1993 | United States | Documentary

The Couple in the Cage: Guatinaui Odyssey

  • English - 31 mins
  • Director | Coco Fusco
  • Writer | Eric Davies, Coco Fusco, Paula Heredia
  • Producer | Coco Fusco, Paula Heredia

STATUS: Released

This film is currently not available.   

In a series of 1992 performances, Coco Fusco and performance co-creator Guillermo Gómez-Peña decked themselves out in primitive costumes and appeared before the public as “undiscovered AmerIndians” locked in a golden cage — an exercise in faux anthropology based on racist images of natives. Presented eight times in four different countries, these simple performances evoked various responses, the most startling being the huge numbers of people who didn’t find the idea of “natives” locked in a cage objectionable. This provocative video, directed and produced by Coco Fusco and Paula Heredia, suggests that the “primitive” is nothing more than a construction of the West, and uses comic fiction to address historical truths and tragedies.

Artist Portraits Documentation Latino Chicano Performance
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