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Boiling Point

WORKS/San José focuses on gang violence in '212 Degrees'

By Ann Elliott Sherman

Gangs. Graffiti. Violence. All that most people have to offer on the subject is a variation on the Reaganesque negative tautology. But local artist Carlos Perez decided to address the subject of gang violence from the inside out. Collaborating with young artists, some of whom he met when they were sent to MACLA's Center for Latino Arts to do community-service time for tagging, Perez and his crew have created a moving and beautifully realized installation titled 212 Degrees Fahrenheit.

Setting the tone is Leticia Orozco's poem "Hey, Ése," which is chalked on the entry wall in the distinctive script of a reformed tagger. The poem sees directly to the heart and soul of a gangbanger, acknowledging not only the threat of violence but also the vulnerability and need that asserts itself in a misdirected kind of fierce pride.

This admixture of danger and admiration carries over into the language, a marriage of the direct and poetic that gives voice to a decidedly female understanding that this could be and is her child, her brother, her lover.

A dramatic, 3-D tableau--a "gang fight" staged by simply tacking clothes and graffitied batons to the wall--sets forth its direct message, "Let's stop the violence together," in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean. The empty outfits lend an effective "your face here" subtext. It is just one example of the group's ingenious way of saying more with less, avoiding the overkill that plagues less well-considered "message" installations.

Scattered across the floor are eight crime-scene body outlines, the police investigators' chalk replaced by red or blue tape. Alongside each evidence of a victim of gang violence, the artists have placed a small pile of stones, a vase of purple stock (together, the gang colors red and blue equal purple) and a propane stove set inside two stacked cinderblocks. A tea kettle rests on each stove burner; the opening-night's performance piece, with actors ranging from a second-grader to a senior citizen filling in the victims' outlines, commenced once each kettle was shrieking at full boil.

In the center of the room, a half-dozen gilt picture frames with names of lost loved ones chalked on the black backing visible through the smashed glass, lie atop two blue bandannas, next to a red candle and a coiled red bandanna. A similar arrangement, the gang colors reversed, is placed a few feet away.

In between the rival memorials, a blue vase and a red vase, both holding a bouquet of red carnations and blue iris, rest on two brown bandannas. With these simple, easily understood symbols, the artists offer acknowledgment of personal loss while issuing the concomitant call to unity and atonement.

From the horizontal line of the bandanna shrines, a vertical path leads to an altar. The aisle is edged on each side by two unfinished wooden beams pushed together to support a rain-gutter "vein" filled with bright red or blue powdered pigment. The beams read, "Like me you carry vivid blood"/"Igual que yo llevas sangre viva."

The altar commemorates Pat, a 16-year-old girl gang member whose prophecy, "I know I'm gonna die pretty soon," proved true. Her body was found on Blossom Hill Road, possibly the end result of an abusive relationship. The usual candles, flowers and corn are there, with her photo along with snapshots of preschoolers and the offerings of candy bars and Coke that underscore how young a life was cut short.

Yesenia Cardona's audio-taped interview with Pat's grandma not only makes the victim become more real to us but also reflects the artists' choice to articulate perspectives often overlooked. The viewer is jolted out of stereotypic ways of defining gang violence to consider the possibility that its macho extremes of retribution can be directed not just outside the gang, but most intimately within it.

The walls bear further witness to the group's energy and talent, with starkly effective graphics in the Chicano poster style and mixed-media works layered with meaning. Perez's hopes of providing his collaborators "a positive platform" where they could "be creative and at the same time feel rewarded" has been profoundly realized. We are all rewarded.

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