Estévez traveled on his knees from the offices of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council on Maiden Lane to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian at Bowling Green, carrying in his hands a piece of casabe, a type of bread prepared from the cassava root, thus transporting a legacy of the Caribbean Taíno culture to be presented as a gift to the host institution.

The museum is located at the southern end of the Wiechquaekeck Trail, an old Algonquian trade route, in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House. The Custom House, designed by Cass Gilbert (1959-1934) and opened in 1907, once collected revenues for the Port of New York, then the country’s most prosperous trade center. The journey comes to an end when a Museum staff member signs the passport he carries.

The day’s activities included the museum’s annual Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos celebration. The family-friendly activities at the museum were free and included performances, storytelling and hands-on workshops from 1 to 5 pm.

Upcoming Pilgrimage:

For the sixth pilgrimage of the series, Estévez travels “Sowing Seeds” through Roosevelt Avenue in Queens to continue spreading the message on the often overlooked field of performance art. The journey scheduled for November 2006, ends with a long-awaited rest at the Queens Museum of Art.

Past Pilgrimages:

For the first journey, on March 20, 2005 Estévez was heavily laden with donated art publications strapped to his back for a trip that took him from the heart of the world’s financial center in Lower Manhattan to East Harlem. El Museo del Barrio’s Director Julián Zugazagoitia commemorated the performance by signing Estévez’s passport.

For his second pilgrimage, on June 28 and 29, 2005, Estévez forged his way walking backwards from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to the Bronx Museum of the Arts, spending the night on a hard bed of art catalogues provided by Longwood Arts Project/Bronx Council on the Arts. The strenuous two-day journey came to an end when the Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Olivia Georgia, officially greeted him at the door and signed the passport.

During his third journey of the series on Sunday, December 4, 2005 Estévez walked from LMCC to the Studio Museum in Harlem dressed in austere black and white raiment and wearing an iron crown embellished with seven admission buttons from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Upon arrival at SMH, Director of Education and Public Programs, Sandra Jackson lifted the crown off his shoulders and signed the passport, thus confirming that the journey was successfully completed.

For the fourth pilgrimage on February 2, 2006 Estévez traveled by foot and ferry from the offices of LMCC to the Jersey City Museum, stopping at educational and cultural organizations along the route: an Episcopal church, an all-boys Catholic school and a public school, to “Spread the Word” about performance art and the penances that he has been undertaking. Following Estevez’ arrival at the Jersey City Museum, Marion Grzesiak, Executive Director, recorded her signature in the passport.

A component of Estevez’ project consists of a handmade devotional guide created at the Center for Book Arts in collaboration with artists Ana Cordeiro and Amber McMillan. For information about this publication visit www.centerforbookarts.org.

About Nicolás Dumit Estévez

Nicolás Dumit Estévez is an interdisciplinary artist who has exhibited and performed extensively in the US as well as internationally at venues such as Madrid Abierto/ ARCO, The IX Havanna Biennial, and others. Awards include the PS1/MoMA National Studio Program, the Lambent Fellowship Program of Tides Foundation, the Michael Richards Fund of LMCC and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, NYArts Magazine, and in major publications in Mexico, Spain, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Born in Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Estévez lives and works in the South Bronx.

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Franklin Furnace are proud to partner on interdisciplinary artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez’s two-year performance series For Art’s Sake. Several arduous and pious pilgrimages enacted by Estévez were conceived as a part of the LMCC’s Workspace Residency Program and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art.

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is the leading voice for arts and culture in downtown New York City, producing cultural events and promoting the arts through grants, services, advocacy, and cultural development programs.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan, the George Gustav Heye Center, opened on Oct. 30, 1994, in the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, one of the most splendid Beaux-Arts buildings in New York. The museum features year-round exhibitions, dance and music performances, children’s workshops, family and school programs, film festivals and video screenings that present the diversity of the Native peoples of the Americas and the strength of their cultures from the earliest times to the present.

Franklin Furnace's mission is to present, preserve, interpret, proselytize and advocate on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content. Franklin Furnace is dedicated to serving artists by providing both physical and virtual venues for the presentation of time-based visual art, including but not limited to artists' books and periodicals, installation art, performance art, "live art on the Internet"; and to undertake other activities related to these purposes. Franklin Furnace is committed to serving emerging artists and their ideas; and to assuming an aggressive pedagogical stance with regard to the value of avant-garde art to cultural life.

Funding for this projects was provided by:
The Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art
The Center for Book Arts
Lambent Fellowship Program of Tides Foundation
The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture
The Michael Richards Fund, a program of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

*The Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art is supported by the Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial and in recognition of the valuable cultural contributions of artists to society.