By Justin Hayford
But now Wilson finds himself in an unexpected public performance drenched in futility but drained of poetry. In mid-March, he got word from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service that Uncle Sam wants him out. He now must convince bureaucrats in Lincoln, Nebraska (the site of the regional INS office), that his work scrubbing monuments, shaking hands, lying under statues, and delivering shirts qualifies him to continue teaching performance art at the university level and makes him a valuable member of American society. Once again he’s screaming at distant buildings that are hardly receptive to his cries.
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Moving indoors, Wilson mounted Tragedy that summer at the Blue Rider Theatre. Tragedy was a seven-day continuous performance collaboration with Cuban artist Eduardo Martinez-Almaral. Throughout their weeklong ordeal, attended by a stalwart few, the two repeatedly called out names of world cities, hoping that one would sound interesting enough to compel them to travel. It didn’t work.
In August Wilson rejoined Durant in Los Angeles for Men of the World on the Streets of America, during which the two walked from LA’s skid row to the O.J. Simpson trial, tagging everything along their route with Men of the World postcards. They sent a series of ten photographs documenting the event to ten people, including Mark Fuhrman, Bob Dole, and Elmer Rigby, a stranger plucked from the Los Angeles phone book (those photographs are currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Photography). “Sending the photos was our way of saying, “We’re here! We’re here!”‘ Wilson explains. “You know, a futile gesture.”
Wilson’s taught performance at the School of the Art Institute for the last two years. His H-1 temporary work visa, which expires May 30, allows him to work as a part-time professor. When Columbia College offered him a similar position last year, he had to reapply. “With an H-1 you can work for that employer at that salary with that job title,” Holland explains. “If you have any “material change’ in your employment, you have to start again, or at least modify your old petition.”
In Holland’s eyes, a more insidious problem is our culture’s historical distrust of things artistic. “In this country there is not a love for creativity,” she says. “We’re a young nation. We had an entire country to build. And we value those things that got it built. An artist has to prove his worth in dollars. Our immigration laws have always followed supply and demand, and artists don’t fit into that mold.”
Two days before Wilson expects an answer from the government, on a chilly, gray Saturday afternoon, he paces and chain smokes in his railroad flat in Pilsen. “I’m at my wit’s end,” he confesses. “I try not to think about it, to be honest. I’ve got very little control over the situation right at this moment.”
