Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Border X Frontera

Portrait of Guillermo Gómez-Peña — Guillermo Gómez-Peña, courtesy of the artist.

A man sits upright at a table wearing a black hat, sunglasses, and an open black jacket with yellow shoulder pads exposing his chest with tattoos. A stack of white paper sits on the table along with a vase of flowers, an intricate ash tray with skulls, candles, and a plastic alien head labelled with the text “Alien Pops.” The room is red behind the seated figure, with artworks, photographs and carved items decorating the walls. A prominent neon sign that reads "La Nostalgia BAR” sits above the seated person.

The series Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Audio Art and Strange Poetry from the US/Mexico Border is a multi-lingual live radio and archived audio program by performance artist, writer, activist, and MacArthur fellow Guillermo Gómez-Peña addressing the multiple pandemics of racism, sexism, militarism, and colonialism.

Border X Frontera (1985) is the first of an anti-Columbus trilogy commissioned to Gómez-Peña two years prior to the Columbus quincentennial. You will hear luminaries from the theater, radio and performance worlds joined together to create this award-winning piece.

Remixed by Charly García and Stephanie Manriquez.

Presented in partnership between Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Public Media institute, and the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. The series is an initiative of Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40.

Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Audio Art and Strange Poetry from the US/Mexico Border

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

Smart Museum of Art

Public Media Institute

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum