LINDA MARY MONTANO
Exploring and dissolving the boundaries between art and life, Linda Mary Montano, a pioneer feminist performance artist, investigates the art/life relationship through everyday activities, actions and communication as rite and ritual. She is interested in the way artistic ritual, staged as individual actions/interactions or collaborative workshops, can be used to alter her birth story and to create the opportunity for focus on spiritual energy states, silence and the cessation of art/life boundaries.
A seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art and her work since the mid 1960s has been critical in the development of video by, for, and about women, Montano’s artwork is starkly autobiographical and often concerned with personal and spiritual transformation. Montano’s influence is wide ranging – she has been featured at museums including The New Museum in New York, MOCA San Francisco and the ICA in London.
Publications
14 Years of Living Art is a 220-page portable book/archive on Montano and her endurance performance art during the period 1984 to 1998 and features Montano’s journal writings during the 14 years, 119 photos documenting this performance, 18 of her ecstatic tantric tales, 52 of her drawings, 13 essays and interviews, and, via Montano’s instructions, an Art/Life recipe for the reader to practice making life a work of art.
The Sculpture of Linda Mary Montano, is a 50-year retrospective of Linda Mary Montano, a pioneer feminist performance artist who explores and dissolves the boundaries between art and life. Montano’s sculpture covers traditional materials such as wood, stone, copper, bronze, and assemblage. Her focus on chickens as a metaphor for freedom and mystical flight to the divine provides humor and relief from conventional history of sculpture. All the three dimensional sculptures and related two-dimensional works in this book are a prelude to Montano’s current performances of autobiography as art. Her vision of herself via the Mother Mary Doll is a rehearsal for seeing her own self and body as sculpture.
Dad Art
“We remember our dead in many ways. My Rosary Practice brings MOTHER MARY into my life in a way that allows me to prayerfully and respectfully and hopefully with her guidance, honor my dead parents and my adopted mother, Mrs. Mehta, by wrapping their once used clothing around the photo of Her with Baby Jesus to create a doll-form. The sticks are from my father’s Rose tree that died this year. The crib I found recycled at Garrison during a meditation retreat. Everything MATTERS. I make MOTHER MARY MEMORY DOLLS for your intentions. ”
Mother Mary with my Parents' and Mrs Mehta's Clothes - Rose Bush Crib 2018
14 Years of Living Art
During her 14 Years endurance piece, each year focused on the energies and attributes of one of the seven chakras. At that time, she lived at The Art/Life Institute in Kingston, NY and now lives at The Art/Life Institute and Transfiguration Hospital in Saugerties, NY.
During the first seven years of 14 Years of Living Art, Montano performed Art/Life Counseling with the public in a seven-year room-installation at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York curated by Marcia Tucker. For Another 7 Years of Living Art, 1991-1998, Montano donated herself as a Living Sculpture to the United Nations/Chagall Chapel.