Preach R. Sun - Fugitive Ideas Are on the Run

 Preach R. Sun: When Fugitive Ideas are on the Run.

Counting the Dead, Ferguson photo by Ryan Devereaux

“When you try to stand up and look the world in the face like you have the right to be here. When you do that, without knowing the result of it, you have attacked the entire power structure of the Western world.” 

James Baldwin

Last winter when I traveled to New York, I met up with Preach R. Sun. Preach, a self-proclaimed Fugitivist – he forsakes the word artist for a description he feels better describes his occupation outside of boxes and labels – was preparing to present CHRYSALIS [Cry-Solace], his multi-media performance-based installation, curated by Whitney V. Hunter and Jill McDermid (Co-Founder and Director of Grace Exhibition Space).  I’ve been following Preach’s work for a while and have always appreciated how he manages to tap into the potential of art as a transformative tool for social justice.

Grace Space, Chrysalis photo by Miao Jiaxin

I first met Preach R. Sun at Flux Factory in the late 90s, back in the day when Flux was a collection of diverse Souls who liked art, music, philosophy and radicalism.  Many of us went to Lang College, an experience that left us equipped with a Marxist education in a very capitalist U.S.A.  It is true that many of us would later shed our Marxist indoctrination, but what we were all embedded with, or rather fortified with was a strong feeling that there was room for change and serious dialogue. Conversations that were radical, about race, class, gender— so it makes sense that our paths should cross there.

It would be almost another 20 or so years before Preach and I would dialogue again. By now I had already been living in Copenhagen for some time and kept up with New York via the Internet.  We managed to maintain contact and I kept abreast of his work.  I noticed the actions he became involved in and the passion and commitment he seemed to have to social and particularly, racial justice.  His work addressed issues that were important to me, but that I had become silenced in dealing with.  Sure I do my best to address certain issues through my work, but when one is submerged in a culture that frankly, doesn’t give a shit and accepts, whether wittingly or unwittingly, White Supremacy as the norm, I was going through some kind of blues; a blues that rendered me speechless. Wordless. All I wanted to do was kick people’s asses.  And of course, that wouldn’t do now, would it?

Wall Street Action photo by Arthur Fischer

So I was excited when I saw Preach R. Sun don an orange prison suit, strap a contraption to his head with a dollar hanging  in front of him, and proceed to walk down Wall Street – shackled, barefoot; tracking bloody footprints –while crying out,

“What is the cost of living?

What is the cost of freedom?

They Wall Street Pimpin’

To keep you Main Street Trickin’.

You’re living in an artificial reality,

There’s blood on these streets

                                     Wall Street was built on the backs of slaves,

It was built with the blood of slaves.

     Welcome to the auction block, sell me, I’m your nigger.”

One of the most radical ideas on Art, culture, perspective and the role it plays in shaping our collective consciousness and how it impacts the way we see things is John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. As a book, it detonates all that you have ever thought of about art, its power and what it has and continues to be used for.   How much of the art that we see today reinforce the power-structure as opposed to challenge it? Sure there is art and artists that question, critique even, the status quo, but if these artist are to be successful within this framework, they too must allow their work to be commodified and thus, ultimately rendered powerless.  Such is the nature of Capitalism.  Such is the nature; it seems, of our times.

Grace Space Chrysalis photo by Jimmi Dyce

I really don’t know much about performance art.  I barely even knew who Marina Abramovic was when my friend Ida invited me to watch The Artist is Present with her.  I mean, I thought I had a general idea of what it is – performances that were done in real time, usually without a script that was supposed to, on some level, challenge the audience’s thoughts about something, and lastly, at least in the performances that I had witnessed thus far and I say this a bit tongue in cheek – It involved some sort of nudity. It wasn’t until meeting up with Preach R. Sun and experiencing his performances at both Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, NY) and Gray Zone for International Performance Art (Kingston, NY) that I truly understood the potential of the medium to perhaps be the perfect one to galvanize some sort of true social dialogue and change.

Grace Space "Chrysalis" photo by Preach R Sun

Preach R Sun was educated at Howard University where he majored first in Liberal Arts but then switched to Dance and minored in Theater.  He had not known about Howard until had he told his mother he needed her to, “save my life” , a decision that was based on it being a ticket out of an environment that seemed to have been a ticking bomb, at least to him, for disaster. Like so many other young Black men throughout the U.S. and some might even argue around the globe – the combination of race, crime, poverty and imprisonment is a toxic reality that many rarely escape from – and so he turned to the only person he knew he could: his mother. Preach knew he had to get out.

At Howard he was a student of the first ever African American Dance major, where he forged a mentorship with the program’s founder and director, Sherrill Berryman Johnson (aka Momma J).  Since then, he has been involved in various productions throughout the world, from New York to Japan and has for the past ten or so years, been involved in some shape or manner, with the conception and manifestation of what he calls, ONEMAN: The Liberation Project.

The ONEMAN Project is the artist’s contemplation on freedom in today’s society. “In addition” his website continues, “the work poses compelling questions regarding the role that America’s (slavery and segregation) past still plays in the present, collective, conversation of freedom and equality; particularly as it relates to questions regarding the psychological impact of that past on American's today…”

On The One Man Series, which began as a workshop at the Theater for the New City (NYC), Sun says, “I just did everything.  I had this whole script. I guess you could say, it’s like, I had created a book with all these chapters about all these issues and topics of interest. Anyhow, the workshop ended up going on for 9 hours and the theater forced me to stop. Later, the director would tell me that my performance would go down as the longest performance ever done, in a single night, in the history of the theater.”  This work, he says, is his conjuring his own freedom while at the same time questioning the very idea of freedom itself. 

Luckily, that same night at Theater for the New City, Ellie Covan (Founding Director of the Dixon Place) was in the audience and stayed for the first half.  She liked the piece he had done on The Brothers, which would later become Blood-N-Brothers.  The Brothers is the absurd yet true story about two teenage brothers: a 15 year old who killed his 17 year old brother, in the presence of their 9 year-old sister, over “who would cook some food”.   Preach happened to be at his girlfriend – at that time’s – house who lived next door to these two, young boys. 

Suddenly he was in the middle of a crime, a murder.  The piece, he says, is perhaps his way of dealing with the trauma of such an incident – but there is clearly something more.  Blood-N- Brothers speaks of the seemingly inane situations that many of us may find ourselves in, situations that seem as out of place as an axe stuck on a toothpick in the wake of a tornado.  Thus the experience of many African Americans, the after-effects of a liberation that never intended to be granted, the absurdity of being rendered invisible through systematic inaccessibility.

Dixon Place had wanted him to present the story of, The Brothers, but Preach figured he’d use the opportunity to start his series, ONEMAN which began with The Street Speaker.

ONEMAN: My-Story of the Angry Black; encompasses 3 chapters, entitled The Sermon Series. “It’s a work that mixes the musings of a mad homeless man along with the guys hanging out on the corners and the street speakers (of old) holding court on the streets of Harlem.  It was me, basically announcing myself as officially waking up, and so the Street Speaker fulfilled the role as an alarmist. The action of screaming out for change on a New York City subway car, and calling everyone a Slave at 42^nd Street, is just this very angry Black man – which ‘Street Speaker’ ultimately becomes a metaphor for.”

The second installment (of the ‘Sermon Series’) was ‘A-Man???’ which he performed at Grace Exhibition Space in 2012.  “A-Man???, dealt with religion, domestic abuse; my family, growing up in a Black Christian Baptist household, incest, homophobia in the Black community, Black male sexuality and ultimately the connection of all these to slavery. The work was comprised of three movements. The first movement: In the Name of the Mother, focused on patriarchy, goddess worship; the attack and fall of the matriarch and the birth of slavery, as explained through a creation myth.  The second movement: In the Name of the Father, dealt with the physical, mental and sexual abuse of my mother, sister and I at the hands of my father; a Baptist minister and Chaplain.  In the Name of the Son, which is my story, was the third movement and in it, I dealt with issues regarding my sexuality as well as the realization of the impact that my father’s abuse would have on me. ”

The third and final chapter of the, ‘Sermon Series’ was, Chapter 3, Blood and Brothers, based on The Brothers.  Here Preach R. Sun wanted to show the Black experience in regards to the violence in our community as well as that waged against us from the outside. It’s the sort of psychosis- that connects our past to our present. But then there is the CHRYSALIS [Cry-Solace} installation. Which is – as Preach calls it “the Reveal” – a culmination of all 3 chapter’s, intended to serve as a point of transition into a new phase of the work.

Inter to Exit at Gray Zone, Kingston, NY
photo the lab

This next phase and continuation of the One Man Series, focuses on and questions the purpose and potential of art as a tool for social change.  “I’m questioning the power /relevance that is often attributed to art while at the same time, still maintaining the work as a critique of political, social, racial, economic, cultural issues which all go back to questions of freedom.”

The difference between the two series is not only the content, but also his approach to how he deals with the content. The first series was about speaking, because he felt that was the first step towards liberating oneself.  The second series is more about actions, as they relate to his creative process as well as his making a statement about action being the second step towards liberation.  Which is why in this series, he becomes a new entity/character called ‘Fugitive’. Preach explains, “I’m on the run while at the same time burning down temples and shit.”

It’s a frustrating dilemma for those who see Art as a potential vehicle for change.  On one hand, you want to make an impact. On the other, you need to eat.  Luckily for humanity there are those who do Art not for Art’s sake, but as a way of life. Such a being is Preach R. Sun and this is why it also makes sense that I should meet him within the world of performance art.  While the Fugitivist is hesitant to call himself a performance artist, he is excited about the possibilities inherent in the art form and its potential to shape social change.  Take for example his recent performance at Gray Zone for International Performance Art in Kingston, NY. In one of his scenes, he places 21 crosses with names like Martin, Bell, Davis and Sipp – all young male victims of state-condoned executions.  Interestingly enough, many at the performance were not familiar with the names, or the incidents.  Clearly there is room for dialogue and an exchange of information of experiences and perspectives, and clearly there is a need for more spaces in which to do so, across social, ethnic, racial and national lines. 

Counting the Dead, Ferguson City, photo by Abdul Aziz

While in New York, I had the opportunity to check out Preach R. Sun’s CHRYSALIS [Cry-Solace] performance at Grace Space in Brooklyn, and his, ‘INTER to EXIT’ performance, later, at Gray Zone in Kingston, NY. At the time of our first meeting, he had already known most of the movements for his first performance, but was already wondering about his second one, the following weekend, at Gray Zone in Kingston. Not wanting to ever do anything twice – “you run the risk of losing authenticity”, the Fugitivist reflects, Preach questions every detail in his performance – from the use of video projection(s) to the location of a set of keys to unlock the padlock used to shackle him (something he will not end up needing, as one audience member jumps in during the action, later that evening, and smashes the padlock with a hammer). Preach, wants to know how he can make his next action different?

But before all of this, there is something else that the, Fugitivist wants to do in the city.  It has to do with action, and it has to do with voicing how he feels about art, celebrity, elitism and our society’s inability to have any real, true discussion about poverty.  The idea for the action was seeded when learning of Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box at the MoMA, in her piece called “The Maybe”, and citing homelessness as one of the many inspirations for the work.  This in turn inspired the Fugitivist to ponder the issue of homelessness (in the United States, where according to estimates by AHAR (Annual Homeless Assessment Report) as of January 2013, 610,042 people were homeless, and how again invisibility is rendered through propaganda.

 "The Maybe Nots": The Moma Intervention photo by Claire Sarganti

"The Maybe Nots": The Moma Intervention photo by Claire Sarganti

For his piece – a response to Swinton’s ‘The Maybe’ – entitled, ‘The Maybe Not’s’, Preach R Sun, armed with a video wielding accomplice, proceeds to enter the Museum of Modern Art, finds a spot on the museum floor, and lays down under a garbage bag. The bag is replete with thought-provoking words and phrases such as, “RICH CELEBRITIES SLEEP IN GLASS BOXES AND IT’S ART, POOR PEOPLE SLEEP IN CARDBOARD BOXES AND IT’S WASTE; NO BEGGING ZONE; HOMELESS MAN ASLEEP IN IVORY TOWER and NO EBT ACCEPTED IN GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOODS CASH ONLY”, in less than 5 minutes, the Fugitivist reveals that he is awakened from his slumber by a very sympathetic security guard.  Upon lifting his head from beneath his plastic “sheet”, he sees a wall of spectators facing him, armed with cameras and phones, aimed at him. At that moment Preach realized he had a decision to make. Would he break the spell, admit that he had planned this action? Or would he remain in character? He decides to remain in character, and in so doing, the energy within the MOMA is changed, as spectators watch this lone, seemingly homeless man, be refused shelter within the MOMA.  He knew he had struck a chord when a couple was overheard. “No, I can’t take this,” says the woman, turning around at the sight of Preach R. Sun exiting the museum. “What are you talking about?” asks the man, confused. “This is art. This is what it’s all about.”

But is art enough? The Fugitivist asks himself. He questions if art can be used as an instrument for social change. And this is the examination that drives his current series, Oneman: Fugitivism, Black Arts and Barbarian Invasions.  The work examines, among other things, how to make art relative, how to use it in a way that transforms social structures.  Preach R. Sun is examining ways to make art that sustains an energy necessary for change, not necessarily art that is beholden to being bought and owned, and thus enjoyed by the relatively few.

We live in a world where success is pretty much based on what you have accumulated- materially and academically even.  In a time where access to degrees usually boils down to access to money, the job market has taken on yet another level of discrimination, although this discrimination is tacitly about economics and class, with race being the usual common denominator.  Many of us base success on the type of property you own, the kind of car you drive, your salary. We become alienated from the true root of humanity, the all-encompassing potentiality of what life has to offer.  Life becomes diminished to, “have you seen her bathroom sink?”  I’ve been exposed to my share of this – especially in Denmark where all is supposed to be equal (relatively) and most pride themselves for their lack of materialism. This of course, is becoming rarer, and Danes, I have noticed, have become just as caught up with materialism as they accuse those of us in the U.S. as being.  It’s not difficult to see how this cultural shift is taking place: One of our (the U.S.’s) largest exports is Hollywood: that manipulation of lights that enchants and pulls us away from reality, that makes us forget about the drones, the poverty, the joblessness the mass-imprisonment. It lulls us to sleep while the rest of the world feels our wrath.  We shop at Walmart and our soldiers get pumped up with drugs, on foreign land, to unleash our Democratic will.  Between the manufactured economic crisis and the very real reality of mass incarceration, joblessness, racism, lack of access, it makes me a bit more optimistic when I see others take on the system in their own, fugitive ways.

Update: Preach R Sun continues his work in Ferguson City, Mo. 

Crucifixion of Kneeling Man [Ferguson, Performance Protest Action] from THE ONE((1))MAN EXPERIENCE on Vimeo.

To check out Preach R Sun's work in-depth visit http://preachrsun.wix.com/oneman