Acts of disobedience: Lechedevirgen

Photographs, videos, and objects that make up the imprint of some of the performances by the artist Lechedevirgen were presented in “Acts of Disobedience,” a solo exhibition by the artist, educator, and researcher from Querétaro, held at the Libertad Gallery (July-August 2024). Symbolic revenge woven through various complicities.

To disobey is to ignore what is established; it is to consciously break the rules, knowing that one is swimming against the current. To disobey is to disagree and question the norm. When we are little, if we don’t do what is expected, we are told that we are disobeying, that we are rebellious, rude, and we are scolded for it. We are disciplined to comply with what is established, what is considered morally correct by the adult world, forcing us to modify our behavior.

Sometimes, when we question the attitudes or ways of adults, they respond that they simply know better because they are adults and that things are the way they are because that is the way they should be. This has been changing little by little in some latitudes and in certain groups where hierarchies and the adult-centric perspective have been diluted. However, those who wield power and are at the top of these invented hierarchies defend their position, whether out of convenience, habit, belief, fear, or simply because it is now their turn.

There are those who maintain the inherited axiomatic system, without questioning or modifying it, granting it social continuity. But there are other people who do question it, for whom phrases like “because I say so” or “because it has always been that way” are not valid. Effective dialogue is necessary when there is disagreement, and it is important to support one’s argument from a broad background, with grounds and possibilities of openness to change ―because societies change and cultures are modified.

Lechedevirgen is an artist who dissents from things that don’t make sense to them. Educated in a heteronormative, patriarchal and Catholic society, within the Latin American context, they have had much to disagree with. They studied visual arts at the Autonomous University of Queretaro, and for years they have exhibited their work in galleries, museums and forums dedicated to exhibiting art around the country and abroad. A contradiction? Perhaps.

Talking to them about their latest exhibition, Actos de desobediencia [Acts of disobedience], presented from July 5 to August 11 at the Galeria Libertad (on the same dates as Pride Month), they told me that you don’t buy a ticket to exhibit in a space like this to then “catapult” yourself to other more renowned spaces. At the end of the day, they do not need institutional legitimacy, and it is not important to them to sell their exhibited work. I asked them: Why do it? Why exhibit in a space they don’t believe in? Why feed the simulation of inclusion of the LGBTQI+ population within the institution? Why exhibit in a gallery if not to sell, grow or legitimize as an artist? Lechedevirgen replied they saw themselves and their work as contaminants.

To contaminate is to corrupt, to dirty, to make sick, to infect, to spoil. Pollution and dirt are words semantically connected to the act of contaminating. If we are outside a venue, we can throw rubbish around it, on the pavement; we can graffiti its walls, vandalize the surrounding space; but we will always do this from the periphery, from the marginality. Now, if they let us in and open the door wide for us, we can contaminate the place from the inside: the white cube is no longer so white, but is now corrupted by subversive texts, post-porn images and art criticisms. Lechedevirgen’s work is abject: naked, transformed, prosthetic bodies, anal actions, bodily fluids, simulated blood. It is also a protest movement against homo-lesbian-transphobia, colonialism, extractivism, the history of art, and genocidal states. Lechedevirgen is a performer; they act with their body, based on their personal experiences, which are not necessarily private, but rather political. Their performances are visceral and when the participation of the spectators is requested, they do not always want to participate ―it seems that they are afraid that the artist will recognize some phobia in them.

But, unlike their performances, the exhibition Actos de desobediencia is lukewarm, it does not penetrate the body. The exhibition showcases texts with academic tones and conceptual phrases alongside objects that they used in one action or another (the axe with which they destroyed several closets, the rifle that they stuck in their anus, the jewelry that they used when they turned into a butterfly, the book that they burned, the voodoo figurine that they tied up, the funeral wreath, the extractivism detector, etc.). In this exhibition, we only encounter the archive of past actions, the objects used and the photographic and audiovisual record.

Performance can be classified as an art of the body and also as an art of time: the artists put their bodies on display, sometimes inviting the spectators to participate; the action lasts a certain amount of time, it has a beginning and an end ―it is ephemeral, transitory, it happens temporarily. Performance is a non-objectual artistic practice. Of course, there may be props to be used during the act, but only as an auxiliary element to the action. In this sense, if what I find in a performance artist’s exhibition is a burnt book on a pedestal or a rifle hanging on a wall, these objects will not tell me much about the performance, unless I read a whole explanatory text about it. And there I think is where the performance loses strength, because in order to feel and introject, you have to read first.

what is Lechedevirgen doing exhibiting their performance archive within the institution?

I wrote that Lechedevirgen’s work is visceral, it goes through the body, you can feel it in your gut, in your skin, making the pores and hairs that cover it stand on end. It can be uncomfortable; you can feel it on your shoulders, your back, your neck; it can tense your body. Being an art of the body and time, performance enables spectators to go through the moment from a lived experience. By looking at the props used in its development and reading the explanation about the social and political background, we do not relive the experience of the performance, but rather we learn about its characteristics: where, when and how it happened, who participated and what its socio-political objective was. The record fails to penetrate the body, unlike performance does.

Actos de desobediencia is a record of what has been done before, accompanied by texts and neatly framed and mounted. And of course, even if an institutional place has opened its doors to an artist like Lechedevirgen, they must mind their actions within the venue. Of course, it is allowed to criticize institutional work from what is written and presented, from the archive of their disobedience to the rancid and rotten system, but always with moderation ―at least here inside, one has to be careful, one has to be strategic. Honestly, I find it hard to imagine that a bloody, scatological, post-porn and post-human performance ―characteristic of their work― would be welcomed in the white rooms with wooden floors and warm lighting of the Galeria Libertad.

This is not only a matter of tastes and preferences, but, since hegemony is maintained and even though we seek subversion, conservative people have the power and we continue to act from the margins. Lechedevirgen is cautious in their actions, because there are consequences. Not only the consequences of an institutional punishment: “I won’t lend you this space again,” or of censorship of the exhibition, but physical consequences for a particular person whose body and attitudes are not read as hegemonic but as the other, which if it goes too far can be eliminated.

No soy tu cuota, la trampa de la inclusión [I am not your quota; the inclusion trap] (2024) is a collaborative work between Lechedevirgen and Todo Woooow. It is one of the few conceptual works in the exhibition that is not an archive. The work consists of a sign with the word “inclusion” framed within a steel bear trap. The trap is large enough to catch a chunk of your body if you decided to take the path of simulated inclusion, though in reality it is disabled and placed on a pedestal that would prevent you from entering its perimeter. The work is a direct comment to the gallery: we know that simulated inclusion (based on the inclusion of certain content) does not serve much purpose, but rather perpetuates the acts of discrimination and inequality that are being denounced by marginalized communities.

So, what is Lechedevirgen doing exhibiting their performance archive within the institution? Playing the game with the artistic institution that swallows everything, trying to make it suffocate with the next bite, or at least become infected. Their tasks are to contaminate, dirty and spoil the pristine, clean and pure white cube, while questioning the hegemonic ideas of their role as an artist. This is not the only area in which Lechedevirgen disobeys, since disobeying is a generalized way of operating. Until now, what has been given has caused much harm to individuals and particular groups that do not fit within the hegemonic. Faced with these realities, there is nothing left but to question, dissent and disobey.