MA/PA
At Alberto Aguilar's A Personal Dinner Invitation (2011-12)--an event held at various galleries around Chicago (North Branch Projects, Roots and Culture, and Southside Hub of Production), Jorge Lucero was invited to perform as part of a series of after-dinner events that took place shortly after the main course. For this work, Lucero performed a serenata (or serenade), which in Mexico is typically sung in order to honor another, usually a love interest. MA/PA was composed of a mash-up which brought together a rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's Nearness of you sung by the Czech singer Eva Olmerova and La Juala de Oro performed by the Mexican super-group Los Tigres del Norte. The performance of MA/PA included the video of Olmerova slowed down from its original four minutes to a drowsy eleven minutes and the performer--Lucero--standing next to the projected image holding a microphone in one hand (as if it were a revolver), while drawing a large mustache on himself for the first five minutes of the performance. Throughout the performance Lucero wore a shirt from the factory that his father has worked at since his immigrating to Chicago almost forty years ago. The shirt has a patch that reads "American Grinding". He also wore a hat which was owned by his father-in-law; a hat typically used to protect the head and face from the midday sun or the afternoon drizzle. It is the hat of a man who was one with nature. Towards the end of the MA/PA performance, Lucero (lifting up the microphone/ revolver to his lips) joins in and finishes off the mash-up alongside a slowed down Los Tigres del Norte.