[May 12th 2003]
press release

PUKI PEACE PROCESSION AND LIBERTE PICNIQUE IN BROOKLYN

For further information about the PUKI PEACE PROCESSION please
contact by E mail:  reynoldsnart@aol.com
For further information about LIBERTE PICNIQUE please contact by Email: davidmedalla@hotmail.com

Peace-loving artists and art -lovers everywhere are invited to
come and participate in two live events in Brookyln, New York City, on
Saturday, May 31, 2003, starting at 3:30 p.m. The first event will be the
colorful PUKI PEACE PROCESSION by American artist Reynolds. The
procession will feature banners displaying Reynolds'  beautiful paintings
of archetypal women in world myths, legends and history, displaying
proudly their flaming "puki". The word "puki" is native Pilipino for
"vagina".  Reynolds first conceived this original series of art works
while contemplating the statue of Hercules in Kassel, Germany, several
years ago. At first the paintings( whose sources are the images of divine
women : virgins, goddeses and saints of global cultures) with their
flaming vaginas seemed to Reynolds to be Monstruous, and she initially
called the series "Puki Monsters". But when she conceived her child
Raphael, she re-named the series "Puki MOMsters", in honor of the
different manifestations of the Mother.The first Puki Procession (with the partiicipation of Marisol Cavia, Adam Nankervis, and Kim Creighton) took place at the Horniman Museum in London during the World Tea Party curated by Trolley Bus (aka Bryan Mulvihill) as part of the London Biennale in the summer of 2002. The second Puki Procession took place a month later at the Peter Pan monument and proceeded to the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, London, with the participation of London Biennale artists. For the Puki Peace Procession in Brooklyn, Reynolds has created a new painting inspired by the loss of the historic Warka Vase in Baghdad during the recent war in Iraq, in honor of the goddess Inama.
The on-going Puki Momsters project is Reynolds' deeply felt and personal
critique of ubiquitous and imposing phallic monuments. It is therefore
relevant and ironic that the Puki Peace Procession will start at the
Memorial Arch commemorating the American Civil  War at the Grand Army
Plaza in Brooklyn. The march will proceed to the Vale of Kashmir Gardens in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens nearby. Filipino artist David Medalla will
perform there his impromptu entitled "A Veil of Cashmere in the Vale of
Kashmir". This work is a continuation of his performance entiled "The
Missing Wife of Osama Bin Laden", which Medalla performed at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and at the Al Kufa Gallery & Al Saqi bookshop in London in 2001.

English performer Shoe Taylor Guinness will sing several songs during the
performance. After his impromptu, David Medalla (as Baron Allergie de Tackyville) will initiate the grand  "Liberte Picnique" with the assistance of Andrew Reyner as the Statue of Liberty and Adam Nankervis as Hanuman, the Monkey God.Medalla is inviting the public to come to the picnic dressed in monkey masks and monkey costumes and to bring with them French cheese, French wine and French bread, which (after they have surrendered those Gallic comestibles to Medalla) the artist will re-name "LiberteBrie, EgaliteVin, FraterniteBaguette". Medalla is also asking the public to bring with them musical instruments (bells, tambourines, saxaphones, drums, flutes, accordions, guitars, harps, etc). for the improvised dancing which will follow the "Liberte Picnique". Though very diverse in their means of artistic expression, both Reynolds and Medalla structure into their works their love of  world
cultures which they conflate into astonishing and fantastical creations.
Reynolds is currently a teaching artist at the Guggenheim Museum in New
York. She has given solo shows of her paintings in Vienna, Berlin and
London. Her latest exhibition was at the Danny Simmons Corridor Gallery
in Brooklyn. She and her husband Raoul Tenazas have collaborated on a
number of artistic projects. David Medalla is the founder and director of the London Biennale. A winner of a painting award from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Medalla was also a DAAD artist in Berlin. Medalla's witty, erotic, lyrical,  inventive and ironic performances (including "Bambi Shitting Dollars" at the Clocktower Gallery in Manhattan during the "Travels II" exhibition curated by Chris Dercon in 1989,  and  "Five Immortals at Drop Dead Prices" at Cooper Union in New York as part of the  Franklin Furnace in Exile program in 1992) have become legendary among art lovers. In 1993, David Medalla founded with Adam Nankervis the Mondrian Fan Club. David Medalla is currently showing a new version of his participatory art work entitled "A Stitch in Time" at the exhibition "Pulse: Art, Healing, and Transformation", curated by Jessica Morgan and assisted by Emily Moore, at the Insitute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts.