Someone Else - Abel Azcona

"Someone Else" (U.S. Premiere) Abel Azcona Presented as part of the Queer Arts Festival 2014 Abel Azcona uses his body to illustrate personal experiences of abandonment, pain, and empathy. In Someone Else he shows us interpersonal relations, both sentimental and sexual, in which in a parallel way, true feelings, true love, or the true object of desire are all hidden. The artist shares different intimacies with different people, making the antagonist-guest the protagonist. He presents dreams that become true in the mind, but never in the actual body. Abel Azcona is a Spanish interdisciplinary and performance artist. He creates cathartic works as a means of self-knowledge and personal construction. Azcona’s artwork has been presented in various museums, contemporary art centers, and galleries worldwide. Synergistically autobiographical and critical, his work takes audiences into his inner world and invites them to share their own experiences. His themes are directly informed by his experiences as the child of a prostitute, and his passing through multiple children’s shelters, mental institutions, and foster homes, as well as adolescent episodes of drug use, prostitution, and several suicide attempts. The resilient artist assures the public that when he practices self-harm, it is his own choice to alter the shape of his body, as opposed to an abused child or woman who has no choice. Image: Abel Azcona