Performance Art

My Peroformance Art work can be dividided between the pieces presented with my Transdisciplinary Art Group Hostal Mercedes Av., and those made Solo.

The work performed with Hostal includes 3 projects during the years 2017-2022, and 24 (virtual) more in the 2022-2026 period.

To the first Hostal period correspond the folowing prjects: (1) What does it mean to be alive?, (2) What do you think about when you look at the sky?, and (3) What is the most important thing in life?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ALIVE?

This project began in 2015 with a call for submissions in which 143 people from all over Latin America, Europe and the United States (Spanish speaking), wrote a letter to someone they hadn’t seen in a long time, explaining what they had seen, heard, and experienced. At the end of each letter, the authors offer a response—addressed to God, Nature, or the original recipient—to the question: What does it mean to be alive?

The authors were housewives, professionals, students, and amateur writers. During 2015 and 2016, copies of the correspondence were delivered to strangers on the streets of Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Querétaro, and Tlaxcala, without giving the authors an opportunity to respond.

The project included 23 paintings by Carlos A. Ponzio (Mixed media on paper: 42 cm x 59 cm), which were exhibited alongside the letters in November 2016 in Tlaxcala. Some of the media coverage can be found here: 1. Agenda, 2. Exp Polit.

Between January 2017 and February 2018, Performances were held in Mexico City with Hostal Mercedes Av. at venues such as Casa del Tiempo, Galería Garros, Salón TEA, Laberinto Cultural SantaMa. and ENMJN. Selected excerpts or complete letters were dramatized between performances of live music, surronded by the paintings. During the Performance, attendees had the opportunity to write their own letters, and read them aloud on the microphone at the moment of the performance. For this project, more than one hundred and fifty letters were submitted this way.

Folowing projects included Performances that added Dance, and Music and Paintings done collaboratively. The paintings related to this project in particular, were the following:

Documents:

Video Segment of First Performance in Mexico City

 

Registered Performances (Feb 2017 – Aug 2022)

Cartas originales completas:  143 Cartas Paginadas

Selecciones:   Fragmentos de las 143 Cartas

Cartas leídas el 24 de Febrero de 2018, en ENMJN

Lista de fragmentos leídos en Laberinto Cultural SantaMa

Lista de cartas leídas en Salón TEA, 29 de abril de 2017

Lista de cartas leídas en Galería Garros

Lista de cartas leídas en Casa del Tiempo (25 de enero de 2017)

Lista de cartas expuestas y leídas en Tlaxcala

Introducción a la conferencia en Tlaxcala

Convocatoria original para escritores

Photography

 

OTHER “HOSTAL” PROJECTS:

¿En qué piensas cuando miras al cielo? (What do you think when you look at the sky?)

¿Qué es lo importante en la vida? (What’s the most important thing in life?)

SOLO WORK

  1. Orgasmic World.

This was a World Event, coordinated from Monterrey during two days in April 2026, in which the World Population was invited to experience a Simultaneous Orgasm. People from all over the World connected between 9AM and 1PM, local time, during those two days, to experience the one in a lifetime event. From Rusia to the United States, and from Australia to The Netherlands, thousands of Man and Woman particiáted in this experience, all through Mind and without Physical Touch.

2. “1024 Actions”.

Coordinated by students in a College in Mexico, I acted a 2 hours performance timed by the same students, in which each of 1,024 actions, from climbing a step to freezing deers and ducks, and making birds fly in one specific direction or another, was timed by the minute by the participants and peromed by me without a clock. In the end,, only 704 actions were carried out, all of them on time. An emergency to interrupt military attacks in the Middle East, at mid performance, preculded the completition of all 1,204 actions.

3. Lecture Performance.

Influenced by performers such as Andrea Fraser, Carey Young, Coco Fusco, and Ryan Gander, (who use the lecture or public speaking format to convey rethorical questions about art and society, and to explain themselves and their work), I use the performance lecture as a tool of insight about (Economics of) Art and its relationship to Immortality, Eternal Life and other topics.

Two recent lecture-performances were the following:

A. Economic Lessons of AI Intrusion in Art Markets. (06/06/24). Indiana University.

 

B. What is at Stake when We Price Art? (February 19, 2025). Video Slides (Slide Art):