The Ultrasound Scream
February 12, 2013 § 2 Comments
In honor of being 5 months pregnant, I thought I’d share this gem of my little baby Adán, taken at our last ultrasound.
See, he already has a flair for the dramatics…
Escobar-Morales at the Bruno David Gallery
December 28, 2012 § Leave a Comment
ESCOBAR-MORALES: Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye at the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO. Opening on Friday, February 1, 2013, from 5 to 9 pm. Show runs until February 23rd, 2013.
In the New Media Room, the Bruno David Gallery presents a single-channel video work titled “Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye” by Escobar-Morales. The 21-minutes video originated from a performance at the closing for RICH-OO-UH’L, RICH-OO-UH’L at Jolie Laide Gallery in Philadelphia, with sound by Armando Morales.
In the Resurrection of Hun-Nal-Ye (2011), Escobar-Morales perform a funerary ritual, referencing the mythical Mayan tale of the Hero Twins reviving their dead father, the Maize God. In their contemporary interpretation of this ancient story, Escobar-Morales simultaneously represent the body and the soul; the God/ Goddess and twin offspring, in both physical and technological forms using live performance and web based video projection.
ESCOBAR-MORALES is a team comprised of Maya Escobar and Andria Morales. The two artists, based in Chicago and New York respectively, have been working together over the Internet since 2010. They produce digital media and performance art that explores the role of self-representation in visual culture and its ability to deconstruct ingrained ideological conventions. By locating their performances online where they are free from restrictions of time and place, Escobar-Morales is able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously creating a unified hybrid self.
Maya Escobar was born in Chicago, IL in 1984. Andria Morales was born in 1982 in New York, NY. Escobar received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis (2009); Morales received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (2008).
Photo by Armando Morales
Don’t worry. Our girls are legal.
September 25, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Escobar-Morales as AMerican MEdia Output at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philly. Join us for 1st Friday on 10/5.
Acting as designers, distributors and promo models, Escobar-Morales established an online marketing and brand design agency called AMerican MEdia Output. The ad campaigns for Public Airways and Welcome to Arizona are inspired by recent news related to proposed immigration legislation in the US. Blurring the line between performance and reality, AMerican MEdia Output asks viewers and participants to imagine the economic and social consequences of laws like SB1070 through the framework of advertising. AMO is based online at AMericanMEdiaOutput.com and has disseminated their advertising over the internet using various social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Most recently, the AZ Welcome Girls hit the streets in San Antonio, TX to promote Arizona tourism by offering participants a cold drink of “Welcome Water.”
Escobar-Morales at The Painted Bride in Papeles: Are we what we sign?
August 24, 2012 § Leave a Comment
PAPELES: Are we what we sign? aims to serve as a visual examination of our social bond with papers as legal signifiers of identity that shape individual mobility, cultural acceptance, gender and sexual-orientation equality, economic access, labor opportunities, and educational attainment. Visual artists, community leaders, and arts administrators use this project to reflect upon the socio-cultural impact of documentation processes present in American society.
This exhibition gathers twelve influential—established and emerging—artists working in drawing, painting, installation, printmaking, photography, and mixed media. Participating artists include Andrea Rincon, Andria Morales, Carlos Nuñez, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Erika Ristovski, the duo Escobar-Morales, Jonas Dos Santos, Jorge Figueroa, Lina Cedeño, Michelle Ortiz, Paula Meninato, and Susana Amundaraín. They propose social-visual experiments from their positions as immigrants and/or descendants of immigrants from Latin American nations. New and existing works in this exhibition illuminate the concept of documentation into powerful narratives of critique, ambiguity, longing, and resilience.
The Painted Bride
230 Vine Street | Philadelphia, PA 19106 | 215.925.9914
September 7 – October 21, 2012
Gallery hours: 12pm – 6pm, Tues – Sat
First Friday receptions: September 7, October 5 | 5-7:30pm
Guest Curator Andreina Castillo | Co-Presented with Acción Colombia
Fractured Jewishness
April 18, 2012 § 1 Comment
Is being half-Jewish, like being half-pregnant? Yes.
Intrigued? Want to hear more?
I have the honor of being the keynote speaker at the Half Jewish?” The Heirs of Intermarriage conference at Northwestern University, which runs from 4/20-4/22. My Friday night talk will center around the construction and the perpetuation of fractured cultural identities. On Saturday my dear friend Yoni Sarason, aka The St. Lou Jew, aka Midwest Director of Birthright Next, will be speaking on a panel with Dan Libenson, moderated by Denise Handlarski. Come check out the conference. Meet some lefty Jews. Learn and mingle.
Fundamentally altering the landscape of Latino Education
April 14, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Our baby has been birthed. New Futuro 1.5 has arrived! My Creative Content team has been kicking butt working alongside the Digital Development team to make it happen. I ask you now to check out NewFuturo.com Become a member. Give us feedback. Just as my participatory internet-based art is all about constant communal engagement, deconstruction, and reconstruction, so is New Futuro.
And there is much more to come. In New Futuro 2, students will have a fully curatorial experience, where they are able to to personalize their academic journeys. Students will be able to collect and bring in all of the things they think are awesome. And New Futuro will be able to dynamically combine student’s interests with their skill sets, financial need, grade level, location, associations, and more, to provide them with ongoing college and post-college guidance.
For me, this is radical education at its finest. 
Poco a Poco Radio interview featuring New Futuro.
Digital. Creative. Conceptual. Think Tank Team.
March 27, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Ladies and Gents, life is good. I am the Creative Director for New Futuro.
New Futuro provides Latino families with fully bilingual resources and tools to get students into college and beyond! We are committed to making you an education rockstar! We will teach you how to get into the college of your dreams with money to pay for it. It’s all about making the right classes at the right time, knowing the right people, and getting involved with the right groups. College is your future, so why should it be a challenge to get there? New Futuro will help you achieve your dreams through education!
Read more about my #awesome creative team here.
Chicanas of 18th Street on Poco a Poco Radio
September 28, 2011 § 1 Comment
Tune into Poco a Poco Radio this Sunday at 1:30PM CST to hear the excellent BILINGUAL interview my father and I did with Leonard Ramírez and Magda Ramírez-Castañeda, about the much anticipated release of: Chicanas of 18th Street: Narratives of a Movement from Latino Chicago.
(photos by Claudio Gaete-Tapia)
Calavera Elotera at SOMArts Gallery
September 26, 2011 § Leave a Comment
ESCOBAR-MORALES PRESENTS:
Your favorite fame whore Elotita aka The Fat Free Elotera is back… and this time she has taken it to a new level… she has faked her own death… and has returned as CALAVERA ELOTERA.
Calavera Elotera in Illuminations: Día de los Muertos 2011
Curated by Rene and Rio Yañez
SOMArts Bay Gallery, 934 Brannan St. (between 8th & 9th)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tues–Fri, 12–7PM, Sat 11–5PM, Sun 11–3PM.
Opening Reception
Friday, October 7, 2011, 6–9PM
Opening will feature music, interactive performance and the unveiling of over 30 altars and installations. The evening includes a special performance by Herbert Siguenza, of Culture Clash fame. Siguenza will perform and live paint as renowned artist, Pablo Picasso.
The exhibition continues to examine the ways technology shapes the celebration of Day of the Dead. Once again, a Flickr group enables the exhibition’s curators to accept digital photos as offerings to those who people want to honor. The public can upload their digital contributions here. Selected images will be printed and displayed as part of the exhibit.
Poco a Poco Radio!
July 17, 2011 § 2 Comments
My papi and I have a brand new BILINGUAL radio show on WLUW 88.7 FM, Poco a Poco Radio. The show airs every Sunday from 1:30-2:00PM CST and can be listened to live on the radio or online at http://wluw.org.
If you missed last week’s show (the first episode) you can listen here:
And today tune in, to hear our LIVE interview with the incredibly talented, hilarious, and inspiring Elma Placeres Dieppa (@mzelma), Director of Latism Chicago. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Latism… you should be… #LATISM stands for Latinos in Social Media.
For more updates follow Poco a Poco Radio on Facebook & Twitter
el es frida kahlo in the Jewish Women’s Archive Blog
July 5, 2011 § 1 Comment
el es frida kahlo featured on Jewesses with Attitude in honor of Frida Kahlo’s 104th birthday.
A Latina “Jewess with attitude,” Maya Escobar plays with the web as a platform for engaging in community dialogue around identity and multiple identities–how they are socially and culturally constructed. She often assumes multiple identities in her performances, drawing from various existing representations.
About “el es frida kahlo,” she writes:
Frida Kahlo played with the identity that she wanted to project and the identity that was placed on her by others. Kahlo used her clothing, political affiliations, sexual escapades, and personal traumas, to create a character that informed her body of work. She inscribed her identity, painting her image over and over, constructing a mythology around her persona.
In el es frida kahlo I confront the ambivalence I experience as a result of my simultaneous obsession with Frida Kahlo and weariness towards her commodification.
What is your reaction to this confrontational piece? Do you identify with Escobar’s ambivalence towards Kahlo, her work, and her commodification in our culture?
AMerican MEdia Output in New Jersey
May 17, 2011 § Leave a Comment
You saw Escobar-Morales as promo models in TX, “promoting” Arizona Tourism…
And here we are as marketing executives in NJ.
Andria was live at Gallery Aferro and I skyped in from Chicago.
Stay tuned for more details on the performance and the results from AMerican MEdia Output‘s #targetaudiencesurvey.
Entrevista en Sí Se Puede
March 7, 2011 § 2 Comments
an example of my Internet Art
Last week I had the on honor of being interviewed by my papi on Sí Se Puede. We talked about Internet art, the implications of growing up online, linguistic performances on twitter, public vs private, and more.
If you missed it you can listen here:
WE GUARANTEE YOU’LL KEEP YOUR CARD IN YOUR WALLET FOR GOOD
February 28, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Andria, The Fat Free Elotera, and I are featured in JEWCY
February 24, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Jewcy Art: Maya Escobar
by Margarita Korol, February 24, 2011
In 2007 we dubbed her the Anti-Feminist Feminist Jewish Latina. We stumbled upon performance artist/ Internet curator/ editor Maya Escobar again at the GA in New Orleans where her video installations were making a Marina Abramovich-style scene near Jewcy’s booth. She uses the web as a platform for engaging in critical community dialogues that concern processes by which identities are socially and culturally constructed. She performs multiple identities, sampling widely from online representations of existing cultural discourses.
click here for full text
Escobar-Morales
February 22, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Artist Statement and Bio
Escobar-Morales is a team comprised of Maya Escobar and Andria Morales. The two artists, based in Chicago and Philadelphia respectively, have been working together over the Internet since 2010. They produce digital media and performance art that explores the role of self-representation in visual culture and its ability to deconstruct ingrained ideological conventions. By locating their performances online where they are free from restrictions of time and place, Escobar-Morales is able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously creating a unified hybrid self.
Maya Escobar was born in Chicago, IL in 1984. Andria Morales was born in 1982 in New York, NY. Escobar received a BFA from the School of the Art Institue of Chicago (2007) and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis (2009); Morales received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (2008).
Internet Art & Activism- the #delValleMural
February 20, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I am a Chicago-based digital media and performance artist. I created this grassroots, social media, portable mural in support of Miguel del Valle‘s campaign for Mayor.
follow hashtag: #delValleMural to see how the mural was created.
#delValleMural
February 18, 2011 § 3 Comments
The #delValleMural is finally complete!
#delValleMural, 2011, Acrylic on Canvas
I am thinking that after the elections a Chicago Public Library would be a really nice home for the piece. What do you guys think?
putting final touches on the #delValleMural
February 17, 2011 § Leave a Comment
The #ChicagoMayor elections are right around the corner…
And I am happy to report that I am ALMOST done with the #delValleMural
(the hashtag is silent)
#delValleMural in progress
February 14, 2011 § 2 Comments
As a community-based performance artist, I find the act of sharing the process equally important to the act of sharing the final product.
Here are images from the last week of the #delValleMural unfolding.
YouTube Video Reel
January 31, 2011 § Leave a Comment
AM and I are applying to another residency!
Unlike our current Wonder Woman Residency, where we applied as Escobar-Morales, this particular program does not accept joint proposals. So we are submitting seperately and hoping (and hoping and hoping) we will both be accepted.
I am applying to the #InternetArt section.
And she is applying to the Photo section.
el es frida kahlo in RENACIMIENTO
January 21, 2011 § Leave a Comment
RENACIMIENTO is curated by Rachel Matos.
When addressing the topic of duality and rebirth one must think of the two connected through the process of transformation. The initial duality perhaps emerging out of conflicts in accordance to the individuals own internal precepts and colored by the knowledge of their external experiences leads to this transformation, which bares a reawakening or rebirth.
The artists in Renacimiento share their personal journey through stories of cultural identity, conflictual relationships and the transcendence from their ancestry. In lieu of the new year, it is an introspective view of how we all change and seek to change – Rachel Matos
el es frida kahlo is from the series Obsessed with Frida Kahlo
As a Latina artist I will forever be tied to Frida Kahlo in some way. Frida Kahlo is the reference between who Latina artists want to be, and who everyone else expects us to be. Whether I am mimicking her style, her persona, or trying to escape the embedded attachment between myself and the late painters’ legacy, I will still be connected to Frida Kahlo.
Frida Kahlo constructed her identity though her public persona. Kahlo’s attitude, personal traumas, sexual escapades, clothing, and political affiliations, all informed her body of work. Now regarded as the number one female artist in Mexico, Kahlo’s image has become so embedded in popular culture that when one looks at one of her self portraits one automatically thinks about her tragic bus accident, her tumultuous relationship with Diego, and her bisexuality. Kahlo inscribed her identity, painting her image over and over, constructing a mythology around her persona.
In el es frida kahlo, I stand before a reproduction of one of her paintings. With a mixture of rage, anxiety, and complete fear, I chant “el es Frida Kahlo, ella es Frida Kahlo, el es Frida Kahlo, yo soy, yo soy, yo soy Frida Kahlo,” he is Frida Kahlo, she is Frida Kahlo, I am, I am, I am Frida Kahlo. As I yell, the painting behind behind me begins to fall. I violently tear down my braids and smudge off my makeup while continuing yelling “I am Frida Kahlo, I am Frida Kahlo, yo soy Frida Kahlo!”
All I want for my birthday is to go to Texas
January 9, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Tomorrow I turn 27. And everyone keeps asking me what I want, what I need. Things may be tight, but I have what I need: a roof over my head, food to eat, an adoring husband and wonderful family and friends.
But what I want more than anything, is to be able to go to Texas with my collaborator Andria Morales. She and I were just accepted to the 2011 National Popular Culture Association Conference in San Antonio Texas, where we will be presenting our self portrait dialog exchange project Are You My Other? We are thrilled about this opportunity and think it is the perfect place to situate our work. But after totaling our expected expenses, we realized that collectively we need to come up with $1,500 just to make it happen.
So Andria and I are launching our first-ever Are You My Other? fundraising campaign Taking it to Texas. In exchange for donations, we are offering Are You My Other? goodies, alongside favorites from our individual bodies of work… but at a fraction of the price!
Maya Escobar, Shomer Negiah Panties, 2005-present
Andria Bibiloni, Blaster Bike, 2007
Jewish Art as an Israeli Periphery
December 31, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Acciones Plásticas in Fringes – Jewish Art as an Israeli Periphery
שוליים – אמנות יהודית כפריפריה ישראלית
by David Sperber
The publication “Fringes – Jewish Art as an Israeli Periphery” is a continuation of a series of publications published under the auspices of the Leiber Center of Bar-Ilan University. The series focuses on research and documentation of contemporary Jewish art discourse in Israel. The series in general, and the current volume in particular, aim at sketching broad guidelines for topics pertinent to the field of Jewish art within the Israeli sphere.
The basic hypothesis of the current edition is that Judaism is conceived as a “subterranean” element of Israeli culture. The discussion considers the viability and elasticity of distinctions between the religious and the secular. This perspective favors a harmonic understanding, by which religiosity and secularism are not opposites, but rather intertwined inseparable concepts. Alongside the discussion concerning canonical artists, this publication relates mainly to peripheral tendencies and non-mainstream artistic groups, aiming to reveal their qualities as well as their limitations.
Fringes — Jewish Art as an Israeli Periphery
published by Leiber Center of Bar-Ilan University
deal with it.
November 27, 2010 § Leave a Comment
I am Midwestern girl, born and bred.
Yes, I know there is a New York Art World.
And yes, I am aware that people make cultural identity work on the West Coast.
But I am rooted here.
With the world at my fingertips.
AM + ME Open Studios
November 24, 2010 § Leave a Comment
AM and I visit each other’s Studios on Are You My Other?
AM studio
ME Studio
AM I her or is she ME: The Chronicles of The Fat Free Elotera
November 11, 2010 § 7 Comments
The Fat Free Elotera is a (developing) character on Are You My Other? The Battle Between The Self and The Other, an ongoing self-portrait dialog exchange project, produced by myself (ME) and Philadelphia-based performance and installation artist Andria Morales (AM). Through a series of weekly exchanged blog posts, Andria and I publicly negate, deconstruct, and reconstruct our individual histories, identities, and conceptions of self.
Click on images below to experience the creation of our latest persona.
Ultimate Promo Model for Jewish Identity
October 14, 2010 § 2 Comments
have you been kiruv‘d lately?
