Ray Caspio—The Heels and Pearls Were Too Much
From the artist: THE HEELS AND PEARLS WERE TOO MUCH is a journey through a dream; a shared encounter during the last moments of a life, untangling and seeking understanding, amidst social and political upheaval.
This performance installation explores the nature of self, authoritarianism’s affect on the the individual and society, and historical patterns of marginalization of the queer population. It asks: What is truth? Who has the power to shape it? What power do secrets hold over us? Whose lies do we assimilate in order to be “respectable” and cling to an illusion of normalcy? Why do we adopt the words people say about who we are as our own true experience? And what happens when we embrace our present experience over memory, linear story and time, to step completely into the unknown together?
Created, designed, written, and performed by Ray Caspio, with space construction by Bobby Ayala Perez, this ethereal artifact of Caspio’s 18 month quarantine was partially sparked by the words of Sarah Kendzior, who wrote in HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: THE INVENTION OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE EROSION OF AMERICA that time under authoritarian rule “...spirals forward and lurches backward. Your memories of political events become blurred when you try to reconcile your initial reactions with the revelatory backstories behind them, forcing you to process your country’s history – and your own – in new and painful ways…My own internal calendar lacks a clear chronology. My memories are often reduced to images tied together by the logic of feelings.”
The installation is centered around a 6’4” x 6’4” wall of text from Caspio’s studio, composed of automatic writings recorded during quarantine. Caspio will bring the dream to life through paintings, drawings, photographs, audio, and video, with performance uniting all of the elements. Each performance is an improvised action painting layering atop and adding texture to what came before, influenced by who and what is in the space at this present moment. The words and images in THE HEELS AND PEARLS ARE TOO MUCH are inspired by our experience of world events, March 2020 - August 2021, as well as a reconciliation of the artist’s life – a merging of light and shadow – told as Caspio shapeshifts through different characters on their quest for what makes us whole amidst images and experiences of personal and societal division.
THE HEELS AND PEARLS WERE TOO MUCH is nature finding balance when the illusion of safety is torn away in an instant, and the realization that physical death is a breath away strikes. Caspio pierces the veil of lies comprising identity and place in the moment before we die, when life flashes before our eyes, and we’re holding hands, letting go, not letting go, saying our last goodbye.