Go! Push Pops

Go! Push Pops, formally named The Push Pop Collective^[1] is a queer, transnational, radical Feminist art collective under the direction of Elisa Garcia de la Huerta^[2] (b. 1983 Santiago, Chile) and Katie Cercone^[3] (b. 1984 Santa Rosa, CA).

History

The Push Pops formed in 2010 at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) where both Cercone and Garcia obtained their MFA in 2011. Go! Push Pops studied with Marilyn Minter, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Dan Cameron, Kate Gilmore (artist) and Jacqueline Winsor while at SVA. At that time, painter Anna Souvorov (b. 1983 Moscow, Russia) was the third leader of the collective. Go! Push Pops first unofficial performance happened spontaneously during a visit to artist Portia Munson’s “Pink Project” at P.P.O.W. Gallery in Chelsea.^[4][5]

The Push Pops have performed at The Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art, C24 Gallery, Momenta Art, Apexart, Dixon Place and Local Project. In 2011, the collective received New York Foundation for the Arts Fiscal Sponsorship. The Push Pops are a former artist-in-residence of the historic Soho20 Chelsea gallery.^[6] The Push Pops were a 2013 Nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Visual Arts Award and received a Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Fund Grant that same year for their Warrior Goddess Workshop.^[7] In 2014, Go! Push Pops was awarded the Culture Push Fellowship for Utopian Practice for their project “Diamond Tribe.” Go! Push Pops were a featured artist of Robert Adanto's the F-Word, a documentary about 4th wave feminist art.^[8]

Influences

Go! Push Pops work joins traditional notions of performance art to an embodied feminist pedagogy grounded in spiritual principles. Their work references the Feminist art movement, Dada, Fluxus, Neo-Burlesque, Shamanism, Hip-hop feminism, Culture jamming, Riot grrrl, Queercore and American popular culture. As a young adult, Push Pop co-leader Katie Cercone interned at Bitch (magazine) where she was introduced to Third-wave feminism and its critique of popular culture. Go! Push Pops also name the artist Narcissister^[9] as an important influence and have appeared as Narcissister "sisters" in shows at the New Museum, The Kitchen, Envoy enterprises and The Hole.

About the work

Go! Push Pops collaborate with a guest artist for each new project. The primary element defining their work is a Go! Push Pops poster they make as a residue of each performance and give away to viewers for free. Go! Push Pops often use free items from Materials for the Arts to make their work.^[10]

Career highlights

Go! Push Pops broke into the Bushwick, Brooklyn performance art scene with their seven-hour durational performance “Gone Wild”^[11] during Bushwick Beta Spaces 2010.^[12] Go! Push Pops “Push Porn,”^[13] a 13-minute lesbian gangsta erotica film, was premiered with a splash during Bushwick Open Studios 2011 inside a Dominican barbershop on Wilson Avenue.

In 2011, Go! Push Pops performed Block Watching Remix^[14] at the Moore St. Market in a show curated by Michelle Lopez during Bushwick Open Studios remixing found footage of Luis Gispert's original 2002 Block Watching video. In 2013, Luis Gispert invited Go! Push Pops to perform Block Watching Remix during the Brooklyn Museum's Annual Artist Ball.^[15]

During that same event, Go! Push Pops performed a piece called Bad Bitches, a collaboration with Michelle Marie Charles. Bad Bitches was performed in the center of Luis Gispert’s sculptural Jamaican sound system the Brooklyn Museum commissioned for the party and referenced the glitzy black power aesthetic of Mickalene Thomas, commercial rap music and nudity as a feminist protest tactic used by groups such as FEMEN. Bad Bitches was covered in Paper^[16] and Posture Magazine.^[17]

In early 2012 at The Frontrunner gallery in Soho, Go! Push Pops animated the work of painter Bryn McConnell in a performance called "Girlesque," featured in Bomb (magazine).^[18] Also In 2012, Go! Push Pops performed “Bulimic Flow,”^[19] a yoga hip hop fusion featuring TLC (group)’s lyric “crazy sexy cool” as Mantra. A collaboration with Andrae Hinds, Bulimic Flow happened during Amy Smith Stewart’s exhibition CAMPAIGN at C24 Gallery^[20] In the spring of 2013, Go! Push Pops were invited to Baltimore by the Maryland Institute College of Art where they performed with BoomBoxBoy, the hip hop artist Prince Harvey, in a nomadic work that moved through local businesses of the Baltimore Arts District.^[21]

In Fall of 2013, Go! Push Pops performed “QUEEN$ DOMiN8TiN”^[22] in collaboration with Untitled Queen at The Bronx Museum of the Arts.^[23] In anticipation of this work, Go! Push Pops were guests on Bronx Net TV.^[24] Also in 2013, Go! Push Pops were invited to perform for the Art in Odd Places^[25] Festival for which they collaborated with Meg Welch on a piece about inter-military rape called “500,000.”^[26] In November of that year, Go! Push Pops teamed up with A Feminist Tea Party^[27] on a Social Practice Art piece called “Shak-Tea Party”^[28] at Momenta Art in conjunction with the exhibition Nu Age Hustle.^[29] Go! Push Pops was instrumental in organizing "The Clitney Perennial" performative feminist protest at the Whitney Museum of American Art during the Whitney Biennial in 2014.^[30] In 2015, Go! Push Pops organized a spirit animal workshop and parade during Roppongi Art Night in Tokyo, Japan, as featured in the Japan Times.^[31]

References