New York, NY —
INTRO: There’s been a multi media art project going on all summer in Corona Plaza, off Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. But walking by, you might not even know it was there. Siddhartha Mitter caught up with some artists working to connect their art with their communities.
MUSIC IN: “El Rey,” mariachi theme of El Conquistador
REPORTER: An unusual character has been haunting Corona Plaza in Queens all summer. He’s stocky and he’s agitated and he comes with his own promotional video.
LEONARDO, from promotional video, : You see, no pudo dormir la noche, I couldn’t sleep at night, y’understand, porque there was still blood, there was still sangre running through the veins...
REPORTER: El Conquistador is a luchador – a Mexican freestyle wrestler. He’s the alter ego of Shaun Leonardo, a performance artist who grew up in Queens. El Conquistador usually appears in museums and downtown galleries, for an audience accustomed to strange performance projects. But not this time.
LEONARDO in character, from promotional video: This time is one reason only, and that’s for the people. Esta vez es para la gente, y’understand.
REPORTER: El Conquistador has come out to working class Corona. He’s part of a public art project being sponsored by the Queens Museum of Art. They’re calling it “Corona Plaza: Center of Everywhere.” Of course, there are different ways of doing public art. You can plop a massive installation in the middle of the street. Or you can do what Leonardo and three other artists have been doing in the plaza this summer. They blend their work into the fabric of daily life, which entails a lot of hanging out and talking to people.
LEONARDO: Oh man, it’s been incredible. Such a reception, I’ve just been meeting people, visiting restaurants, visiting the barber shop…
REPORTER: He’s put posters in store windows advertising the fight, and he’s held autograph sessions in full costume for neighborhood kids.
LEONARDO: …there was a line about a half hour long just – they don’t even know me, they don’t know who El Conquistador is, but they believe in this person.
REPORTER: And they may be surprised when they discover their new hero’s opponent: El Hombre Invisible, the invisible man. The El Conquistador concept is to fight against an invisible enemy. Here in Corona, Leonardo says that takes on a special meaning.
LEONARDO: When I’m in the ring oftentimes I’m visualizing my own form, like the invisible man is a struggle with my own identity. Here however, I think the idea of the invisible man becomes much larger and the meaning of him becomes much weightier... the invisible man carries a meaning of the struggles of this community.
REPORTER: While El Conquistador has been roaming the streets, another of the Corona artists has planted himself indoors… but it’s not a traditional space for art.
CANONGE: I didn’t know that a Western Union office was so busy. You see Western Union and you think, maybe just a few people go there during the day, but this is a very very active, congested area.
REPORTER: Hector Canonge is a visual artist originally from Argentina. His project meets the mostly immigrant population of this neighborhood at a place where they do some of their most important errands – the Western Union outlet.
CANONGE: This is like a gate, a temporal gate: we open Western Union and you are entering your homeland.
REPORTER: Inside the narrow storefront, Canonge has built jagged walls that stretch all the way to the teller windows. Built into the walls are peepholes. Look through, and you see images of Latin American cities, if you’re facing the inside of the store. If you’re facing the street, you see images of U.S. cities.
REPORTER: Canonge comes by one afternoon and runs into a woman named Luz-Marina and her daughter Valentina checking out the panels. They spot scenes from their native Colombia.
LUZ-MARINA: Ay que lindo, mira aca, mira! HECTOR: De que país eres? LUZ-MARINA: Colombia. HECTOR: Hay un sitio de Colombia aca…
REPORTER: On the opposite wall Canonge has let the community itself make the art. He asked people from the neighborhood to write letters to loved ones on the back of Western Union money transfer forms, and he’s posted several in a display. Now, he asks a man named Jesus, from Honduras, to read one aloud.
JESUS: [Reads letter]
REPORTER: The letter says: “God knows, that no wall, no barrier, no human laws can break or separate the love that I have for you all. I hope that you are well. May God bless you all, signed, your son.”
JESUS: [reading] …que Dios le bendiga, tu hijo.
REPORTER: Afterwards, Jesus says he recognizes his own emotions in this stranger’s writing. Immigrants suffer a lot, he says, and the life you find here is never what you imagined it would be. Canonge says that being able to share these feelings is part of what makes the project worthwhile to him as an artist.
HECTOR: It makes me so happy that when I talk to them I hear their stories and they understand the point that I am making with the art piece. It makes me also understand that somehow we can talk about these issues.
REPORTER: All of the Corona art projects try to connect the art to people’s lives. And that’s why Shaun Leonardo, the performance artist, felt he needed to bring El Conquistador back to Queens.
LEONARDO: I couldn’t put the character away until I wrestled in front of my own community. So it’s an honor to return here as El Conquistador, whose identity I attribute much to this community where I’m from.
REPORTER: El Conquistador will be retiring after this bout. But working in Corona this sumemr has brought Leonardo and the other artists closer to the community – and to themselves.
LEONARDO in character… the people know it, the community knows it, there’s one match left for the people, this time, brother, FINALMENTE QUEENS, BABY!
REPORTER: For WNYC, I’m Siddhartha Mitter
OUTRO: El Conquistador fights the invisible man tomorrow at 4 pm, in Corona Plaza. And you can find out more about the Corona Art project by visiting our website, WNYC.org.