Galeria SENDA presents Anthony Goicolea – “Don’t Make a Scene” (2020)
LOOP Festival, 8 – 20 November 2022

Galeria SENDA is pleased to present Anthony Goicolea in this years edition of the LOOP Festival from the 8th of November till the 20th of November.

“Don’t Make a Scene” (2020) is a monologue presented in the form of a silent film. The short unfolds as a book of drawings made during the initial six weeks of the Covid-19 quarantine. Each drawing is done on semi-translucent sheets of mylar film. The portraits are character studies presented as actors from a one-act play.
 
Made during a six-week period of forced isolation, Goicolea casts myself as the emcee in the guise of an early 1900’s cabaret host as an allusion to past and present pandemics.

Dressed in period stage drag the emcee enters in a black cloak and beaked mask. During the 17 th-century plague, European physicians wore beaked masks, leather gloves, and long coats in an attempt to fend off disease. The mask is removed to reveal pancake make-up and reddened cheeks that were often used to hide early signs of “Consumption” or the “White Plague”. And the pomaded coifure, rouge, lipstick and stage make up has links to paintings made during the pandemic of 1918 as well as referneces to drag and queer communities affected by the on going AIDS pandemic.
 
The musical accompaniment is a slow unfolding waltz whose beat is in sync with the rhythmic turning of the pages. The slow steady beat marches onward toward isolation, tedium, fear and the final hooded figure of death.

ARTIST BIO
Anthony Goicolea is an American born artist of Cuban origin. Known internationally for his photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptural installations, and films, the artist works across mediums creating a self-referential visual language that explores identity, migration and transition, displacement and alienation, as well as assimilation and group dynamics. Goicolea uses the architecture of the human body and constructed landscapes to create worlds predicated on fantasy but based in reality.

About LOOP Barcelona

LOOP Barcelona is a platform dedicated to the study and promotion of the moving image. Founded in 2003, since its creation it offers a specialized audience a curated selection of video-related contents from challenging perspectives. An international community of artists, curators, gallerists, collectors and institution directors, team up to develop projects, which aim at exploring the capacities of video and film in today’s contemporary art discourses.