Hector Canonge is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator, and cultural entrepreneur based in New York City. His work incorporates the use of new media technologies, cinematic narratives, Live Action Art, and Social Practice to explore and treat issues related to constructions of identity, gender roles, psychogeography, and the politics of migration. Challenging the white box settings of a gallery or a museum, or intervening directly in public spaces, his performances mediate movement, endurance, and ritualistic processes. Some of his actions and carefully choreographed performances involve collaborating with other artists and interacting with audiences. His work has been exhibited and presented in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
As cultural entrepreneur, Canonge started projects such as ARTerial Performance Lab (APLAB), an initiative to foster collaboration among performance artists from the Americas, PERFORMEANDO, a program that focuses on featuring Hispanic performance artists living in the USA and Europe, NEXUSURNEXUS a virtual platform for Live Action Art, and PERFORMAXIS, an international residency program in collaboration with galleries and art spaces in Latin America. He created, and organizes independently the annual Performance Art Festival NYC, ITINERANT. Canonge is the co-founder of QMAD, Queens Media Arts Development, a non-profit arts organization in Queens, NYC. As curator, he has organized exhibitions at Centro Cultural Santa Cruz, Queens Museum, Space 37 Gallery, and Visual AIDS. He started the monthly artists’ program A-LAB Forum at Crossing Art Gallery, and created the monthly independent film series CINEMAROSA. Canonge’s work has been reviewed by The New York Times, ART FORUM, Art in America, New York Daily News, Manhattan Times, Hispanic Magazine; by major networks ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, UNIVISION, etc., and online by Art Experience NYC, Hyperallergic, Turbulence, Art Card Review, and New York Foundation for the Arts’ bulletin NYFA News. Canonge is currently working on his new Social Practice & Performance Art based project "A HOME OF OUR OWN" in the Bronx as resident artist for RU Residency Unlimited and Casita Maria.