By Geoff Gehman | Of The Morning Call
Juan Sanchez is a prominent political artist who often lobbies for Puerto Rican rights in paintings, photographs and prints. In his first exhibit of commissioned video portraits, created for Lehigh University, he plays an activist earth father.
''Facing the Storm'' features Sanchez's daughter, artist Liora Sanchez-Villegas, battling sadistically laughing, pop-up clones.
Eventually she seems to disarm the demons by praying louder and louder as her purple-outlined, glowing body grows bigger and bigger. What is meant as a father's tribute to a courageous child, however, is a cartoon caught in the limbo of performance art and dance therapy.
Action is tighter and nastier in ''Prisoner,'' which is dedicated to four political prisoners in Puerto Rico. The star is a bare-breasted woman crying and writhing against a dirty white surface, hands tied behind her back, hooded by a Puerto Rican flag. Projected on the floor, the screen uncannily doubles as a cell for torture and a well for sorrow.
A measure of healing is offered in ''Madre Selva (Mother Earth),'' where three nude women play earth mothers in front of a giant tree, ending as mud-covered, rooted spirits.
Sanchez, an art professor at Hunter College who next month will be in residence at Lehigh, compellingly blends yoga moves, morphing, split screens, tribal patterns and primitive modernism. It's a fine homage to Ana Mendieta, a feminist performance artist who made body prints of mud and sand.
The videos look quite dramatic in Lehigh's Zoellner Gallery, transformed for the show from a two-room light box to a three-room maze shrouded in darkness. The darkness, in turn, amplifies and clarifies sounds. The cries in ''Prisoner'' mix with the soothing music of ''Madre Selva,'' suggesting a painful, peaceful womb.
Three video portraits by Juan Sanchez, through June 14, main gallery, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem. Related events: lecture by Sanchez and reception 4:30-8 p.m. March 13; guided tour with Sanchez 10:30 a.m.-noon March 14. Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 610-758-3615, http://www.luag.org .
