee, Kirby Griffin, Nia Hampton, and Alexis Renee
-TERRA: LAND + BODY COLLECTIVE, $5,000- Jonna McKone, Se Jong Cho, and Elena DeBold
-HellBond: Dancing with the Spirits, $5,000- Jia Le Ling and Michael Young

Stay tuned for in depth descriptions of the projects and how you can engage with all that they have to offer over the next year.

The American Scholar

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
Hoesy Corona
Vestiges of Climate Migration

By Noelani Kirschner | March 21, 2022

Hoesy Corona wants us to think about the intersection between the climate crisis and immigration by challenging our bias about both topics. In his ongoing series, Climate Immigrants (2017–present), the Baltimore-based artist uses a combination of sculpture, performance art, and painting to evoke a colorful, choreographed dreamscape grounded in the experiences of migrants—at the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere. Part of the series, Climate Ponchos, was recently on view at Friends Art Space in Arlington, Virginia, where waterproof vinyl garments—which Corona calls “wearable sculptures that hint at notions of home, travel, and protection”—lined the walls. “They function almost as a warning to our current unhealthy relationship and exploitation of the earth,” he says.

Corona’s background as a painter shines through in his Climate Ponchos, each a testament not only to his deftness with multimedia works but his ability to render complex topics into an inviting and vibrant object. The ponchos are made from waterproof vinyl and depict people as they walk through lush landscapes carrying suitcases or bags, which remind us of the decisions migrants must take before setting off thousands of miles in search of a new life. Despite the gravity of the scenes Corona portrays, his ponchos are cheery and bright. “I am drawn to the bold use of colors to contrast the more sinister aspects in the work,” he says. Whether or not audiences see Climate Ponchos in performance or in a state of stillness, Corona hopes “that we begin to expand our understanding of our shared, if brief, moment on this earth and our relationship to and treatment of one another.”

Artist Hoesy Corona Grapples with big ideas: climate change, the migrant crisis and inequality

Washington City Paper

ARTS

Ponchos Become Colorful Canvases in Earth Mother Bloom
Queer Mexican-American artist Hoesy Corona depicts families in migration in his latest exhibit at Arlington’s Friends Artspace.

by ANUPMA SAHAY
MARCH 7TH, 2022

Earth Mother Bloom at Friends Artspace
Hoesy Corona is used to migration—he is of Mexican descent, and moved to Baltimore after living in Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin. The experience of moving around so much seeps into Corona’s media installations and storytelling. The queer artist centers and promotes nomadic forms of art in his work to confront the issues that come with migration and seeking refuge. In Earth Mother Bloom, Corona presents scenic, eye-catching ponchos painted with mothers and other migrants as they journey to find a home. The pieces are pops of color along the walls of the brightly lit Friends Artspace exhibition hall in Arlington. The newly designed venue provides a 360-degree experience—Corona’s designs animate the entire space. Constructed from waterproof vinyl and bordered with leather cording, the ponchos could be worn on the body, invoking a sense of security and protection so many wish for as they make perilous journeys across the world. In the painted scenes, migrants traverse nature as they seek a home. “Each poncho is a wish and a prayer for safety and flourishing,” Corona notes in his artist’s statement. His ponchos also cast light on the climate crisis, his queerness, and isolation. Taken alone, each of these themes still relate to trying to find home, safety, and belonging. In Corona’s creations, they intersect with the experience of literally being displaced from home, and being forced to look for one elsewhere. “My hope is to create otherworldly, colorful manifestations that seduce and draw in the audience closer to the work, while challenging their preconceived notions,” Corona artist’s statement continues.

Earth Mother Bloom is on display through March 12 at Friends Artspace, 2400 N. Edgewood St., Arlington. friendsartspace.com. Free. By appointment.

Washington City Paper

Hoesy Corona: Wayfaring
by LAURA IRENE

Mixed-media artist Hoesy Corona spent 2021 as the artist in residence at the Nicholson Project in Southeast D.C. Now his latest works—large-scale fabric prints and sculptures—are on display in the project’s solo exhibit, Wayfaring. A queer, Latinx artist of Mexican decent, Corona is known for creating “otherworldly narratives” centering marginalized peoples, according to his biography. Wayfaring keeps with this theme by focusing on anonymous people attempting to cross man-made borders, alluding to unknown threats and climate crises. As the Nicholson Project notes, viewers are asked to play the role of voyeur in Corona’s exhibit that manages to be colorful and shiny, despite its unsettled subject matter. Nestled in the glittering light, viewers see implications of the journeys many immigrants continue to face. It’s a stark reality, but displayed in compelling colors, hope is present. In “Through and Through,” a person in a purple suit carries their few belongings facing a small fire in a desolate countryside. The hope comes through in the flowers layered in the flowing hair and in the way the person stands, ready to move forward. Along with Wayfaring, the Baltimore-based artist has a companion exhibit, Weathering, on view currently at the Kreeger Museum. Through March 12, with a closing reception that day, at the Nicholson Project, 2310 Nicholson St. SE. Free.

The Kreeger Museum on View

FRIENDS ARTSPACE
EARTH MOTHER BLOOM
JANUARY 29 - MARCH 12
PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE OPENING: JANUARY 29 10AM-NOON

Friends Artspace is pleased to present Earth Mother Bloom by Mexican-born, Baltimore-based artist Hoesy Corona.

Corona is a Queer, Latinx artist, who has been exploring climate migration and refugees in his work over the last decade.

The intricately overlayed ponchos are cut from industrial, weatherproof vinyl and finished with leather cording woven through the edges. Their colorful scenes depict mothers and other travelers on their journeys. The ponchos have evolved from wearable sculpture and costume ephemera as part of Corona’s performances, into archival art pieces to display as an invocation for hope and protection.They are reminders of the precarious and sometimes perilous idea of home and belonging. Each poncho is a wish and a prayer for safety and flourishing.

The Nicholson Project Gallery

The Nicholson Project is proud to present WAYFARING, a solo exhibition by Hoesy Corona. On view from January 20th through March 12th, 2022, the exhibition will debut new large-scale prints on fabric and a series of mixed media sculptures created during the artist’s residency at The Nicholson Project in 2021. In WAYFARING the audience plays the role of voyeur to unidentified people as they struggle and make their way over, across, and through desolate and imagined environments occupied by lone figures wearing colorful bodysuits, carrying suitcases, and in forward motion. The lone figures are seen crossing both natural and man-made borders against impending waterways, cliffs, edges, and walls that allude to the possibility of an unspecified threat.

WAYFARING considers the artificiality of man-made borders and the need to reconsider how we relate to the earth in the face of manmade natural disasters. The sculptural works are part of a new series entitled The Plant People, a fictitious group of otherworldly humans who see themselves as stewards of the earth. The textile works are part of the series Climate Immigrants (2017-present)— an ongoing performance that expands upon issues of immigration by implicating everyone and not just a select group, addressing one of the most pressing topics of our time: climate-triggered immigration in relation to US-centric xenophobia. WAYFARING continues the artist’s interest in fabulating and remixing mythologies to protest our waged war on nature.

This exhibition is a companion to Corona’s exhibition Weathering, on view at The Kreeger Museum from December 2021 through March 2022.

The Nicholson Project Gallery Website

KREEGER MUSEUM

Guest Artist | Hoesy Corona

We are honored and thrilled to present The Kreeger Museum’s Guest Artist Exhibition Program, in partnership with arts organizations across the city. This program furthers our mission by supporting and spotlighting the immense talent of visual and performing artists in our city.

Weathering | Solo Exhibition
December 2021 - February 2022

In Partnership with The Nicholson Project in Washington, DC.

Creative Alliance

ANNOUNCING OUR NEW RESIDENT ARTISTS!
Nov 23, 2021
We are thrilled to announce our two newest Resident Artists! Hoesy Corona and Melissa Foss join our current residents, MJ Neuberger, Murjoni Merriweather, Lendl Tellington, Charles Mason III, Jason Austin, and Claudia Cappelle. The Creative Alliance Residency Program provides a highly visible, intense, and creative environment for the production of artwork in all media. Attracting artists from around Baltimore and the nation, the program is located at The Patterson, a historic former movie theater converted into a vibrant, community-based art center, with generous workspace, modern facilities, and an atmosphere of ongoing critical feedback.

At street-level in The Corner, we will present the original drawings of Berlin-based graphic novelist and illustrator Lukas Jüliger, alongside the sculpture of Baltimore-based multimedia artist Hoesy Corona. These works are presented in the framework of the project A Window to Europe: Through Literature and Art, spearheaded by the EU National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) cluster of Washington, DC, as well as Plain Sight Gallery.

GOETHE DC

New York Social Diary

"MOTHER DEATH LIFE MAMA" by Hoesy Corona leading the way at the Watermill Center Summer Festival. Photograph by Martyna Szczesna.

The Oklahoman website

Dynamic diversity: 13 must-see highlights of Oklahoma Contemporary's 'ArtNow 2021'
Brandy McDonnell
Oklahoman

From colorful vinyl ponchos that cover climate changes to abstract black-and-white paintings that call to mind the primordial era, Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center's "ArtNow 2021" runs the gamut in more ways than one.

Organized by guest curator Helen Opper, with guest curatorial associate Liz Blood, the first "ArtNow" in Oklahoma Contemporary's new downtown Oklahoma City home features 115 works by 27 Oklahoma artists from across the state.
...
1. Dressing for the climate
In creating colorful "Climate-Ponchos," Hoesy Corona, a Mexican artist who lives in Tulsa, is addressing hot-button issues like climate change and immigration.

"These are actually things that Hoesy sometimes puts on and has a performance in, so they're meant to really be worn. ... It's visually really arresting," said Carina Evangelista, Oklahoma Contemporary's director of curatorial affairs. "These are kind of narrative clothing because they tell stories that immigrants experience."

Since 2016, Corona has dressed performers in the vinyl "Climate-Ponchos" to appear in an ongoing performance, installation and video series about climate-induced global migration and its effects on people of color.

www.thenicholsonproject.org/

The Nicholson Project is thrilled to announce our newly selected Artists-in-Residence! Please join us in congratulating:
\ Hoesy Corona (@hoesycorona)
\ Kokayi (@kokayi)
\ Taylor Johnson (@hoodsnax)
\ Phylicia Ghee (@phyliciaghee)

Each artist will live and work on-site at The Nicholson Project for three months, receive a monthly stipend, and work with a guest curator to develop a project as part of their residency. We would like to extend a sincere thank you to our application review committee: artists and educators Jefferson Pinder (@jeffersonpinder) and Nekisha Durrett (@nekishadurrett), Nicole Dowd (@ndowd09) Head of Cultural Programming at Today at Apple, and our Guest Curator and Executive Director of Dashboard, Oshun Layne (@Dashboard_us).

KTUL 8 ABC Video Link

"Earthly Mirage" is a brand new art exhibition on display now
BY HOESY CORONA
OPEN NOW - OCTOBER 24TH
(CLOSED MONDAYS & TUESDAYS)
AHHA TULSA
101 E. ARCHER ST. Tulsa, OK
WWW.AHHATULSA.ORG

The WaterMill Center

CROSSROADS led by
CARRIE MAE WEEMS & ROBERT WILSON

The Watermill Center is pleased to announce CROSSROADS: The Watermill Center’s Summer Festival, a week-long gathering exploring themes of ritual, healing, faith, and hope, led by Carrie Mae Weems, in collaboration with Robert Wilson. The festival, running from July 31 – August 8, affirms The Center’s dedication to offering artists time, space, and freedom to create while revealing artistic processes to the wider community. CROSSROADS is presented by Van Cleef & Arpels.

FEATURING
Kenyon Adams, Laurie Anderson, Laura Anderson Barbata, Kyle Bass, Hoesy Corona, Marcelle Davies-Lashley, Craig Harris, Nona Hendryx, Vijay Iyer, David Lang & So Percussion, Memorialize the Movement, Kimberly Nichole, Vernon Reid, Carl Hancock Rux, Paul Thek, Basil Twist, Shane Weeks

BMORE ART

Hoesy Corona, 2021 Sondheim Finalist
Through performance and wearable sculpture, Corona examines themes such as othering, fear of death, white supremacy, and the climate crisis

June 16, 2021
Words: Teri Henderson


More than 100 small horned deities, patterned with luminous gold, red, white, and black glazes, sit on a pedestal, stacked and huddled closely together, encased in a tomblike vitrine. In his Sondheim finalist show, Hoesy Corona displays only a fraction of the 300 miniature glazed porcelain talismans from his “Scapegoat Idols” series, which he has been working on since 2017 as a form of devotional practice. I imagined Corona spending quiet moments over years manipulating the material, contemplating and creating.

The elements, rituals, and processes embedded throughout Corona’s gallery space create their own kind of meditative experience. His corner of the Walters Art Museum for the Sondheim Finalists exhibition is otherworldly and special. I forgot about time in this realm but felt anchored by his sculpture, installation, and performance works, which the queer Latinx artist presents as a survey exhibition titled Sunset Moonlight, spanning 10 years of artistic production.

The exhibition includes five mostly ongoing bodies of work: The Nobodies (2010-20); Mother Death Life Mama (2012-present); Scapegoats (2012-present); White Constructions (2015-present); and Climate Immigrants (2017-present). Sunset Moonlight is a sweeping, generous review of Corona’s examination of themes such as othering, fear of death, white supremacy, and the climate crisis, as well as his exploration of identities. It emphasizes his position as a queer Latinx immigrant in the predominantly white spaces that many artists of color inhabit. It is a gentle confrontation through beauty, ritual, and truth.

Each piece selected and displayed within the walls of the Walters—an institution with its own admitted history of othering and white supremacy—reveals the evolution of an artistic practice by a multidimensional creator making multidimensional work. Sunset Moonlight is thorough and full of both visual and textual information: Wall text identifies the themes in each body of work; videos are juxtaposed with wearable-art sculptures composed of artificial flowers, animal skulls, wires, fabric, vinyl, and plastic, which the artist and collaborators have donned in past performances.

There are two wearable sculptures on view from the performance and sculpture series Mother Death Life Mama (2012-present) which considers human mortality and our perilous connection to the Earth. I was drawn to one piece in particular: a carved wooden face painted in acrylic and adorned with a crown in shades of blue. Funeral flowers sprout from her head and cascade down her body like a wave of ritual adornment. She faces the viewer, solemnly standing next to a video where she dances. Animated in her former life, her shell is occupied by the spirit of performance. On her left, she is mirrored by another figure decorated in red; together they are two material and maternal goddesses shepherding us towards the afterlife.

In his Climate Immigrants series (2017-present), Corona explores xenophobia, climate crisis, immigration, travel, and bodies in movement. The ongoing site-specific installation and performance consider the inevitable and impending effect of climate-induced global migration and its effect on people of color. Performers wear “climate ponchos” which are decorated with images depicting “the archetype of the traveler.” The climate ponchos from the performance are displayed alongside images and a single-channel video of the performances from 2017 to 2020. I appreciated this ephemeral exercise, seeing still and moving images realized three-dimensionally. In one scene from the video, the performers brave various elements, variegated topographies and geographies, floods, storms—and in one scene a trio dances as the world burns. They are sirens signaling our inevitable futures if humanity does not commit to a course correction.

Each work in Sunset Moonlight employs pure, brilliant hues, and compared to the minimalism strategically displayed by other finalists, Corona’s work feels like a feast. As objects and forms, the works are sudden, ethereal, magical, and deeply true. They feel like decadent pleasures, visual cornucopias decorated with nuance and depth.

Corona’s survey exhibition was the first opportunity I had to view his work in person. Although I had been aware of his role as a founding co-director of the nomadic art organization Labbodies, and I’d seen images of his art online, I was thrilled by the scale of these sculptures. Journeying around the works gave me a distinct feeling of being home. At different moments, I felt myself wanting to reach out and touch different materials and details, like the plastic flowers that reminded me of the ones that rested on top of my mother’s pearlescent casket. Multicolored gauze and iridescent materials from Corona’s world mirrored and spoke to a history of experiences that I have connected to in my own world.

Sunset Moonlight, a multicolored and personified memento mori, is an expansive exhibition that covers every square inch of Corona’s available space. Although he draws upon perspectives and experiences that are specific to him, the themes he explores are universal ideas that affect every human being. Through the relics of the artist’s processes and performance, I confronted my own humanity, my own impact, my own creativity, and my own legacy, inspired by the splendor, reality, and decadence of Corona’s universe.

MAP FUND

Today, MAP is honored to announce a $1.4 million investment in 55 extraordinary new projects.

MAP does not merely steward resources into the hands of artists. MAP rethinks received ways of doing and being. We believe in the livelihood and lifeblood of artists. We believe artists make the world more vibrant, sustainable, and just, said poet and MAP Fund board member, Ama Codjoe. We are thrilled to support such an incredible group of artists, thinkers, and makers and await the ripples their work will have in our world.

Through this year’s process, each grantee receives $20,000 in project development funds and $5,000 in general operating funds to advance their bold ideas. From Hawaii to Puerto Rico to Maine, creative teams will generate dance, music, and theater works that organize their communities around abolition, fight for environmental justice, explore practices for mutual care, and more. Please join us in championing performing artists who are transforming our world in revolutionary ways:

Art Focus Oklahoma

Hoesy Corona featured in the Ekphrasis: Art & Poetry section of Art Focus Oklahoma summer 2021 which joins verse and visual art.

Gay Pasley responds to 'Mother Scapegoats' with a beautiful and powerful verse letter.

Repost from @hirshhorn - Hoesy Corona is a self-described uncategorized artist whose work examines "what it means to be a queer Latinx immigrant in a place where there are few." Corona's wearable sculptures, installations, and performances explore issues that affect marginalized communities such as obfuscation, scapegoating, immigration, and fear of the other. In this video he speaks about how the work of Joseph Beuys enhanced his understanding of the artistic role that we all play in the creation of our shared reality.
@hoesycorona #aboutbeuysDC @goethe_dc

PODCAST

Baker Artist Awards 2021

2021 Baker Artist Awardees:

Interdisciplinary
Rahne Alexander, ellen cherry, Hoesy Corona, Katherine Fahey, Strikeware Collective, Pamela Woolford

Film/ Video
Khalid Ali, Eric Cotten, Dina Fiasconaro, Chung Wei Huang, Corey Hughes, Jonna McKone

Music
Abdu Ali, Lura Johnson, Outcalls Band, Meng Su, Letitia VanSant, Von Vargas

Performance
Anna Fitzgerald, Colette Krogol, Lola B. Pierson, Glenn Ricci, Vincent Thomas, Allen Xing

Visual Arts
Larry Poncho Brown, Mina Cheon, Christine Neill, Ernest Shaw, René Treviño, McKinley Wallace

Literary Arts
Maria Adelmann, James Arthur, Kathy Flann, Elizabeth Hazen, Pat Montley

Bmore Art

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) announced the finalists for the 16th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize today. The five individual artists selected as this year’s finalists are Hoesy Corona, Tsedaye Makonnen, Jonathan Monaghan, Lavar Munroe, and Hae Won Sohn. The visual art competition awards a $25,000 fellowship annually to the winner – a visual artist or collaborative group – living and working in the Greater Baltimore region.

This year, the finalists’ work will be exhibited in person at the Walters Art Museum, on view Thursday, May 27, through Sunday, July 18, 2021. The winner of the 2021 Sondheim Artscape Prize will be announced during a special award ceremony on Saturday, July 10, 2021. Additionally, works by semifinalists not moving to the finals will be selected by BOPA curator Lou Joseph for a separate exhibition during the summer of 2021. The 2021 jurors are Naz Cuguoğlu, Michelle Grabner, and Meleko Mokgosi.

Walters Art Museum

Baltimore-based uncategorized artist Hoesy Corona works in many mediums to tell stories that confront the past and the present. In conversation with artist and writer Lexie Mountain, Hoesy, a finalist for the 2020 Janet & Walters Sondheim Artscape Prize, shares his work and artistic practice. Exploring references from the Walters Art Museum’s collection, Hoesy compares the experience of the contemporary artist residency to that of the court painter.

Oklahoma Contemporary

curated by Helen Opper.
participating artists:
Sarah Ahmad
Rea Baldridge
Karam Cheong
Hoesy Corona
Chase Earles
Joshua Jaiye Farrell
Edward Grady
Raven Halfmoon
Melissa Jacobs
Kreg Kallenberger
Carrie Kouts
Sam Ladwig
Kyle Larson
Sarah Leis
Kalup Linzy
Amy Maguire
Leigh Martin
Simphiwe Mbunyuza
Mandy Messina
Nicole Moan
Audrey Peck
Gabriel Rojas
Bert Seabourn
Tyra Shackleford
Scott Vo
Dan Worcester
XVALA

Baltimore Magazine

Balimore Office and Promotion of the Arts

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) and the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City (MASB) announce Schroeder Cherry and Hoesy Corona as recipients of the 2020 Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Artist Travel Prize. Each artist receives $6,000. The prize is intended to function as funding for travel essential to an artist’s studio practice that an artist may not otherwise be able to afford. Cherry and Corona were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants.

Hoesy Corona plans to travel to Yuriria, Guanajuato, Mexico and the surrounding rural town of Tierra Blanca to inform a new body of work tentatively titled “Acts of Liberation”. The series will draw from Corona's personal experiences as a queer-Mexican-immigrant to poetically consider how immigrants thrive in a new place despite their unique circumstances.

Podcast Interview

Transcription (english)

transcripcion-en-espanol

ProArtes Mexico website

Bmore Art Article

Hoesy Corona, Multidisciplinary Artist
Lives in Station North/Greenmount West
Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, 1986
IG: @hoesycorona
Visit Corona’s Virtual Sondheim Exhibition

What is the theme of your Sondheim Finalist exhibition?

I am presenting selections from my longest ongoing series, The Nobodies, an ongoing story documenting the journeys of displaced immigrants and marginalized peoples. In The Nobodies I use sculptural garments, public performance, and poetry to create otherworldly experiences for the viewer while questioning the social constructions that govern and objectify personhood. In this series I obfuscate the body by making it into a living sculpture; the performers’ faces are usually hidden and there is no way of fully identifying them. I revel in the simultaneous visibility and invisibility that the colorful sculptural garments bring to the wearer.

This body of work comes directly from my experiences as a young queer immigrant in the 1990s and the overwhelming feeling of being invisible and immensely visible at the same time. Invisible because I didn’t speak the language and therefore was not heard, and hypervisible because I was different, wore old clothes, and instead of a backpack I carried my supplies in a plastic bag. Fifteen years later these early experiences would translate into subtle and silent sculptural performances that privileged the “presence” of the self over a “performance” of the self. These performances make me think about the often blatant ways some Americans love to consume cultures and foods but loathe the actual culture makers.

I started this series in 2009—[the exhibition includes selections from 2010-2020]. This series was a turning point early in my career. I was formally trained as a painter but had always been interested in a multidisciplinary approach to art-making, and through this body of work, I found the empowering realm of performance art. Working in performance art proved to be the “fuck you” to the world that I needed to break free from a disempowering mentality.

The work came about when I was longing to reconnect to my roots, having migrated to the US at the age of 7, and while looking for answers I came across the book The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz. In the book, Paz poetically compares and contrasts two sisters: Mexico and the United States—and as he describes a power shift between the two, he identifies Mexico as living in the shadow of her younger sister. He dedicates a passage to the act of “Nobodying,” an operation that he describes as consisting of making somebody into nobody. And as is usually the case with every book I read, it brought me to something else, in this case, the powerful poem “Los Nadies” by Eduardo Galeano which so eloquently described the ways people are devalued and dehumanized. These two texts would form the foundation for The Nobodies.

When you applied to Sondheim it was before COVID-19 and you were prepared to exhibit your work in a museum in physical space. When you learned that the project would pivot to a virtual exhibit, how did you have to change your thinking and process? What is the impact of a digital space and medium upon your work? And conversely, can you talk about your ideal IRL exhibition scenario—what did you envision for this work and how would it be experienced differently in person?

One of the best parts about the Sondheim Prize Finalist exhibition is the privilege of showing the work in a museum gallery. When I received the news I was a finalist, of course I was overjoyed but certainly disappointed it would be a digital presentation, because while my work presents well online, there is a certain physicality in my work that I knew would never come across in a virtual space.

When I applied I was prepared to do a site-specific installation of my White Constructions series that would activate the entire museum gallery and allow viewers to walk through the installation. With the limitations of a virtual gallery, I opted to show performance photographs and digital collages from my series The Nobodies. I had always thought it was funny that even though I wasn’t a photographer, this particular body of work existed heavily through photographic documents. So I decided to both honor this series and also explore what a “gallery” exhibit of large-scale performance documents would look like. If I had the chance to recreate this exhibition in a museum setting I would make it into an installation by including the wearable sculptures depicted in the documents to create a more interactive and immersive space.

It’s the 15th year of the Sondheim Prize and this seems like an opportunity to consider the impact of this prize. In your opinion, what could BOPA or Baltimore City do to enhance your experience, to maximize the impact of this prize, and to use Sondheim to elevate Baltimore’s cultural landscape? After this experience is over, what residual or archival elements would be beneficial to you and your art career?

It has been a joy to see many local artists that I both admire and call friends to be recognized and celebrated with this fellowship over the last 14 years. Obviously this year the rollout is unlike past years so it’s hard for me to make suggestions that wouldn’t center our current limitations. For example, with a physical exhibition there were more opportunities to get press exposure—unlike this year in which the exhibits feel a bit hidden. I would like to see a nice print catalog added to the finalists’ exhibition with essays written by exciting local and national writers and distributed widely.

This year, in lieu of documentation, one of the residual archival elements from this exhibition will have to be a short video navigating the virtual gallery. I am still hopeful that an honorary exhibition of the finalists may still take place in a museum setting when it is possible to do so.

What is your opinion of art prizes in general?

Art prizes come in all shapes and sizes and come with varying levels of prestige and dollar amounts that can really help transform an artist’s career. Aside from money, I think art prizes are helpful in that they require the artist to have a certain type of readiness and preparedness when it comes to having documentation and writing about the work ready to be presented to both the jurors and the public. Art prizes are also a great way to get your work in front of professionals in the art world that might be hard to reach otherwise. I think they also unintentionally help artists to think about their practice long term and to keep tabs of what work we’ve produced, where it is, what state it’s in, and generally which works we deem essential to our oeuvre.

When I got word I was a finalist I did immediately think about the radical Turner Prize artists deciding to share the prize equally instead of appointing a winner—unfortunately, we weren’t told who the other finalists were ahead of time. When we found out about each other with only a week to go before the public virtual exhibition, I opted instead to reach out to each of the other finalists for their email addresses to send a group email to BOPA. At first seeking clarification on the unclear status of the newly added six-week residency in Italy and then advocating for the residency to still be awarded to one of the remaining finalists even if scheduled for a later date.

What is your advice for other artists applying to and participating in art prizes?

My advice to artists would first be to remind them that most art prizes are quite transactional—we all paid to be considered for this opportunity and to get the jurors’ eyes on our work. Because it costs dollars to be considered, make sure you represent your work in the best way possible—for the Sondheim Prize the application is actually quite simple and only requires 5 images along with some basic info. For this first part I would suggest submitting work that is intriguing and will leave the jurors wanting to see more. If selected for the second round you will be asked to submit up to 30 works; for this stage I would suggest being mindful of the order of the images/media you are submitting and to consider the “story” they tell one after the other.

metrolatinousa.com/2019/09/14/artistas-… metro latino usa |

“Entre los ocho artistas se encuentra Muriel Hasbún, de origen salvadoreño y residente en Silver Spring, así como Hoesy Corona, de origen mexicano, quien reside en la ciudad de Baltimore y cuyos trabajos han sido exhibidos en diferentes museos de Estados Unidos, Francia y Grecia.”

brightestyoungthings.com/articles/reach… Brightest Young Things|

The Gerogetowner

Gilcrease Magazine

Gilcrease Museum and Tulsa Artist Fellowship present Recall/Respond, a multi-phased contemporary arts exhibition that includes works by both current Tulsa Artist Fellows, as well as Fellowship alum. By engaging in conversation with contemporary artists, this exhibition confronts complex histories within the interdisciplinary Gilcrease collections of the art, history, and culture of greater North America.

Part two on view Nov 2019 through March 15th 2020
Featuring artists: Hoesy Corona, Crystal Campbell, Sarah Ahmad, Kalup Linzy, Tali Weinberg, Emily Chase, Anita Fields, Heyd Fontenot, Arigon Starr, Meghan Martin

cms.kennedy-center.org/festivals/reach/…

Guest artists to include: Nona Hendryx, Andrew Ondrecjak, The Griggs Brothers, Marlon Taylor-Wiles, Laura Anderson Barbata, Sheldon Scott, Stephanie Mecedes, Vanessa German, Hoesy Corona, and others

Performers to include: Lubana Al-Quntar, Hall Williams Band, Kazaxe, Ladygod, Soka Tribe, Mariachi El Rey, LeeAnet Noble & Team Vicious, Christina Piazza & Paul Bachmann, Eastern High School Drumline, and The President’s Own Marine Band

To open the REACH, the Kennedy Center gathers artists from far-flung corners of the artistic landscape together with young people to walk, march, and dance into the future in this parade curated by multi-disciplinary visual and performance artist Carrie Mae Weems, in collaboration with David Ross’s MusicianShip and the Funk Parade.

Maryland Art Place - MD State Arts Council

Juror Announcement for the 2nd Tri-Annual Maryland State Artist Registry Juried Exhibition! MAP is pleased to welcome...

Performance Juror: HOESY CORONA

Hoesy Corona is an uncategorized artist working across various media while considering what it means to be a queer Latinx immigrant in a place where there are few. His performance and installations confront the viewer with the most pressing issues of our time and recurring themes of queerness, race/class/gender, nature, isolation and celebration in his work. He is a recent Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow in Washington, DC and a current fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Oklahoma. He splits his time living and working between Baltimore and Tulsa. Hoesy has shown his works in Greece, France, and in the USA. Exhibiting and performing at various institutional, private, public and underground venues including The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Athens School of Fine Arts, and The Baltimore Museum of Art. He is the founding co-director of Labbodies, a nomadic arts organization in Baltimore since 2014. Recent honors include a Merriweather District Artist in Residence, an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant, and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundationʼs Rubyʼs Project Grant.

VisArts Fall 2019


Hoesy Corona’s uncategorized works draw from his personal experiences as a queer Latinx immigrant in the United States. His works oftentimes confront and delight viewers with some of the most pressing issues of our time. Recurring themes of race/class/gender, otherness, celebration, isolation, and the climate crisis are all present throughout his work.

Imaginary Construct is a site-responsive installation made using digital tools as well as hand cut black and white vinyl letters adhered to a clear substrate that deconstruct the word “white”. Making the invisible slightly more visible.

Imaginary Construct is a part of the ongoing series White Constructions, begun in 2016, in which Corona considers the arbitrary and deliberate construction of race in the United States and its negative effects on black and brown people. Insisting that the hierarchy of ones racial profile in the US is not innate, or natural but is instead a deliberate social construct created by the powers-that-be in an effort to subjugate non-white people.

Imaginary Construct reminds the viewer that language is alive, used to craft the world, and can be constructed or deconstructed at any given time to change the way we relate to each other. Imaginary Construct invites us to reconsider and reconstruct our personal, political, and national relationship to the faulty and dangerous notion of race.

Trawick Prize 2019


Congrats to the 2019 Trawick Prize:
Bethesda Contemporary Arts Awards Finalsits

Stephanie Benassi
Hoesy Corona
Oletha DeVane
Muriel Hasbun
Monroe Isenberg
Renee Rendine
Mojdeh Rezaiepour
Anne Clare Rogers

Exhibition:

Selected finalists will have their work on display September 4-28, 2019 in downtown Bethesda at Gallery B, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E.The Gallery is located just two blocks from the Bethesda Metro station and parking is available in the public lot on Woodmont Avenue.

The award winners will be announced on Wednesday, September 4. The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000.

The public opening reception will be held Friday, September 13 from 6-8pm.

Trawick Prize Gallery Hours:
Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm

Clifford Chance, Arcus Pride Art Exhibition 2019, Washington, DC

Stonewall 50 is Arcus Americas' thirteenth annual Pride art exhibition in the Firm's New York office and the fourth in Washington, DC.
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a violent police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a bar in the West Village in New York City, erupted into a series of spontaneous demonstrations by queer and trans people for their safety, survival, and right to exist. As the rebellion progressed over the course of three days, an international LGBT+ civil rights movement was born. In celebration and recognition of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and World Pride, Stonewall 50 explores the far-reaching art and activism the uprising spawned: the artists and activists whose influence and contributions have been historically overlooked and the history of Pride, which began with the Christopher Street Liberation Day March in 1970 and has expanded city by city into a worldwide phenomenon. The exhibition includes historical and contemporary artwork that traces these histories: photographs of early Gay Pride marches and pioneering activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera; works by contemporary and underrepresented historical artists who reflect on queer experience and visibility; and documentation of the increasingly intersectional focus of contemporary LGBT+ activism.

Maryland Institute College of Art Power Speaker Series Events

Date
March 18, 2019

Location
Fred Lazarus IV Center
131 W North Ave

MFA in Community Arts hosts POWER Speaker Series: Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona of LabBodies

The Five Year Itch…

Or Collaboration Tips for How to Cook an Ethnic Meal in White Establishments.

Join us in conversation with Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona of LabBodies, a performance art laboratory invested in experimentation and collaboration. They will be speaking about their combined and individual efforts founding, coordinating, and curating LabBodies, and the work that they are currently engaged in.

The Elm

Performing Artist Interrogates Alienation
By Jon Vitale

Elm Staff Writer

On March 5, campus hosted artist Hoesy Corona at Kohl Gallery in the Gibson Center for the Arts, featuring his new multimedia performance and installation, titled “Alie[N]ation”.

The exhibit’s aim, according to the event description, was to consider “hyperbolized alien tropes, xenophobic language, and the archetype of the scapegoat in contemporary discourse.”

The gallery was decorated with many different works of interpretative art of all different colors and styles. Most of them had the letters of the word “white” scattered around in various artistic ways. Near the rear of the gallery, there were statement posters, directly implying the message of the exhibition.

On one end of the room, the canvas read “Whiteness is a verb,” while on the other side there were two canvases. One read “Are you alien or are you human?” and the other said “Who is considered alien in the USA and who is considered human?” These messages were the core of the exhibit. In the center of the room, one performer stood relatively still, clad in vibrant, multicolor fabric, which was displayed as the performer slowly rotated and stretched the fabric in different ways.

“I imagine it was a representation of multiculturalism,” junior Alex Ramos said.

For the main performance of Corona’s exhibit, the primary performer, clad in a wide array of fabrics and plastics, emerged from behind one of the walls at the back of the room and took stage in a front corner of the gallery. Then, circling the area, the performer posed the exhibit’s central message to the audience, repeatedly asking the audience: “Are you an alien? Or are you a human? What makes you an alien, and what makes you a human in the United States?” The audience remained in a captivated silence for the duration of the performance.

“It’s putting into movement, and color, the issues of being another, and living in the United States, and how you react to that feeling,” said Assistant Professor of Spanish Martin Ponti.

The message of the performance connected with several of the attendees.

“The definition of an alien in this exhibit encompassed so many more people than I thought it would,” senior Rachel Treglia, who found the performance particularly striking, said. She also noted the design of the exhibit as it related to the performance, saying, “The color is really focused on the costumes of the performers, so they stand out, and they don’t move much, but when they do, even the small movements feel big.”

Corona specializes in art that utilizes color to express messages with greater meanings. The performance continued for an hour as the exhibition was opened up to all the patrons.

While the performance was, as Ramos described it, “straightforward,” it spoke volumes.

“I still think it’s great that the message is being put out there, and I feel that this performance really did a job of hammering it in to the people who came out to see it,” Ramos said.

Washington College Kohl Gallery

Hoesy Corona: Alie[N]ation
Tuesday, March 5 at 6PM
Kohl Gallery is pleased to present a performance by artist Hoesy Corona on Tuesday, March 5.

Alie[N]ation is a multimedia performance and installation that considers hyperbolized alien tropes, xenophobic language, and the archetype of the scapegoat in contemporary discourse. The work is informed by this leading research question: who is deemed an alien and who is seen as fully human in the United States?

Blouinartinfo

The length of the award is unique among global arts fellowship and residency offerings. The substantial duration and resources intentionally addresses the most pressing challenges in artistic communities today, which include financial stability, durational housing, functional workspace, and platforms for presentation.

The 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellows include Sarah Ahmad (Multidisciplinary); Rachel Allen (Fiction Writer); Julie Alpert (Installation and Drawing); Atomic Culture (Multidisciplinary); M. Molly Backes (Young Adult Novelist); Steven Bellin-Oka (Poet); Liz Blood (Writer and Editor); Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran (Multimedia); Sarah Burney (Writer and Curator); Hoesy Corona (Multidisciplinary); Dan Farnum (Photography); Edgar Fabian Frias (Multidisciplinary); Sophie Goldstein (Graphic Novelist); Juliana Goodman (Young Adult Fiction Writer); Joy Harjo (Poet and Musician); Jessica Harvey (Multidisciplinary); Karl Jones (Writer, Editor, Performer, and Visual Artist); Kalup Linzy (Video and Visual Artist); Larry Blackhorse Lowe (Screenwriting and Filmmaker); Naima Lowe (Videographer and Photographer); Katie Moulton (Essayist); Molly Murphy Adams (Fiber Artist); Christa Romanosky (Fiction Writer); Olivia Stephens (Graphic Novelist); Candace G. Wiley (Poet); and Richard Zimmerman (Sculpturist and Installation).

Vulture

“John Waters made me realize that it’s possible to make a body of work that is simultaneously liberating and uncomfortable to look at,” says Ada Pinkston, who co-founded Labbodies with fellow artist Hoesy Corona back in 2014. A performance and curatorial project focused around championing women and queer artists of color in museums, galleries, and public spaces, their activities include hosting an annual performance review, which brings together local and visiting artists for a weekend where you’re just as likely to attend a séance as participate in a punk-rock dance party. Labbodies, which had its humble beginnings at the infamous live-work loft, the Copycat Building, embraces a DIY ethos that is pervasive across Baltimore’s creative landscape, channeling Waters’s “fuck permission” mentality. Pinkston loves running into Waters at events and bars in Baltimore. “It’s fun to party with a legend in such a relaxed way,” she says, “to be able to talk to him, to get a head nod, which I read as, ‘It’s good to see that the next generation is fucking shit up!’”

WAMU.ORG

Oriental rugs and handmade “scapegoat” figurines. Fortune cookies in a marble fountain. Images of young undocumented immigrants and black-and-white family photographs from the early 20th century.

These are just some of the cultural stereotypes, styles and artistic traditions that clash and converse in “A (Good) American,” a new art exhibit at the Brewmaster’s Castle in Dupont Circle that opens Friday.
...
In the dining room (above), Mexican artist Hoesy Corona set the table with embroidered placemats that read “I Am Not Your Scapegoat” and placed more than a hundred handmade scapegoat figurines around the room. Some sit side-by-side on the mantle with a Heurich vase that depicts three slaves holding up a bowl.

|https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/museums/after-miami-and-new-york-this-high-end-art-fair-is-coming-to-union-market-to-change-how-dc-views-buying-art/2018/10/24/1b308084-d2ed-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?utm_term=.baf6729f3e07|Washington Post"

Superfine will also showcase performance art, following the model of (e)merge, a locally organized art fair that ran from 2011 to 2014 at Southwest’s Capitol Skyline Hotel. Saturday’s “Unsettled” program will spotlight local artists Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Maps Glover, Kunj and Tsedaye Makonnen.

November 3rd, 2018 3-7PM

FairFax Times

Reason #1: Performance Art.

Not only will New York's “Sylva Dean and Me” woo you into Halloween art bliss on opening night [Oct. 31] alongside ethereal harp music by Erin Baker, but we've got a full program of performance art planned throughout the fair. A major highlight is “Unsettled,” a four hour showcase curated by Victoria Reis of DC's Transformer. DC emerging artists including Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Maps Glover, Kunj, and Tsedaye Makonnen will present their ground-breaking performances on Saturday, Nov. 3 from 3-7pm.

WJLA ABC 7 WASHINGTON, DC

Transformer is pleased to present UNSETTLED – a performance art series curated by Victoria Reis, Founder and Director of Transformer, for the Superfine! Art Fair.

UNSETTLED features performances by a select group of leading DC based emerging artists – Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Maps Glover, Kunj, and Tsedaye Makonnen – each of whom are pushing performance art forward with their innovative, interdisciplinary work.

Previously presented in Miami and New York, with upcoming manifestations in Los Angeles, Superfine! Art Fair – created in 2015 by James Miille, an artist, and Alex Mitow, an arts entrepreneur – makes its DC premiere October 31 to November 4, 2018 at Union Market’s Dock 5 event space, featuring 300 visual artists from DC and beyond who will present new contemporary artwork throughout 70 curated booths. Superfine! also features emerging collector events, tours, film screenings and panels. https://superfine.world/

UNSETTLED artists Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Maps Glover, Kunj, and Tsedaye Makonnen will
each present approximately 40 minute long ‘roaming ‘performances, consecutively, between 3-7pm on Saturday,
November 3 throughout the Superfine! Dock 5 space. Some performances may overlap.

Howard County Times

Sitting in the studio space on the fifth floor in the Two Merriweather office building in Columbia, Hoesy Corona is in awe.

“It’s huge,” he said, of the open space. “I’m getting glimpses of what I want my future studio to look like.”

For two months, the multidisciplinary artist has, along with two other artists, been able to use the studio space as his own thanks to the inaugural Merriweather District Artist-in-Residence program in Downtown Columbia.

Three artists – Sophia Brous, Eric Dyer and Corona – were selected from over 70 applications from across the United States and Europe to participate in the new program, which was created and funded by The Howard Hughes Corp. in collaboration with the Howard County Arts Council.

“We went into this not really sure how much interest we would be able to create,” said Michele Whelley, MD AIR program manager. “The selection was very difficult. When we selected Hoesy, Eric and Sophia, we thought we had an amazing mix of mediums, experience and talent.”

All three artists are multimedia. Dyer, of Baltimore, works with images from a zoetrope, a 19th –century animation toy, and digital video cameras. Brous is a performance-maker, musician and artistic director is based in New York and Australia.

Each artist was provided studio space from June through July as well as an apartment and a stipend. Open houses were held to allow the public to see the artists at work and on July 25, a formal party was held featuring a discussion about art to bring the program’s first year to a close.

“Artists-in-residence programs are really valuable for the artists and the hosting sites,” said Coleen West, executive directory of Howard County Arts Council. “It introduces new art forms into the community while artists get to be with other artists and learn from each other.”

Corona was attracted to the program because it was new and in Columbia. Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he moved to Baltimore 13 years ago to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art.

“Even though I was just in Baltimore, I felt it was important to be here and get the feel of the community,” Corona said. “Doing this for two months, the first few weeks you’re setting up. Then, you realize when you are in the community when the local coffee shop knows your name.”

Dyer, a professor at University of Maryland Baltimore County, was able to focus on his art with no worries, he said.

“It’s rare to have the time, space, and funding to focus on a project - the residency provided all this. My work involves so much experimentation before real breakthroughs can happen,” Dyer wrote in an email. –“I deeply value how the funding and space enabled me to take big steps towards both the kinetic portraits and materialization of digital animation projects I’d formerly only been dreaming about.”

The freedom the program offered “was appreciated,” Cornoa said.

“They were open-ended on what the artist would be able to work on,” Corona said. “For a first year program, I think it was pretty amazing.”

All three artists were invited, but not required, to submit works for inclusion in the second annual Opus festival to be held in October.

Featuring music, large-scale art installations and technology, last year’s Opus festival, also hosted by the Howard Houghes Corp., attracted almost 16,000 people to the Merriweather District.

“Howard Hughes has been really generous,” West said. “They are at the forefront of what corporations can do with their willingness to support artists.”

While there were some ups an down, the program was an overall success, Whelley said.

“There were a lot of lessons learned,” Whelley said. “We were so happy to get this program off the ground in a very short time.”

Ideas are already being discussed for next year, from increasing the number of artists to lengthening the allotted time, West said.

“It was a really great experience,” West said. “We hope to expand it and continue it next year.”

Asbury Park Sun

...
And then on Aug 23, Mexican born and Baltimore based Hoesy Corona presents Climate Immigrants, a performance piece that incorporates a series of colorful art ponchos to reflect on the impending plight of climate-immigrants worldwide.

Turning The Tide is a collaboration with Monmouth Arts. The series continues 7:30 pm Thursdays through Aug 23 on the Second Avenue Beach. For more information, click here.

Baltimore Magazine


For local visual artist Hoesy Corona, he believes that social media is a game changer for the art world. By opening up the possibilities that were once limited to reach potential audiences, it’s helped him to establish his brand on his own terms.

“I tend to use it as a professional extension of my studio practice—a virtual marketing assistant of sorts,” he says. “I can give both insight into my studio process, as well as keep my audience informed about my goings-on.”
.....
Corona shares a similar philosophy about the influence of social media and believes that it will only continue to help open the doors for artists and patrons alike.

“Just a handful of years ago, artists were limited by the ways in which they could reach potential audiences and had to rely on discriminating middlepersons to sell their goods or gain access to show their work,” he explains. “Social media gives artists plenty of exposure without the help of predatory arts professionals which allows smaller independent artist run spaces to carve a niche for themselves and build a wider audience.”

RedBull Amaphiko

THE MEDICINE SHOW

WITH BE FREE FRIDAYS

A night of social innovation storytelling featuring local artists and storytellers sharing the stories of Baltimore’s most inspiring social entrepreneurs through one-of-a-kind performances

HOSTED BY
LOVE THE POET

MUSIC BY
DJ HARVEY DENT

+STORYTELLERS+
NIA JUNE
KONDWANI FIDEL
DAVID FAKUNLE
JOY POSTELL
AMY REID
EZE JACKSON
HOESY CORONA
SIR ALEX R


+SOCIAL INNOVATORS+
BRITTANY YOUNG
B360

WALKER MARSH
THA FLOWER FACTORY

AVA PIPITONE
HOST HOME

NICHOLAS MITCHEL
NOISY TENANTS


MICHAEL BATTLE
THE RICH PROGRAM

LILIANE MAKOLE
MERA KITCHEN

KYLE POMPEY
PERSPECTIVE BALTIMORE

VALERIA FUENTES
ROOTS & RAICES

ARENA PLAYERS | 801 MCCULOH

Hoesy Corona Tri City Press Siren Arts Asbury Park NJ 2018

TURNING THE TIDE
July 12 – August 23, 2018
2nd Annual ‘Siren Arts’ Summer Residency
& Exhibition Program for Emerging Visual Artists
Performance Art Events every Thursday evening at Sunset on
the 2nd Avenue Beach, Asbury Park, NJ

All Audiences Welcome; Presented Free of Charge

Turning the Tide marks the 2nd year of Siren Arts, an innovative summer residency & exhibition program based in Asbury Park, NJ to support emerging visual artists throughout the northeast corridor of Washington, DC to NYC. Created by Victoria Reis, Executive & Artistic Director of Transformer – a 16 year old non-profit visual arts organization based in Washington, DC – Siren Arts is an expansion of Transformer’s mission to connect and promote emerging visual artists, build audiences for their work, and advance them in their artistic careers.

Taking a different theme and format each year, Siren Arts 2nd year, Turning the Tide, is a social practice oriented residency program that will consist of a series of consecutive micro-residencies for seven emerging visual artists and artist collectives, resulting in Thursday evening sunset performance art events on Asbury Park’s 2nd Avenue beach July 12 – August 23, 2018. Informed and inspired by the work of the Plastic Pollution Coalition and their Asbury Park area partner Clean Water Action, each performance art event will focus on themes of ocean conservation. Highlighting a diverse range of artists based within the northeast corridor of DC to NYC, Turning the Tide will provide urban-based
artists an opportunity to get out of their respective cities, enjoy creative time at the beach, and advance work they are currently pursing. Transformer’s goal with Turning the Tide is to empower the participating artists and engage audiences in positive action around ocean conservation through contemporary art.

All events will take place at sunset, beginning at approximately 7:30/7:45, on the 2nd Avenue Beach in Asbury Park, NJ.

Performances will last approximately 30-60 minutes and are open to all audiences free of charge.

In the event of rain, performances will take place in the lobby of The Asbury Hotel at 8pm. Turning the Tide is being presented in collaboration with Monmouth Arts, who are providing community outreach, promotional support, as well as locally based artist participation. Turning the Tide is generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts’ Creativity Connects program, and by The Asbury Hotel, Siren Arts exclusive Hotel Sponsor. Special
thanks to the City of Asbury Park for its support of Turning the Tide.
PROGRAMMING SCHEDULE

Thursday, July 12 - Rex Delafkaran
Thursday, July 19 - Stephanie Mercedes
Thursday, July 26 - Flatchestedmama Trefsger
Thursday, August 2 - Naoko Wowsugi
Thursday, August 9 - Tamar Ettun & The Moving Company
Thursday, August 16 - Ed Woodham / The Keepers
Thursday, August 23 - Hoesy Corona

PERFORMANCE | THURSDAY, AUGUST 23
Hoesy Corona, Climate-Immigrants
Climate-Immigrants is a performance and series of colorful art ponchos that
consider the impending plight of climate-immigrants worldwide. The clear
raincoats feature vinyl cutouts depicting silhouettes of traveling immigrants
against colorful floral backgrounds. These two-sided artworks are ephemera
from “Alien Nation”, 2017, a temporary large-scale site specific performance
at The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden that considered
similar themes.

Hoesy Corona (b.1986. Mexico) lives and works in Baltimore, MD. He is a
multidisciplinary artist who has shown compelling works and inventive sculptures
fitted to the human body extensively at various institutional, private, public
and underground venues including among others: The Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden; The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Walters Art Museum;
The Peale Museum; Transformer DC; Decker Gallery; Delicious Spectacle; The
Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival; VisArts; The Creative Alliance; and the Transmodern Festival.

In addition to maintaining a prolific studio practice Corona is the founding co-director of Labbodies, an arts organization that creates opportunities for new media and performance artists to exhibit their work. Recent honors include a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellowship 2017-2018 in Washington, DC; an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant administered by The Contemporary in Visual Arts 2017; a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation’s Ruby’s Project Grants in Visual Art 2016-17; and a Light City public art commission in 2017

www.hocoarts.org/inaugural-md-air-artis… Howard County Arts Council|

Program Includes Studio Space in Merriweather District

June 21, 2018

COLUMBIA, MD – The Howard Hughes Corporation®, in collaboration with the Howard County Arts Council, has announced the selection of artists to participate in the inaugural Merriweather District Artist-in-Residence (MD AIR) program in Downtown Columbia, MD.

The artists in residence include Hoesy Corona and Eric Dyer of the Baltimore/Washington area, and Sophia Brous, an international artist working in New York and Melbourne, Australia. All three are multi-media, cross-disciplinary artists and will each receive a stipend of $10,000 and the use of studio space in the Merriweather District to spend up to two months, from June 11-August 31, creating work in a medium of their choosing.

Brous is a performance-maker, musician and artistic director. Collaborating with artists, companies, festivals and concert houses internationally, she creates commissioned performance works. She is an Artistic Associate at the Arts Centre Melbourne, where she founded Supersense, a contemporary arts festival exploring ecstatic performance. During the Merriweather District residency she plans to devise a range of site-specific works with collaborators. Visit http://sophiabrous.com/about/.

Corona’s project work encompasses installation, performance, sculpture, painting and public art. He is noted for his project “Alien Nation,” which was performed at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gallery last summer. A graduate of The Maryland Institute of Art, Corona has been featured in dozens of exhibitions across the country and has extensive residency experience, including participation in the Latino Artist Residency Program in Pittsburgh. Corona is an advocate on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. Visit http://hoesycorona.com/home.html.

Dyer is an experimental animation and film artist who is known for his re-imagining of the zoetrope, a 19th century animation toy, with digital video cameras. During his residency in the Merriweather District, Dyer, who attended high school in Howard County, will create interactive animated artworks that explore the conflict between the usefulness of digital devices and the human need for physical, real-world experiences. Visit http://ericdyer.com/.

Created and funded by The Howard Hughes Corporation, the MD AIR program attracted 73 applications from around the globe. The awardees were selected by a panel including artist William Cochran; Ken Farmer, curator of a New York City-based art production and design company Wild Dogs International; Howard County Arts Council Executive Director Coleen West; and Vanessa Rodriguez, Director of Marketing for The Howard Hughes Corporation.

Studio space will be provided in Two Merriweather office building in Downtown Columbia’s Merriweather District. Residential accommodations will be provided within walking distance at The Metropolitan Downtown Columbia apartments.

MD AIR 2018 is the first in what will be an annual program presented by The Howard Hughes Corporation to provide an opportunity for artists to spend time in the midst of Columbia’s evolving urban center. During the course of the residency, The Howard Hughes Corporation will host open studio events to showcase the work in progress and give members of the public access to the visiting artists. Works by MD AIR artists will be considered for inclusion in the second annual OPUS festival, scheduled for October 2018. Created and hosted by The Howard Hughes Corporation, the 2017 inaugural OPUS festival brought together a bold mix of art, music and technology for which Farmer was commissioned to curate an immersive, multi-sensory experience.

When: Saturday, June 23, 2018, 8 – 11:55 PM
Categories: After Five, Celebrations, Performances, Workshops
Sponsor: Special Smithsonian Event
Venue: Arts and Industries Building
Event Location: Arts and Industries Building
Cost: Free

Details:
Join us at sunset (8:37 p.m.) in the Arts and Industries Building as Eaton Wellness presents the “Light of Summer Ceremony and Celebration” with energy clearing and guided meditation to set our intentions for the season then a release of intentions, wishes, dreams, and prayers into the heightened energy of these first summer nights with movement and music.

Festivities include special performances by Konshens the MC, Hoesy Corona, Estefaní Mercedes, Antonius Bui, and Eaton Wellness.

OTHERPEOPLESPIXELS BLOG

HOESY CORONA takes a multimedia approach to art-making. His complex performance works, which involve movement, costume, light and sound, balance alienation with celebration. His sculptural works explore the role of scapegoating in maintaining cultural dominance. Concerned with a queerness, immigration and climate change, he explores the many forms of marginalization in North American society. Hoesy earned his BFA at The Maryland Institute College of Art in 2009 and is currently a MAT candiate. He has exhibited at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Walters Art Museum and The Peale Museum, among numerous others. In 2017, he received an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant and, in 2016, a Ruby’s Project Grant in Visual Arts. He is a 2017-2018 Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow, as well as an Artist-in Residence at the Fillmore School Studio in Washington, D.C. Hoesy lives and works in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Costumes that obscure the identity of the wearer feature prominently in your performance work, especially The Nobodies (2009-present). Who are The Nobodies?

Hoesy Corona: The Nobodies are no one and everyone at once. In this series I consider what it means to be a disenfranchised member of society in North America by embodying the abstract concept of nobody, nothing all of a sudden becomes individualized, becomes body and eyes, becomes no one. I started this series after reading The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz in which he describes the fraught psyches in the relationship between Mexico and The United States in detail. As a Mexican immigrant artist living in the U.S. for most of my life, I consider the paradox of the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of the immigrant in the U.S. In this series I invite audience members to participate in the act of nobodying, an operation that consists of making somebody into nobody.

Nobodies Gala, 2016.
OPP: Can you talk about the materials you use to construct the wearable sculptures?

HC: I use a variety of familiar everyday materials to construct these wearable sculptures. When I started the series in 2009, I was working as a florist and was drawn to discarded floral packaging materials—cellophane, ribbons, mylar, silk florals, and mesh nettings—and collected them obsessively. Once I had amassed a substantial amount of stuff, I then transformed the materials into other-worldly colorful wearable sculptures that accompanied a live performance. I no longer work as a florist, but I am still interested in using different types of plastics as well as wigs, silk flowers, lights, clear film, and adhesive vinyls to construct new Nobodies.

OPP: What kinds of movements do the Nobodies perform in public spaces?

HC: The movements in the Nobodies are very subtle and sculptural. Oftentimes, viewers don’t realize that the sculptures are being animated by real people. The slow movements invite the audience members to pause as they consider the situation before them. In public spaces these performances are particularly poignant as the unsuspecting viewers encounter the Nobodies in their natural setting.

Scapegoat Monument, 2014.
OPP: The Scapegoats show up both as static sculptures—some life sized and some tiny—and performance characters. Do you see one iteration as more successful than the other? How do they work differently on the audience?

HC: I often intertwine the archetype of the scapegoat as a way to have us visualize the strategic selection of somebody, made into nobody, for the supposed wellbeing of the group. The sculptural forms don’t always involve a live performance, but are still performative in their context. In Scapegoat Thrones, for instance, I use found chair structures as the base of each sculpture and ask audience members to consider the cost of the comfort that is afforded to them in the world. So while there is no live performance involved, the audience can still imagine themselves in relation to the chair forms. Most recently during a residency at Ox-Bow School of Art, I worked in the ceramic studio to construct miniature Scapegoat Idols that can be handled by audience members. My hope is that one day each person in the US will have their own Scapegoat Idol that they can use to liberate themselves from negative feelings of blame and shame.


Scapegoat Idol, 2016
OPP: Tell us about Alien Nation (2017) at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C.

HC: Alien Nation, curated by Victoria Reis at The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, was my most ambitious site specific performance to date. It included with 24 performers and two musicians. This mysterious and surprising shadow casting performance originated in response to the unique circular architecture of the museum. I knew I wanted to do something of a global scale that implicated a broad audience and included as many people as possible, so I conceived the idea of climate induced migration as a very real issue of our time that needs to be voiced.

OPP: The piece was viewable from the inside and from the outside. . . how were the viewing experiences different?

HC: Although the museum was open late and visitors had the opportunity to sneak a peek of the performers on the second floor rotunda, most of the 1,200 audience members were patiently waiting outside around the fountain for the performance to begin as intended. Once outside, audience members saw 24 climate-immigrants backlit with purple light creating mysterious and surprising shadows in each of the 24 windows on the second floor rotunda. The 24 performers wore what I call “climate ponchos,” which included head gear that obscured the performers faces, an approach I chose because of the mystery and anonymity it afforded. Always silent these figures created subtle, sculptural movements in various locations that were complemented by live drumming juxtaposed with natural foley sounds that included ice-cracking, loons, and running water. Slowly over the course of the performance the Climate-Immigrants started to descend downstairs and continued on their journey through the sea of bodies.

The clear wearable climate ponchos were adorned with images that depicted the archetype of the Traveler, with the people depicted wearing backpacks, carrying suitcases, wearing hats and some holding children. They were all on their way somewhere, in one direction a lot of the times. This simple showing of people in movement, in transition, resonates with a world-wide issue and echoed the reality of the viewers as they themselves traversed space to witness the performance.

OPP: In the Fall of 2017, you began a Fellowship at the Halcyon Arts Lab. Tell us bit about the program and your experience. How did it change your work?

HC: Halcyon Arts Lab is a fully funded, nine-month, international incubator that nurtures socially engaged artists in Washington D.C. I was lucky enough to be selected as one of 8 fellows for the inaugural cohort 2017-2018 to continue my work on Alien Nation. The program includes a range of professional development opportunities as well as tons of studio visits from renowned arts professionals. In addition, I am being mentored by Alberto Fierro Garza, Director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. and mentoring a young artist myself. In the short seven months that I’ve been here, my practice has strengthen by leaps and bounds, I suspect this has everything to do with the nurturing environment the fellowship provides. I encourage all socially engaged artists to keep an eye on this fellowship and consider applying in the years to come!

Country: USA

Participants Artists: Hoesy Corona, Rex Delafkaran, Kunj Patel plus additional works from DC artists in their evolving FlatFile collection



Email: info@transformerdc.org

https://platformsproject.com/platforms/transformer/

LINK: www.washingtonblade.com/2018/04/04/loca… Washington Blade|

One of the artists on display is Hoesy Corona, whom art aficionados around D.C. and Baltimore may not immediately connect with his more familiar alter ego — Dr. H. Corona.

“I think of myself as an artist of change. My performative alter egos are part of my larger inquiry into who we are and how we construct ourselves and our identities,” Corona says. “And how so often those who exist on the margins of society have to change who they are simply to survive.”

He describes his project-based work as “predicated on a multimedia approach that encompasses installation, performance, sculpture, painting and public art,” exploring what it means to be a queer Latino person in a place where there are few. In his work, Corona considers the psychological and physical ramifications of never seeing oneself reflected anywhere.

“My work is content driven but aesthetically motivated,” he says. “As such, I’ve developed a personal creative vocabulary that I implement in the studio when constructing a new piece. Recurring themes of queerness, immigration, climate change, alienation and celebration are all present throughout my work. I create otherworldly colorful manifestations that seduce and draw in the audience closer to the work while challenging their preconceived notions.”

The 30-year-old, Mexican-American multidiscipline artist is originally from Baltimore, but now lives in Washington, working full-time as an artist and fulfilling a fellowship at Halcyon Arts Lab, an organization that nurtures the development of socially engaged artists.

He’s been creative for as long as he can remember, with his earliest memories being of holding pencils or playing with non-hardening clay. Corona attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and studied painting and independent curatorial studies.

“I was trained as a painter so some early influences include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, David Hockney and Paula Rego,” he says. “As I developed my practice, I started to embrace the notion of being an uncategorized artist — as such I’ve been influenced by national artists Teresita Fernandez, Coco Fusco, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Guillermo Gomez Peńa, Nick Cave and Kalup Linzy; and local artists Valeska Populoh, Joyce J. Scott, Melissa Webb, Paul Rucker, Ada Pinkston and Laure Drogoul.”

His work has appeared at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Current Space, Delicious Spectacle and Panoply Performance Laboratory.

“I am also an arts organizer as the founding co-director of Labbodies, a nomadic arts organization that creates opportunities for new media and performance artists to exhibit their work,” Corona says. “With Labbodies, we have a strong focus of working with artists of color, queer artists and non-conforming artists.”

For Light City Baltimore, Corona’s project is entitled “Alien Nation 2,” and he focuses on bringing to life a small excerpt from a larger project that took place last summer at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

“For that project, I wanted to do something of a global scale that implicated a broad audience and included as many people as possible,” he says. “So, I conceived of the idea of climate-induced migration as a very real issue of our time that needs to be voiced.”

In Alien Nation, he considers the impending plight of climate immigrants worldwide. The performers will wear what he calls “climate ponchos,” which include head gear that obscures their faces, an approach he chose because of the mystery and anonymity it affords and because of its ability to absorb laser and light effects. Always silent, these figures will roam about the festival’s two-mile space at the Inner Harbor and in various locations create repetitive sculptural forms and movements for attendees.

The clear wearable climate ponchos are adorned with images that depict the archetype of the “traveler,” with the people depicted wearing backpacks, carrying suitcases, wearing hats and some holding children.

“They are all on their way somewhere, in one direction a lot of the times,” he says. “This simple showing of people in movement, in transition, resonates with a world-wide issue and echoes the reality of the festival goers as they themselves traverse the festival footprint to see light installations.”

In his ongoing series, the Nobodies (2009-present), Corona utilizes colorful sculptural garments fitted to the human body to create other worldly experiences for the viewer.

“I revel in the simultaneous visibility and invisibility that the garments bring to the wearer. In these public performances, I invite audience members to play a part in the act of nobodying, an operation that consists of making somebody, nobody,” he says. “Nothing all of a sudden becomes individualized, becomes body and eyes becomes no one.”

Corona’s roving performance at Light City will take place on April 14-15 from 8-11 p.m. His work can also be seen in the “Queer(ed) Performativity” group show at D.C. Arts Center curated by Andy Johnson, April 13-May 20; and in May, he will be traveling to Athens, Greece with Transformer D.C. as part of a Sister Cities grant. In September, he will be part of a group show at the Strathmore curated by Laura Irene.

And who is Corona aside from his artwork?

“I love my friends and family, I love drag queens and I know I’m procrastinating when I start a new series on Netflix,” the Scorpio, who’s single, says. “I love fresh empanadas and my go-to morning drink is fresh cold brew with coconut milk.”

He devours podcasts like “Latinos Who Lunch” and “Modern Art Notes” and is himself at work on a forthcoming Latino podcast with artist Mercedes Estefani called “Vale N. Tina Podcast,” dubbed in honor of Valentina from “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which he says will focus on art, politics and Latino culture.

Queer(ed) Performativity.

DC Arts Center
2438 18th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia 20009

April 13-May 20

Curated by Andy Johnson
Mentor Curators: Zoë Charlton, and Tim Doud

Exhibiting artists: Eames Armstrong, Antonius Bui, Hoesy Corona, Alexandra “Rex” Delafkaran, Myles Loftin, Stephanie Mercedes, and David Vassalli.

Queer(ed) Performativity points to a rise in the production, distribution, and consumption of queerness in both mainstream American culture and media. The performativity of queerness and the queer(ed) body has, within the past two decades, served as a note of comedic and anxious relief, a catch all for the uneasiness felt from the deconstruction of gender binaries and the shifting attitudes towards the fluidity of sexuality. The crux of Queer(ed) Performativity raises attention to the fact that the queer(ed) body is lauded, celebrated, and put on display when in the service of white heterosexual consumption. The exhibition underscores the incisive ways in which artists respond to, subvert, and refuse a politics of respectability and heteronormativity vis-a-vis both art objects and the body. Whether through the hyper-performance of queerness, the refusal to perform the role of the queer, or somewhere in between, the artists question the role of “queer” within late-capitalist neoliberal circles.

Light City

Transformer DC presents: FRAMEWORK PANEL #27:
CHALLENGING COLONIALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ART

Wednesday, March 21, 2018
6:30 – 8:00 pm

The Mexican Cultural Institute
2829 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20009

Attendance is FREE. -

Featuring: Ash Arder; Dulcina Abreu; Adrienne Elise Tarver; Hoesy Corona -

Moderator: Edgar Endress -
-
Transformer continues our ongoing FRAMEWORK Panel Series with FRAMEWORK Panel #27: Challenging Colonialism in Contemporary Art. This panel will highlight emerging artists challenging commonly held notions of how their identities have been defined through colonialism, history, and popular culture.
This panel is presented in conjunction with Transformer’s spring exhibition, Queer Tropics, a group exhibition that considers the abstract idea of the tropics and how that vision has been variously created, reinforced, and confronted. Originally presented at Pelican Bomb Gallery X in New Orleans, November 2017, Queer Tropics features artworks that examine the visual and cultural systems through which one imagines the landscape of the tropics as a site of leisure, sensuality, and play.

Gallery 102 is proud to present Hyphen American, an exhibition that challenges and unsettles the liminal space of hybrid cultural identity within the American lexicon. Through painting, sculpture, video, photography, performance, and installation, the exhibition addresses the mythification of immigrants and first-generation Americans. The artists on view refuse, engage with, subvert, and satirize the exotification and fetishization that one often confronts when engaged with multiple cultural identities.

The “othering” of immigrant communities is historically rooted in the cultural identity of America. Whiteness, as a synonym for the US, relies on the “other” to distinguish itself politically, socially, and economically. Our melting pot is merely a distraction to perpetuate erasure and cultural genocide; a mantra that willfully ignores the ramifications of American cultural essentialism. With the recent anniversary of Trump’s Muslim travel ban, and attention paid to alt-right, nationalist, white supremacist groups, it is imperative to resist the scapegoat tactics deployed by racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic groups.

Hyphen American, while admittedly incomprehensive in scope, is a humble and empowered attempt to create paths through barriers from the symbolic construction of hybridized languages derived from a mother tongue.

Exhibiting artists: Ani Bradberry, Baseera Khan, Dominique Duroseau, Fabiola Yurcisin, Hector Canonge, Helina Metaferia, Hoesy Corona, Joseph Orzal, Kunj, Lloyd Foster, Marcelline, Mojdeh Rezaeipour, Nakeya Brown, Nana Ama Bentsi-Enchill, Nyugen Smith, Sheida Soleimani, Tariku Shiferaw, Tsige Tafesse, Zavé Martohardjono.

Curated by: Tsedaye Makonnen & Rex Delafkaran

4. LabBodies’ “BBB Performance Art Review III: Freedom” at SpaceCamp: “Freedom” is an apt curatorial theme for a performance art showcase any time: Both freedom and performance art itself are ephemeral and, more often than not, they implicate the body. But for these artists—mostly women of color—the slipperiness of freedom nearly year into the Trump regime made for an especially potent point to pass through and break down. At performance art incubator LabBodies’ third annual “Borders, Boundaries, and Barricades (BBB)” exhibition (the first of which took place in 2015 in response to the uprising), we saw the effects and survival of oppression distilled into commanding images of endurance, repetition, and gesture. (Maura Callahan)

Baltimore Beat

6. LabBodies’ Freedom Free-Done Performance Series at SpaceCamp
The beauty of LabBodies Performance Art Review is that you never know what to expect until you are sharing observant, participatory space with the artists as they perform. Each action is a disruptive and engaging encounter that problematizes, critiques, and demands attention while the installation work enhances and expounds on the ideas performed.

In the face of an overwhelming persistence of local, national, and international disparities, corruptions and assaults on basic civil liberties, it is telling and timely that Dr. H Corona and Dr. A. Pinkston chose freedom as an explorative prompt for participants in LabBodies‘ annual Performance Art Review at SpaceCamp, where a collection of immersive installations and live performances have transformed the gallery into a site for critical discourse on freedom. Freedom Free-Done offered reflective affirmations visualizing freedom’s potential, and how collective and individual imaginings about freedom can dismantle the decrepit and exclusive systems that threaten to destroy the world. – AC

Bmore Art

Common Field

Dr. A Pinkston and Dr. H. Corona: "How to cook an ehtnic meal in a white establishment Or Fake it Until you Make it. An entire Team of Two"

There is a complex constellation that ties all artists and arts administrators together regianlly, nationally, and globally. What does it mean to be within the "in crowd" when you live on the margings of society? During their performative lecture, the doctors will discuss their findings about art institutions and organizations in the D.C. Maryland and Virginia region. In particular, they will discuss their experience as artist organzizers who run Labbodies Performance Art Lab in Baltimore. These questions and more will be addressed in a lecture performance by Dr. A. Pinkston and Dr. H. Corona.

Queer Interiors: Closing Celebration
August 26 · 2:00pm –
Free

During the final month of Queer Interiors, join us in celebrating artists Jaimes Mayhew and Rahne Alexander and their year-long partnership with the BMA and The LGBT Health Resource Center at Chase Brexton. Performances and a panel discussion will highlight LGBTQI+ artists and their contributions to contemporary discourse.

Enjoy performances by Rahne Alexander and Lurch and Holler (Liz Downing & Michael R. Willis), plus a panel discussion with Jaimes and Rahne, curator Steven Vider, filmmaker Emily Eaglin, and artist Hoesy Corona on LGBTQI+ artists and their contributions to contemporary discourse.

Image: Jaimes Mayhew and Rahne Alexander (photography by Jill Fannon).

VISUAL ARTS - SEPTEMBER 15 - OCTOBER 14, 2017

HOME + DISCORDANCE = US

Curated by: Jackie Hoysted, Solas Nua
Artists: Holly Bass, Larry Cook, Hoesy Corona, Heloisa Escudero, Erin Devine, John Brendan Guinan, Jackie Hoysted, Ann Lewis, Tsedaye Makonnen, Akemi Maegawa, Carolina Mayorga, Sheldon Scott, René Treviño, Anna Tsouhlarakis and Helen Zughaib
Venue: NYU Washington DC, 1307 L St NW, Washington, DC 20005
Opening Reception: Friday, September 15, 6-8 pm including live artist performances.

BALTIMORE MAGAZINE
BEST OF BALTIMORE 2017

THOUGHT-PROVOKING INSTALLATION
LIGHT HAPPENINGS II AT LIGHT CITY
We couldn't walk by this immersive Light City work without stopping. Labbodies, a performance art laboratory envisioned by Hoesy Corona and Ada Pinkston, stirringly examined devastating moments in U.S. history.

Baltimore Magazine

The Late Shift: Boardwalk Nights
August 18 @ 7:00 pm - August 19 @ 12:00 am
The Late Shift: Boardwalk Nights is the last of three late-night festivals over the course of the 2017 summer season. Experience a late-night art happening along the riverfront and in the Torpedo Factory.

Featured Artists

– Superwaxx

– Lindsay Hall

– Anne Smith

Including Artist Showcase curated by Quota (Dawne Langford):
– Hoesy Corona
– Rachel Schmidt
– Rodrigo Carazas Portal

Torpedo Factory

LABBODIES PERFORMANCE ART REVIEW 2017 | FREEDOM

Request for Proposals Now Open!
Deadline: September 1st 2017 (MIDNIGHT ET)

APPLY HERE: APPLICATION

free·dom
ˈfrēdəm/
noun: freedom
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
“do we have freedom of choice?"

absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.
"he was a champion of freedom"

synonyms:
independence, self-government, self-determination, self-rule, home rule, sovereignty, nonalignment, autonomy; democracy
"revolution is the only path to freedom”
the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved "the shark thrashed its way to freedom"

Synonyms: liberty, liberation, release, deliverance, delivery, discharge; literary disenthrallment; Historical manumission -"a desperate bid for freedom"

lib·er·a·tion
libəˈrāSH(ə)n/
noun: liberation; plural noun: liberations
the act of setting someone free from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression; release.
"the liberation of all political prisoners"

freedom from limits on thought or behavior.
"the struggle for women's liberation"

LabBodies is currently accepting proposals for it’s third annual performance art review: FREEDOM, November 1 - 29, 2017, at SpaceCamp.

For its third iteration of Boundaries, Borders and Barricades Performance Art Review, Labbodies invites proposals from artists from the DMV area for site-specific installations, live performances, video projections and new media work to address topics related to freedom.

Project proposals should examine the concept of freedom in 21st century, searching for liberation or freedom in the face of extreme oppression. Artists are encouraged to examine moments in history where freedom is sparse and preserved for only a few citizens in the United States.

Sexual freedom, physical freedom, psychological freedom, racial freedom, and economic freedom.

How do the isms of our society interact with the state of being that is free? What does it reveal about our society? What comes with freedom? What does freedom look like in the context of the past, present and future? How do we obtain freedom? We seek proposals that examine any and all of these questions.

Submissions must be submitted by September, 1 2017. Selections will be made by the Labbodies Team and notified no later than September 15th, 2017

Selected artists will receive a $500 honorarium to produce new work. Proposals are welcome from visual and performance artists from DMV area. Strong consideration for artists of color, non-binary, LGBTQP who feel that they have been marginalized or disenfranchised from traditional presentations of art.

HOW TO APPLY:
-To submit please send the following application requirements: 500 word proposal, 200 word bio, budget here: Application Form

-Additionally, please email 5 Image samples (photo and video), one image must be a sketch of proposed work to labbodiesgeneral@gmail.com with your name_freedom in the subject line.

TIMELINE:
Call for Artists - August 6th - September 1st 2017
Application Deadline: September 1st, 2017 (MIDNIGHT ET)
Artists Notified: September 15th, 2017
Exhibition/Performance: Nov 1st-Nov 29th 2017

Sponsored in part by an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant, administered by The Contemporary

http://halcyonhouse.org/hoesy-corona

"
Halcyon Arts Lab
At the intersection of art and social impact, this nine-month fellowship supports emerging artists with bold ideas of how art and creativity can be forces for social change.

Announcing the debut Halcyon Arts Lab Cohort
We are thrilled to introduce the first official Arts Lab cohort to the Halcyon community. Coming this fall, meet the eight new fellows behind the creative art – from storytelling through the eyes of incarcerated youth, to performative sculptures investigating alien tropes and combating xenophobia.

SPOTLIGHT:
Hoesy Corona is a multi-disciplinary artist and arts organizer creating videos and soundscapes for his visual and performance project Alie[N]ation which investigates and dismantles alien tropes, xenophobic language and the archetype of the scapegoat. Participants wear colorful garments fitted to the human body, which create otherworldly experiences as the wearer is simultaneously visible and invisible – both stripping and enhancing identity and reality.

Corona (b. Mexico 1986, based in the United States of America) is a multidisciplinary artist and the founding co-director of Labbodies, a nomadic arts laboratory that creates opportunities for new media and performance artists to exhibit their work. Throughout his short career, Corona has shown compelling works and inventive sculptures fitted to the human body extensively. He oftentimes presents works at a variety of institutional, private, public and underground venues such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Walters Art Museum; the Peale Museum; the Songs for Presidents Gallery; the Panoply Performance Laboratory; the Decker Gallery; the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival; VisArts; Current Space; Creative Alliance; the Haggerty Museum and others. Corona’s recent honors include a Light City Public Art Commission in 2017; an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant in Visual Arts, administered by The Contemporary in 2017; and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby's Project Grant in Visual Arts in 2016.

To learn more about Hoesy Corona, visit hoesycorona.com and labbodies.com.

Description of Artwork: "Alien Nation," 2017 by Hoesy Corona | Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Shadow/Casters curated by Victoria Reis | "Transformer" photo by Andy DelGiudice"

"The Artist-Run Art Fair is curated by Baltimore collective Open Space, and this year featured eleven galleries, including Clr’d Collective, Current Space, Fjord, Kahlon, Labbodies, Little Berlin, Little Foes-LFHQ, Make Studio, Open Space, Terrault, and Yeah Maybe.

“Labors of love (especially those that are artist-led) are vital to the city yet end up being hard to upkeep,” says Dr. H. Corona, a participating artist who co-directs LabBodies. “It’s especially [difficult] with no sustainable local funding infrastructure in place to support small artist-centered arts organizations as they begin to grow, travel, take big creative leaps or just simply try to continue to exist.” ARAF provides a platform for emerging artists to take the lead, with plenty of space and free rein to challenge traditional presentations of art."

Bmore Art

"I am one of the founders of the arts organization Labbodies and I am a part of the Artist-Run Art Fair. We’re typically known for doing large-scale performances and art works in unconventional spaces, so we took this opportunity to showcase documents of performances that have happened recently, instead of actual live performances. We have three local artists featured who are decontextualizing the black female body in contemporary times. I think the Artist-Run Art Fair is the best part of Artscape. It’s really focused on artist-run spaces, so there are a lot of artists who are blurring the line between producer and organizer. It has a different feel, and I like that authenticity about it."
-Hoesy Corona

Baltimore Magazine

www.instagram.com/hirshhorn/?hl=en Hirshhorn Instagram|

SHADOW/CASTERS
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
June 10th, 2017
Washington, DC

curated by Victoria Reis | Transformer DC

Metro Weekly

"“The artists have each been really thoughtful in how they’re thinking about myths around the full moon and summer solstice,” says Reis, “and they’re each looking at them from their own personal, cultural identity.” Jason Barnes — aka Pussy Noir — will reflect on African-American rituals, Alexandra ‘Rex” Delafkaran on Persian traditions, and Kunj Patel on Indian festivals.

The core of Shadow/Casters is a dramatic display of light and shadow by Hoesy Corona that will transform the museum’s inner-courtyard into a shadow theater. “Through light projections within the Hirshhorn, [24 assisting artists] will be casting shadows on the second floor of the museum that the audience will experience from the courtyard,” says Reis."

Hirshhorn Museum Press Release

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will partner with local arts organization Transformer to present “Shadow/Casters,” an after-hours performance art event on the Hirshhorn’s outdoor plaza Saturday, June 10, 7:30–11 p.m. Guests will be invited to explore the museum during special extended hours, enjoy a cash bar and music on the plaza, and take in four site-specific performances that creatively explore abundance, transition and community through contemporary storytelling and ritual.

Coinciding with Transformer’s 15th anniversary and the approaching summer solstice, “Shadow/Casters” features one-night-only performances by Washington-based artists Jason Barnes (Pussy Noir), Alexandra ‘Rex’ Delafkaran, Kunj and Hoesy Corona.

“Shadow/Casters” will take audiences on a visual journey through culture, time, and space with a variety of immersive performance styles, including dance and drumming. The evening culminates as the moon emerges, with a three-story tall performance that transforms the Hirshhorn’s iconic round building into a physical shadow theater and creates a spectacular display of light and shadow, designed to be experienced by the crowds gathered below.

Tickets are $18, and will be available online May 9. “Shadow/Casters” is presented in conjunction with D.C.’s annual Capital Pride festival, held June 8–11, and in partnership with Smithsonian GLOBE (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Employees).

The evening is curated by Transformer’s Executive and Artistic Director Victoria Reis.

“Shadow/Casters” joins the Hirshhorn’s 2017–18 schedule of diverse contemporary art that reflects global conversations that shape history, politics and culture, including work by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, German artist Markus Lüpertz, Swiss artist Nicolas Party, and American artists Yoko Ono, Theaster Gates and Mark Bradford.

Washington City Paper

"All of the artists who will appear at the Hirshhorn After Hours event showed their work previously at Transformer in Defy/Define, a show from last fall. Jason Barnes (Pussy Noir), Alexandra “Rex” Delafkaran, and Kunj Patel will each perform works in the museum courtyard.

Baltimore’s Hoesy Corona will man the shadow-casting performance from inside the Hirshhorn’s window-ringed donut with Labbodies, the performance collective he co-directs. Transformer is working with the Hirshhorn’s time-based media specialist, Drew Doucette, and the museum’s new curator of media and performance, Mark Beasley, to sort out the challenge of turning the Hirshhorn into a zoetrope. "

"SNAE has overseen large projects such as The Urban Playground Team which
combined elements of functional architecture and design with performanceparkour,
street dance, and street based arts and sporting disciplines to present
Play the Plaza; Dark City in 2016, where The Dark Lab, curated by Ada
Pinkston and Hoesy Corona, created a bilateral contemporary art exhibition
that hosted Light Research Kiosk, a series of pop-up performances that collected
responses to the question “What gives you Light?” which was then
interpreted as Dark City, a temporary installation. "

Amtrak Newsletter

Baltimore Sun

"Light Happenings Part II by Labbodies houses performance artists examining some of the most devastating moments in history."

Baltimore Business Journal

Fodors Travel

"LIGHT HAPPENINGS PART II
Artist: Labbodies, 2017

Materials: Glass and steel frames, LED lights, projectors, el wire

Okay, this one’s a little more startling, and complicated, than most. Three glass-and-steel houses—one rectangular, two pyramidal—are framed with LED lights. And inside, real-life performance artists examine some of history’s most devastating moments, encouraging the viewer to engage in discussion. The backstory? The installation marks the site of the first Civil War’s first casualty, here in Baltimore, a war that stemmed from racial inequality. And, with the 9/11 Memorial located nearby as well, it reminds us of current examples of racial inequality and how this conversation must extend beyond Baltimore into the world."

Baltimore Times


"LABBODIES will present Light Happenings II, a site-specific installation and performance program by lead artists Hoesy Corona and Ada Pinkston, who are also LABBODIES founding co-directors. The project examines devastating moments in history and their relationship to contemporary acts of violence in the United States.

“Large-scale art projects often solicit proposals from individuals or teams that already have a history of working in similar capacities,” said Corona. “We are elated, in our short careers, to have

the opportunity to carry out such an ambitious commission. It is the most significant one for us so far, and we hope to create a path toward the sustainable production of future large-scale projects.”

According to Corona and Pinkston, Light Happenings II takes into account the complex history and public art found on and around the installation site. Particularly considering the Civil War trail and the 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial, as well as acknowledging the role that the Inner Harbor port served in the transatlantic slave trade— where “between 1815 and 1860, traders in Baltimore made the port one of the leading disembarkation points for ships carrying slaves to New Orleans and other ports in the deep South”.

“In the face of such earthly horrors, we ask the question: What Gives You Light?” said Corona and Pinkston.

The installation consists of three structures using steel, Plexiglas, paint, vinyl, LED lights, projections and video. The interactive installation will include audience participation and live performances by regional and national performance artists. Both Pinkston and Hoesy will be among the performance artists, which will also include Alexander D’Agostino (Baltimore), Nicoletta De La Brown (Baltimore), Ayana Evans (New York), Bobby English Jr. (California), and Tsedaye MaKonnen (Washington, DC)."

Bmore Art

Baltimore Magazine

Baltimore Fishbowl

"Light Happenings Part II,” by Baltimore performance art group Labbodies, is a resurrection of the first rendition from last year’s inaugural festival. These structures contain historical themes aglow with neon, to “examine some of the most tragic moments in history and their connection to contemporary acts of violence in the United States,” per Light City’s website."

Soup of the Day

www.contemporary.org/gritfund/ The Contemporary|

The Contemporary is pleased to announce the third round of grantees of the Grit Fund. In 2017, the Grit Fund received over 70 applications and awarded $55,250 to 11 projects with grants ranging from $3,000 to $6,000. Awards were determined by a five-person jury of local and national arts leaders: Cameron Shaw (New Orleans, LA), Carolyn Lazard (Philadephia, PA), Khadija Nia Adell (Baltimore, MD), Kris Kuramitsu (Los Angeles, CA), and Melissa Webb (Baltimore, MD). The Contemporary would like to congratulate this year’s grantees: A Revolutionary Summer Publications; Baltimore’s Gifted Shop & Sip Exhibition; Blush + Brews; Close Up Baltimore; Extant Arts; Kidult Presents: Outside the Box with Abu the Flutemaker; LabBodies Performance Art Review III: Freedom; NONUMENT 01: The McKeldin Fountain; Refugee Youth Publishing Workshops; Secret Psychic Cinema’s Season 3 Programming; and WOO Windows.


LabBodies Performance Art Review III: Freedom

LabBodies Performance Art Review III: Freedom by Ashley DeHoyos, Ada Pinkston, and Hoesy Corona; funded $6000. LabBodies Performance Art Review III: Freedom will be the third iteration of LabBodies annual performance art festival. This program began in 2015 when organizers saw a need to create a space for local artists to examine the socio-political pressure that comes from the boundaries of race, class, gender, and power in the United States of America. The festival provides a platform for artists that exist on the margins to present their work in a supportive environment. The Grit Fund supports general operating and the production and presentation of the third year of the festival.

BMORE ART

The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : 21201

Free, advance registration requested

LabBodies, a Baltimore-based laboratory for performance art, brings new works created for the Walters the museum’s Sculpture Court and Ancient World galleries. These spectacular and colorful interventions connect ancient art with contemporary questions about race, religion, gender, and identity.

This one night, two person performance features new work by multimedia artists Hoesy Corona and Ada Pinkston in response to the collections housed in the galleries. Pinkston’s From God’s Name to No Namewill lead viewers in a ritualized procession through the galleries, while Corona’s Nobodies Gala will act as a quinciañera celebration, or fifteenth anniversary, of his longest ongoing performance Hoesy, and highlight the museum’s Mexican earthenware collection.

Queens Museum

The first program dedicated to the discussion and exploration of various themes in Performance Art, TALKaCTIVE, begins season series with the presentations of “Performance and Associations.” This month conversation focuses on aspects of associative creation, relational experiences, collaborative undertakings, and exploration of communal performative actions. Featured artists work, reference, investigate, and explore modalities of connection with and among peers and with the public. The presentation of documentation of works will be followed by a panel conversation and Q&A with attending audience.
Participating Artists: Beatriz Albuquerque (Portugal), Hoesy Corona (Mexico), Jenna Kline (United States), and Verónica Peña (Spain).

Moderated by curator: Hector Canonge.

TALKaCTIVE: performance art conversation series
"Performance and Associations"
Sunday, March 19, 2017, 2:00 - 5:00 PM
Hosted at the QUEENS MUSEUM

The first program dedicated to the discussion and exploration of various themes in Performance Art, TALKaCTIVE, begins season series with the presentations of “Performance and Associations.” This month conversation focuses on aspects of associative creation, relational experiences, collaborative undertakings, and exploration of communal performative actions. Featured artists work, reference, investigate, and explore modalities of connection with and among peers and with the public. The presentation of documentation of works will be followed by a panel conversation and Q&A with attending audience.

Participating Artists: Beatriz Albuquerque (Portugal), Hoesy Corona (Mexico), Jenna Kline (United States), and Verónica Peña (Spain).
Moderated by curator: Hector Canonge

Baltimore Magazine

Labbodies Presents Recharging the Canon
March 23, The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. This Baltimore-based laboratory for performance art brings new works created for the Walters’ sculpture court and ancient world galleries. These interventions connect ancient art with contemporary questions about race, religion, gender, and identity. Ada Pinkston’s From God’s Name to No Name will lead viewers in a ritualized procession through the galleries, while Hoesy Corona’s Nobodies Gala will act as a quinciañera celebration and highlight the museum’s Mexican earthenware collection.

"A few months ago I was asked to plan a studio tour for Christopher Bedford, the new director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Mera Rubell, an internationally respected collector and founding partner of the Rubell Family Collection, a Miami-based museum. The goal was simple: introduce Chris and Mera to a diverse range Baltimore artists and studio spaces through as authentic a means possible. We selected twenty-two studio visits for two days, February 28 and March 1, traversing from Highlandtown to Federal Hill to Hampden to Station North, squeezing in time for the occasional coffee, snack, and cocktail in between.

“I found the experience stirring and inspiring and I look forward to continuing a meaningful engagement with the local artist community,” said Bedford after the tour. “Our twenty-two studio visits were a forceful demonstration that artists in Baltimore are responding with intelligence and determination to the specifics of our social context, using their creative acumen to advocate for inclusivity and social justice in a city where those values are more pressing than most.”

“I was impressed with much of the work that I saw, but also with the strength and support in the art community in Baltimore,” said Rubell. “The artists have such an amazing network here. Baltimore is an inspiring place to be an artist and I was thrilled for the opportunity to visit their studios.” "

BMOREART WEB

|http://www.artscape.org/visual-arts/visual-arts-detail/1091|ARTSCAPE | SONDHEIM PRIZE 2017|

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts announces the semifinalists for the 12th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. The competition awards a $25,000 fellowship to assist in furthering the career of a visual artist or visual artist collaborators living and working in the Greater Baltimore region. For 2017, 36 individual artists have been selected as semifinalists.


2017 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize Semifinalists

Mequitta Ahuja, Baltimore, MD

Mary Anne Arntzen, Baltimore, MD

Carolyn Case, Cockeysville, MD

Cindy Cheng, Baltimore, MD

Heather Clark, Leesburg, VA

Shannon Collis, Lutherville, MD

Hoesy Corona, Baltimore, MD

Rachel Debuque, Riverdale Park, MD

Sara Dittrich, Baltimore, MD

Selina Doroshenko, Baltimore, MD

Tim Doud, Washington, DC

Mary Early, Washington, DC

Colin Foster, Baltimore, MD

Emily Francisco, Washington, DC

Bryan Funk, Baltimore, MD

Tatiana Gulenkina, Washington, DC

Cadeatra Harvey, Baltimore, MD

Muriel Hasbun, Silver Spring, MD

Taha Heydari, Baltimore, MD

Ricardo Hoegg, Baltimore, MD

Benjamin Kelley, Baltimore, MD

Travis Levasseur, Baltimore, MD

Nathaniel Lewis, Washington, DC

Giulia Livi, Baltimore, MD

Kelly Lloyd, Baltimore, MD

Bruce McKaig, Baltimore, MD

Scott Pennington, Baltimore, MD

Paul Rucker, Baltimore, MD

James Singewald, Baltimore, MD

Julia Smith, Baltimore, MD

Dan Steinhilber, Washington, DC

Kyle Tata, Baltimore, MD

Katya Vilano, Baltimore, MD

Jessica Walton, Baltimore, MD

Xiaofu Wang, Baltimore, MD

Amy Yee, Baltimore, MD

The Sondheim Artscape Prize is held in conjunction with the annual Artscape juried exhibition and produced with the Walters Art Museum and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Approximately six finalists are selected for the final review for the prize. Their work is showcased at the Walters Art Museum from Saturday, June 17 through Sunday, August 13, 2017. Additionally, an exhibition of the semifinalists’ work is shown in the Decker and Meyerhoff galleries of MICA on Friday, July 21 through Sunday, August 6, 2017. An opening reception for the semifinalist exhibition takes place Thursday, July 20, 2017 from 6pm to 9pm at MICA, located at 1303 W. Mount Royal Avenue.

The fellowship winner is selected from the Walters Art Museum exhibition after review of the installed art and an interview with each finalist by the jurors. Jurors for 2017 include Curator at the SculptureCenter in Long Island City Ruba Katrib, New York-based contemporary artist Clifford Owens, and Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Musuem Nat Trotman.

Artist: Labbodies
Baltimore, MD

Building on their 2016 Neighborhood Lights project in Station North, Light Happenings Part II is a site-specific multimedia installation and performance by lead artists Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona. The interactive installation will be activated with audience participation and live performances by regional and national performance artists. Light Happenings Part II will examine some of the most tragic moments in history and their connection to contemporary acts of violence in the United States. In the face of such earthly horror, the question remains: Where Is Your Lighthouse?

About the artist: Returning to Light City for the second year, Lab Bodies is a performance art laboratory based in Baltimore, Maryland that provides a format for artists working in the arena of performance art to exhibit their work. Last year they launched the annual performance art review Borders Boundaries and Barricades to highlight the growing regional performance art community. Since January 2014, Labbodies has been under the direction of founding co-directors Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona.

Photo: Dark City by Labbodies, photo by Carly J Bales

Light City 2017

Labbodies presents Recharging the Canon at The Walters Art Museum

DATE
Thursday, March 23, 2017

TIME
07:00 PM–08:30 PM

This one night, two person performance features new work by multimedia artists Hoesy Corona and Ada Pinkston in response to the collections housed in the Walters’ Sculpture Court, Egyptian galleries, and Ancient Near East galleries. Pinkston’s From God’s Name to No Name will lead viewers in a ritualized procession through the galleries, while Corona’s Nododies Gala will act as a quincianera celebration of his longest ongoing performance Hoesy, and highlight the museum’s Mexican earthenware collection.

Hoesy Corona's performance still from "Scapegoat Monument", 2014 has been 3-d printed and transformed into a traditional fashion plate!

Next time you visit The Baltimore Museum of Art be sure to stop by the Big Table Connections and try out the Fashion Plate Hack activity!

Maryland Art Place invites you to join us at our fourth annual "Under $500" affordable art sale this December! On Friday, December 9 at 7 o'clock join us for a first-come, first-served opportunity to purchase affordable and original works of art. The event will feature the work of Baltimore and surrounding area artists at a price point of $500 or less. Purchase work at any point throughout the evening and take home that night!

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Michel Anderson, Kyle Bauer, Amy Boone McCreesh, Amanda Burnham, Jon Carhart, Josh Chance, Hoesy Corona, Bonnie Crawford Kotula, Teresa Duggan, Annie Farrar, Maria-Theresa Fernandes, Aubrey Garwood, Vin Grabill, Mia Halton, Sara Havekotte, Gregory Hein, Dana Holgerson, Glen Kessler, Seo Kim, Minas Konsolas, Carmen Martini, Antonio McAfee, Cara Ober, Lydia Pettit, Jan Razauskas, Wil Scott, Ginebra Shay, James Singewald, Victor Torres, Emily Uchytil, Jessie Unterhalter, Katey Truhn, Alice Valenti, Sylvie Van Helden, Emily Waters, Laddie Waters, Richard Paul Weiblinger, and Dominique Zeltzman.

Maryland Art Place

emergencyindex.com/

available for pre-order at their website!

"Hoesy Corona, an independent artist and one half of performance art curatorial duo LabBodies. The Rubys help these artists and writers see through specific projects with up to $10,000 in funding. We can't wait to see what they do."

Baltimore City Paper

Hoesy Corona is the recipient of a Ruby's Project Grant 2016 in the Visual Arts category to support the development and creation of new wearable sculptures for Alie[N]ation, an immersive multimedia installation and performance that investigates and dismantles hyperbolized alien tropes, xenophobic language, and the archetype of the scapegoat.



Ruby's Project Grant Visual Arts 2016

Hoesy Corona is a multidisciplinary artist and founding co-director of Labbodies, a performance art laboratory in Baltimore Maryland. During his time here, Hoesy immersed himself in the Pittsburgh community, building relationships and creating thought-provoking multidisciplinary art. Hoesy will be returning to Pittsburgh as a part of the Re:NEW Festival this fall.

When asked what his favorite part about Pittsburgh is, this is what he said: "I loved my time in Pittsburgh this past May as the Cafe Con Leche Latinx Resident Artist at Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery! The city has a strong local arts community and a rich cultural history, as well as an active series of urban renewal redevelopments. Highlights include the Cafe con Leche Sobremesa dinners, The Gallery Crawl, and the Strip District on the weekends! During my stay I also visited tons of art exhibitions across the city including those at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Boom Concepts, Bunker Projects, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Mattress Factory, Artist Image Resource, and The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust downtown galleries." To learn more about Hoesy's time in Pittsburgh and how you can see him at the Re:NEW Festival check out this blog post.

Visit Pittsburgh

"On Oct. 8, on the grounds of East Liberty Presbyterian Church, Baltimore’s Hoesy Corona presents two performances of Nobodies Gala, a short work inviting viewers to join in “nobodying,” the act of “making somebody, nobody.”"

PGH City Paper

Two solo shows featuring artists: Hoesy Corona and Niki Kriese

Just Space
Sept 28th-Novermber 7th 2016

www.piuspac.org/gallery/just-space/ Just Space|

"Describe the art work you created while in Pittsburgh.
Throughout the course of my month long creative residency I fully immersed myself in the inquiry: what does it mean to be a Latinx in a place where there are few Latinxs? and produced work that emerged from my observations. My choice of media ranged from cut vinyl on clear film, acrylic on plastic, as well as performance and video.

The first week, I produced decal compositions of men and women mowing lawns, building houses and cleaning.

The second week I produced a series of graphic vinyl compositions that portrayed ‘aliens’. The last two weeks I fully developed my new series titled "White Constructions" where I explore notions around the calculated construction of race as it pertains to US-centric power structures. This series explores the deliberate construction of race in North America and the strategic placement of white identities as superior to the rest. In White Constructions I limit my materials to the word 'white' cut from black vinyl on a clear surface. My hope is that these constructions make a complex topic visible and encourage a timely conversation around the social construction of race and the social ramifications for people of color.

During my last 3 days in Pittsburgh I also performed “Nobody in Pittsburgh” throughout the Garfield neighborhood and documented some of my outings to later translate those documents into short videos. This performance is part of my ongoing series “The Nobodies” (2009-present) where I explore what it means to be a disenfranchised member of society in North America by embodying the abstract concept of ‘nobody’. In these performances I invite audience members to play a part in the act of nobodying, an operation that consists of making somebody, nobody. “Nothing” all of a sudden becomes individualized, becomes body and eyes becomes no one."

www.cafeconlechepgh.com/azucar/2016/8/1… Cafe Con Leche|

Defy/Define

September 17 – October 22, 2016

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 17, 6-8pm
Saturday, October 15 , 7-8:45pm: Transformer, a performance by Hoesy Corona

Transformer launches our 15th Exhibition Season with Defy/Define, presenting the work of a select group of emerging visual artists exploring issues of identity through photography, video, and performance art.

Featuring works by Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Eli Barak, Jason Barnes for Noir Creative, Jo Ann Block, Nakeya Brown, Hoesy Corona , Alexandra "Rex" Delafkaran, Kunj, and Renee Regan, Defy/Define seeks to address intersectionality within struggles to have racial, ethnic, cultural, sexual, and gender identities understood & accepted.

"Transformer is proud to be launching our 15th Exhibition Season with work by artists who defy stereotypes and examine how we define ourselves in a time of tumultuous social and political change." - Victoria Reis, Executive & Artistic Director; Co-Founder, Transformer

Transformer DC

BMORE ART

"Artist Hoesy Corona took it a step further, coining a new catch phrase for artists in Baltimore. “There is no such thing as “smalltimore” we are BaltiMORE!” He also was pleased to be introduced to so many powerful and diverse Baltimore based artists that he didn’t know before"
-Hoesy Corona

"“The Contemporary Museum is taking creative risks where they matter,” said Hoesy Corona. “They are investing in the longevity of local artists careers and by default benefiting the national and international creative landscape.”
-Hoesy Corona

THANK YOU!!! CREATIVE MORNING BALTIMORE for hosting the Labbodies Doctors!

BMORE ART

Creative Mornings Baltimore hosts Labbodies!!!
JOIN US FRIDAY 8/19 from 8:30-10am at Penthouse Gallery (Copycat Building)

Looking forward to Creative Mornings Baltimore this Friday August 19th 2016 from 8:30am-10am at Penthouse Gallery! FREE! with complimentary breakfast and coffee!


"in the city home to John Waters and other, lesser-known practicioners of the unusual, it's hard to know what the word "weird" really means, if anything at all. But if anyone can approach some kind of definition, it might be Labbodies, a performance art curatorial project based in Baltimore."
-Maura Callahan

Labbodies Performance Art Review 2016 (part 2) reviewed by BMORE ART

"I witnessed surreal repetition, freaky sexy hurt, and transformative meditations on migration and loss. I watched the consumption of indigestible whiteness. I pinned wings to the body of a bloody swan. Every night required audience participation; an interactive engagement and conscious observation with performances that contextualized the rally cries of our generation, and the stories that stretch beyond the borders of the charm. What follows are quick thoughts and rambles. Fleeting points of inspiration or images that stuck with me from the performances I was able to witness."

BMORE ART

Excited to be a guest at Creative Mornings Baltimore! August 19th 2016 8:30Am at Penthouse Gallery!

CREATIVE MORNINGS

BMORE ART

History, Family, Weapons: Sin and Innocence
BONNIE CRAWFORD KOTULA
AUGUST 10, 2016

"Part 1: July 28

Retrospective: A Performance Art Review presented by Labbodies at Spacecamp was the second annual event of its kind. Over four evenings, twenty artists enacted performances that had previously been presented in and around Baltimore. Seven additional artists’ work was represented through installations of ephemera and documentation of previous performances.

On the second night of Labbodies’ Performance Art Review, curators Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona presented five unique performances by five different performers that dealt with histories, personal family narratives, civil war era weaponry, and concepts of sin and innocence.

I found it noteworthy that the curators’ selection of performances that evening were by women artists who were predominantly of European descent, where all of the pieces took place in proximity to installations of performance ephemera, much of which was racially charged.
The objects and videos that comprised the installations provided a context for the performances in which the usually invisible whiteness of the performers was foregrounded through its contrast to the physical environment, hinting at other performances happening on the other three nights...."

Excited to return to Pittsburgh in the fall for Re:New Festival-- where I will debut a new performance featuring 8 performers!!!


"Nobodies Gala is a two-part performance by multidisciplinary artist Hoesy Corona and an exploration into what it means to be a disenfranchised member of society in North America. Corona makes colorful sculptural garments fitted to the human body that enable otherworldly experiences for the viewer. In Nobodies Gala the artist invites viewers to play a part in the act of ‘Nobodying’, an operation that consists of making somebody, nobody.

This performance is being presented in conjunction with the VIA Festival.

There will be two performances: a 20-minute performance in early afternoon, and a 40-minute performance in the evening. These performances will be outdoors, near the East Liberty Presbyterian Church.

RE:NEW FESTIVAL

Check this radio segment out! I speak about my experience as an artist in residence with Cafe Con Leche and Most Wanted Fine Art in Pittsburgh this past May!

WESA FM NPR

"For more than two years, Café Con Leche has promoted Latino artists and culture in Pittsburgh.

It also hosts an artist-in-residency program.

“Art is a language and I think that it doesn’t necessarily function in the same way that our spoken language does,” said multimedia artist Hoesy Corona. “Which means that it can really enter us in a different way.”

Corona exhibited his work in Pittsburgh as the resident artist in May. He’s based in Baltimore, Md. and for his artist residency focused on the question of what it means to be a Latino in a place where there are few Latinos.

“I hope that exposing people, especially in Pittsburgh, to different kinds of cultures and food and art, that we as a region can really start to reflect the changes in the demographic of the country,” said Cafe Con Leche Founder Tara Sherry-Torres.

Boris Balsindes Urquiola is the artist-in-residence for August. His work will be exhibited at events at Most Wanted Fine Art in Garfield throughout the month.

Labbodies presents
White Guilt Confessional
a solo exhibition by April Danielle Lewis
at the Artist Run Art Fair 2016
during Baltimore's Artscape

ART F CITY:

"Paddy: So, the elephant in the room: “The White Guilt Confessional Booth” by April Danielle Lewis. Art fairs are usually filled with white people, which provides at least sizable pool of potential participants. According to the curator, Hoesy Corona, who is stationed outside the frame of this picture and well away from the booth, people approach the confessional in the same way. They look to see if someone is actually behind the booth, see that there is, and do one of three things: walk away, talk to him, or use the booth.

I spoke to Corona and read some of the literature about how “unhealthy white guilt promotes a privileged refusal to engage in conversations and actions about race for fear of feeling bad”. I didn’t use the booth. It wasn’t about fear of feeling or that I don’t have any white guilt to share. Given that I’d already decided that not writing about the piece would be its own kind of racism, I really wanted to have an actual experience to share. But ultimately, the booth was nowhere near private enough for me to feel comfortable doing so. We’ve all said and done things related to our privilege that have made us ashamed. Those kinds of memories don’t get shared in an open room for everyone to hear.

Michael: But increasingly, it seems like white guilt has become the very publicly-traded currency of art discourse in Baltimore. Which makes the confessional an interesting object, because it both acknowledges that what we refer to as “identity” is about performing a somewhat scripted ritual and draws a parallel to “original sin”. Religions exact their power from the message that there’s something inherently wrong with humanity, and that often aligns with how people conceptualize race—from a “Chosen People” to “The Mark of Cain”. We haven’t yet been prescribed any one secular panacea for the myriad sins-of-the-father we inherit these days, but it’s sadly not likely to be as simple as saying a dozen Hail Marys and eating magic bread—or even lopping off one’s foreskin. I guess that’s why I also didn’t use it."

ART F CITY

Excited to participate in this panel discussion around performance art at School 33 in conjunction with the current show: Shape Shifters, curated by Melissa Webb.
the event is free and open to the public! hope you can join us!


" The June 11 event will feature performances by Civin and Bobby English Jr two of the artist in the show , and a panel discussion featuring Laure Drogoul, Alessandra Torres, Leslie Rogers, and Hoesy Corona and Ada Pinkston of Labbodies performance art laboratory, as well as the artists and curator of Shape Shifters."

Excited to have one of my paintings appear in the first issue of Hyrsteria Zine!
My painting "The Uninvited Guest" is a response to Henry Miller's poem "The Uninvited Guests".

HYRSTERIA is a zine that highlights the social differences that challenge us in our day-to-day lives— gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, age, and culture. It is a testimony of truth, fiction, and everything in-between while addressing struggle and oppression in it’s various forms. These stories, investigations, and artworks are written and illustrated by folks who are, for the most part, based in Baltimore. We hope this very first issue inspires you and connects you to the narratives and experiences of others.

www.hyrsteria.com/

Honored to have one of my projects selected for Creative Capital's On Our Radar 2016. I am in good company with Baltimore's FORCE:Upsetting Rape Culture and Laure Drogoul!


Creative Capital On Our Radar 2016

Acquire this beautiful headdress from my original performance "Mother Death Life Mama" performed at The Baltimore Museum of Art in 2012.

"Mother Scapegoat" on Paddle8
as part of the Washington Project for the Arts Auction Gala 2016. Bidding closes on Saturday April 9th at 10:10PM.

SOLD

The Dark Lab, curated by Station North’s artists-in-residence Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona, is a series of public programs that will take place in Station North throughout February, March and April 2016 in conjunction with Light City's Neighborhood Lights. During their residency, Pinkston and Corona will build off of Labbodies, a performance art laboratory based in Station North and directed by the artists, in order to host the Light Research Kiosk, a series of research pop-up performances which collect conversational interviews with individuals based around the question, “What gives you Light?” The research collected will be interpreted by the artists into Dark City, a temporary installation on Penn Station Plaza. In addition to their Light Research Kiosk and occupation of Penn Station Plaza, Pinkston and Corona will continue their Solo Labs, a series of curated exhibitions around ephemeral and new media works, with a solo show by award winning duo Wickerham & Lomax at Terrault Contemporary.

Dark Lab Schedule
February - March, 2016: ​Light Research Kiosk pop-up performances throughout the Station North Arts & Entertainment District

Firday, April 1st, 2016: The opening of Dark City @ Penn Station Plaza, on view from 5:00-10:00PM with performances from 7:00-10:00PM.

Saturday, April 2nd, 2016: The opening of Uncool by Wickerham & Lomax @ Terrault Contemporary, 7:00-10:00PM

Friday, April 8th, 2016: Uncool by Wickerham & Lomax reception @ Terrault Contemporary & Dark City closing @ Penn Station Plaza, 7:00 - 10:00PM in conjunction with Alloverstreet!

www.stationnorth.org/projects/darklab

I am honored that curator Kimberly Gladfelter Graham selected me as one of the artists for this yea's WPA Auction Gala in Washington DC!

Details:
GALA
Saturday, April 9, 2016, 7-11pm

OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, March 31, 2016

WPA AUCTION WEEK
Friday, April 1 - Friday, April 8, 2016

Curator:
Kimberly Gladfelter Ghraham

Artists:
Damon Arhos
Hoesy Corona
Regina DeLuise
David East
Annie Farrar
Suzy Kopf
Nate Larson & Marni Shindleman
Mike McKee
Gerald Ross
J. Alex Schechter
Joyce J. Scott
Leslie Shellow
Sylvie van Helden

WPA.com

Check out The Baltimore Sun for details on Light City's Labbodies | The Dark Lab in Station North!! April 1st and April 2nd 2016!

www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/ligh…

I am excited to have been selected by Cafe con Leche and Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery as an Artist in Residence! I will be spending the month of May in Pittsburgh investigating what it means to be a latino (artist ) in a place where there are few latinos.

www.NextPittsburgh.com

#hoesycorona#artistresidency#cafeconleche#mostwantedfineartgallery#pittsburgh#air#latinoartist

Looking forward to this conversation!!

Thank You Baltimore Magazine for the Artist to Watch Shout Out in the To The Future issue Feb 2016.

www.baltimoremagazine.net/2016/2/22/to-…

STATION NORTH: THE DARK LAB
Artist: LabBodies, comprised of artists Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona

Openings:

“Dark City” by LabBodies
Penn Station Plaza
Friday, April 1st
Installation on view 5-10pm
Performance 7pm – 10pm

“Uncool” by Wickerham & Lomax
Terrault Contemporary
1515 Guilford Ave
Saturday, April 2nd
Reception 7-10PM

LabBodies presents “The Dark Lab,” a bilateral contemporary art exhibition showcasing the work of artist duos: Ada Pinkston & Hoesy Corona (“Dark City,” a public installation at Penn Station Plaza) and Wickerham & Lomax (“Uncool” at Terrault Contemporary). The duos’ work seeks to find out what gives Station North residents, commuters and ambulatory passersby light. Their inquiry comes two hundred years since the Baltimore streets were the first in the country to be illuminated by the gas lamppost and just one year since the national media spotlight left the very same streets effervescent following the tragic death of Freddie Gray.

lightcity.org/art-and-performance/neigh…

I am very much looking forward to engaging with audiences around the great work new BMA acquisition "The Artist who swallowed the world whole while it was still a disk" by artist Erwin Wurm!

artbma.org/events/2015-05-12.big.table

YESS!! Named Best Mad Scientists by City Paper!!!

Local multidisciplinary artists Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona—Dr. A. Pinkston and Dr. H. Corona, as they call themselves—formed the performance-art curatorial project LabBodies just last year and already have several solo and group shows behind them, not to mention a two-week-long multivenue performance-art festival. Usually wearing white lab coats, the two doctors let their self-proclaimed “social experiment” unfold in galleries and public pop-up spaces, bringing diverse performers to storefronts, Artscape, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. At their events we experienced immersive and interactive installations, stimulating visual dialogues on race and gender, and actual buckets of blood.

www.citypaper.com/bob/2015/bcpnews-best…

If you are close to Greenbelt check out my exhibition at The Greenbelt Center Gallery!

greenbeltlaborday.com/events-and-activi…

Thank you Baltimore Style for the Shoutout!!

MAD SCIENTISTS
Would you pay $3 to feed a Chipwich to a clown? That was the question posed by a performance art troupe to  Skinnygirl Bethenny Frankel at the Select art show in Miami. (She said yes, by the way.) I don’t usually take my cultural cues from the “Real Housewives,” but the recent episode reminded me that I haven’t taken many risks lately when it comes to attending performances that are experimental, ephemeral or completely unpredictable.

If you’re also looking to experiment, check in with “the doctors”—a.k.a. Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona (who go by Dr. A. Pinkston and Dr. H. Corona), who cofounded LabBodies in 2014. Each month, the social artists host “Lab Nights” where you can watch curated pieces followed by open-mic-style works-in-progress by local and visiting artists around town. Also keep your eyes peeled for LabBodies pop-upsin public spaces. They may even show up at your house! Well, on demand. Corona and Pinkston hope to launch a “Performance Art Pay-Per-View” service next year. labbodies.com

baltimorestyle.com/13169/culture-club/

"I spent the first six years of my life in a paradise of thick greens and fruiting trees before emigrating to the United States. Having left my home country at a formative age I am what has been coined a Third Culture Kid, a displaced young person who developed the faculty to embody and move through multiple cultures at once. First is my Mexican culture, colorful even when doleful, second is my American culture, strategic and confident, and third is the amalgamation of the two: Hoesy."


www.whatweekly.com/2015/10/30/school-33…

Hoesy Corona and Ada Pinkston awarded the Pelham Printmaking Artist Residency in Lithography!!

themonumentquilt.org/ada-pinkston-and-h…

Check out this What Weekly interview following our Performance Art Festival | Borders Boundaries and Barricades 2015.

www.whatweekly.com/2015/07/09/borders-b…

Check out a recent interview for Bmore Art!

bmoreart.com/2015/06/they-sing-the-body…

Glad to contribute a selection for this years Slow Art Day at The Walter's Art Museum

articles.thewalters.org/slowartday-artw…

Had a blast spending a whole week with the amazing Kalup Linzy at The Fine Art Works Center in Provincetown!!!

www.huffingtonpost.com/kalup-linzy/one-…

Check out this interview with Ada Pinkston and I in Baltimore's City Paper!

www.citypaper.com/arts/stage/bcpnews-bu…

Check out the pictures from The Baltimore Museum of Art's 100th Anniversary Gala!!

blog.artbma.org/party-of-the-century/

Check out this radio interview with Marc Steiner and come see us at The Transmodern Festival 2014 at Subbasement Gallery

www.steinershow.org/podcasts/community-…

Check out this great review of the group show "We're all strangers here" by Michael Farley!

"Corona’s dreamscape is populated by a herd of waist-height furniture/animal hybrids. They’re beautifully crafted from found objects and bones, tied together by wrapped string. This construction method gives the impression that the creatures are bound in place—captives immobilized for unknown intentions. The concepts of passage, boundaries, and captivity are inseparably tied to geopolitics and international borders. Part of what makes this piece so successful is its ability to address sociopolitical issues without sacrificing beauty or mystery. Corona weaves a parable about immigration but allows the audience to fabricate its own narrative, opting for an emotional/aesthetic appeal rather than a heavy-handed didactic tone. Walking on the soft plastic wrappers is pleasurable, but also intimidating—creating the awkward/seductive feeling that comes from touching art in a gallery context that Felix González-Torres mastered. A floodgate of associations with produce, flowers, and the trade relationship between the United States and Latin America is opened when you realize what the objects are. It’s refreshing to see artwork that’s politically relevant without forcing its relevance down your throat. Much of the work at EMP struck the same balance. "

www.citypaper.com/arts/bcp-magic-8-ball…

Excited to participate in Maryland Art Place 30 Under 30 Talk Series 2013!

www.mdartplace.org/programs/2013

'Mixtopias' at Visarts Reviewed in The Washington Post by Mark Jenkins.
Group show curated by Fletcher Mackey 2013

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/…

Yes! on the cover of Washington Post Style!!

Washington Post write up!

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/…

Check out this interview with Alexander D'Agostino and I for Radar Redux!

www.radarredux.com/2011/04/hoesy-corona…