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Space is limited. Please come early. Twelve artists/curators gather at one table with Nicolás Dumit Estévez in a reflection of the relationship of art to ritual. This is the culminating event of For Art’s Sake, a series of pilgrimages conceived of, and undertaken by Estévez over the past three years. Evoking the pilgrimage of El Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain where Catholic devotees travel to the reliquary of St. James the Apostle, Estévez’s secular twist has taken him on pilgrimages to museums in the New York metropolitan area, each time with a new penance – on his knees, walking backwards, spreading the “word of art”. The guests at the table bring their own audio-visual and performative double-take on these journeys. Participants include Nao Bustamante, Deborah Cullen, Olivia Georgia, Alanna Lockward, Yasmin Ramirez, Frankie Mann standing in for Linda Montano, and others. The Last Supper is part of the celebration of ten years of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency and part of the Centennial Celebration of Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House. Estévez developed For Art’s Sake while in residence at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2004 in collaboration with Franklin Furnace. Nicolás Dumit Estévez is an interdisciplinary artist who has exhibited and performed extensively in the US as well as internationally at venues such as Madrid Abierto/ ARCO, The IX Havanna Biennial, and others. Awards include the PS1/MoMA National Studio Program, the Lambent Fellowship Program of Tides Foundation, the Michael Richards Fund of LMCC and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, NYArts Magazine, and in major publications in Mexico, Spain, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. He has been commissioned to create a public intervention for the MacDowell Colony Centennial Celebration in 2007. Born in Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic, Estévez lives and works in the South Bronx. For the first journey on March 20, 2005, Estévez was heavily laden with donated art publications strapped to his back for a trip that took him from the heart of the world’s financial capital in Lower Manhattan to East Harlem. El Museo del Barrio’s Director Julián Zugazagoitia commemorated the performance by signing Estévez’s passport. For his second pilgrimage on June 28 and 29, 2005, Estévez forged his way walking backwards from LMCC downtown to The Bronx Museum of the Arts, spending the night on a hard bed of art catalogues provided by Longwood Arts Project, Bronx Council on the Arts. The strenuous two-day journey came to an end when the Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Olivia Georgia, officially greeted him at the door and signed his passport. During his third journey of the series on Sunday, December 4, 2005, Estévez walked from LMCC to the Studio Museum in Harlem (SMH) dressed in austere black and white raiment and wearing a heavy iron crown embellished with seven admission buttons from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Upon his arrival at SMH, Director of Education and Public Programs, Sandra Jackson lifted the crown off his shoulders and signed the passport, thus confirming that the journey was successfully completed. For the fourth pilgrimage on February 2, 2006, Estévez traveled by foot and ferry from the offices of LMCC in Lower Manhattan to the Jersey City Museum, stopping at educational and cultural organizations along the route: an Episcopal church, an all-boys Catholic school and a public school, to “Spread the Word” about performance art and the penances that he has been undertaking. Following Estevez’ arrival at the Jersey City Museum, Marion Grzesiak, Executive Director, recorded her signature in the passport. As part of the fifth penance on October 28, 2006, Estévez traveled on his knees from the offices of LMCC on Maiden Lane to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) at Bowling Green. In this occasion he carried in his hands a piece of casabe, a type of bread prepared from the indigenous cassavaroot, thus transporting a legacy of the Caribbean Taíno culture that was presented as a gift to the host institution. Peter Brill, NMAI’s Assistant Director for Exhibitions, Public Programs and Public Spaces, signed the passport. For the sixth penance he journeyed from LMCC, to the Queens Museum of Art, stopping at several sites to give presentations entitled Seven Lives, through which he introduce his audiences to the works of seven consecrated performance artists. Tom Finkelpearl, Executive Director of the Queens Museum vouched for the completion of the pilgrimage by signing the passport. For the seventh and final pilgrimage on October 26, 2007, entitled “Be my Shepherd: On My Way to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum,” Estévez traveled by foot from the offices of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, carrying a small suitcase with a change of clothes, toiletries, food and water, in the event that what would be otherwise be a short stroll to a nearby neighborhood in the City takes one or more long detours. He relies solely on verbal or written directions from passersby to help him reach his final destination: the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. A component of Estévez’ penances consists of a handmade devotional guide created at the Center for Book Arts in collaboration with artists Ana Cordeiro and Amber McMillan. For information about this publication visit www.centerforbookarts.org For Arts Sake was hosted by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Franklin Furnace
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