Elena Tejada-Herrera

Elena Tejada-Herrera is a trans-disciplinary artist that was born in Peru and became known for her work in performance and multidisciplinary arts. Her work promotes the participation of the public.

Performance

Elena Tejada-Herrera studied painting but attained public attention in a controversial way. She became known within the Peruvian art scene at the end of the 90’s thanks to her performance and multimedia works related to the Peruvian socio economical context, marginal urban cultural expressions and popular culture. Since then she has proposed diverse reflections about the female body and gender constructions with her works. Her works are disinhibited, unapologetic, and scape the normative criteria that characterizes Peruvian contemporary art in general. During the last 15 years her works have generated situations that promote public participation and the realization of collective aesthetic experiences.

Work

Elena Tejada-Herrera visibly disrupted the art scene in Lima at the end of the 1990s. One of her most polemic performance Good Looking Woman Looking For Employment was realized on the 30th of October 1997, during the last session of panels at the 1st Ibero American Biennial of Lima, carried on at the Museum of Art of Lima. The artist sat within the public while drinking water from a plastic bottle. Afterwards she took her clothes off revealing clothing made with the classified pages of a newspaper (pages from El Comercio newspaper) The newspaper covered her whole body with the exception of her pubic area. On top of the pubis she had a sign that read General Employments. On her back she had another sign that said Good Looking Woman Looking for Employment. She distributed fliers with texts extracted from the book Geopolítica del hambre (Geopolitics of Famine) written by the Brazilian author Josué de Castro along with her own texts. Tejada-Herrera continued asking for donations with a bag similar to the ones used to collect donations at the churches. Eventually she climbed on the stage where the panelists were sitting. She distributed the fliers to them asking for dollars to continue screaming, “they bring dollars” At this moment a security guard proceeded to remove her from the stage, after which she urinated in protest.^[1] En 1999 Tejada-Herrera presented her video performance Bomba and the Bataclana in the Belly Dance in which the artist appeared as a cabaret dancer along with street sellers that she hired to perform with her. This piece dealt with the body and gender constructions. The artist was awarded the first prize in the art contest Passport for an Artist for this artwork.^[2]

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Tejada

References