Reto Morger, 1973 (?) -

“Reto” (“dare”) is the artistic name of a young performance artist and dancer from Oaxaca, Mexico.  He became a steady model for Russell’s photography during the mid-1990s and a regular contributor to artistic events of our AIDS organization here, the Frente Común.  I helped curate his “conceptual installation” at the Oaxaca Casa de Culture and the following year at the Museum of the City in Mexico City.  He is now living in New York.

Reto loved to dress up.  One of his costumes, below.

Below, the entrance to his exhibition at the Oaxaca Casa de Cultura.

The exhibit would take up the entire central stairway in the building.  I drew up some sketches, below, of how it should look.

Below, the Mexico City installation featured simulatious video "performance."

            Reto had been working on a kind of “performance happening” called "Nostagia for Death," featuring an AIDS theme, a dying patient writing AIDS obscenities with his own blood on the inner surface of his oxygen tent to the sound track of a slowing heartbeat.  We would hand out artist-signed bloody suringes to passers-by.  That sort of thing.  It was scheduled in front of the Cathedral on Tuesday evening.

            ... On Tuesday, Reto’s bloody profanities in front of the Cathedral stopped traffic!

*  *  *

*  *  *

   ...NEXT:  HOT FROM MEXICO