makes performances in the guise of lectures, tours, and seminars that satirically address contradictory meanings embedded in popular culture. He has tackled subjects as varied as former French president Francois Mitterrand’s last meal, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain’s sex life and banker Jamie Dimon’s letters to his estranged wife. Most recently, he has been staging performances within existing spectacles, like a seminar in the back of a limousine driving around Wall Street, and a one on one performance at an NBA game.

He was a recipient of the special mention prize at the Montreal Film Festival, a recipient of the Jack Long award from the National Film Board of Canada, a festival prize at the FilmWinter in Stuttgart, Germany and an audience award at The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. He has presented works at CONFLUX festival, Flux Factory, and Art Connects New York. His recent work has been written about on Hyperallergic.

I am an artist who consistently questions the purpose and function of art. I have a genuine interest in hybrid forms and works that cross artistic boundaries. Working from a Shape (the rediscovery of perception) philosophy, I am engaged in creating live performance and mediated works based in the act of ritual as a medium of artistic expression towards the ignition of the imagination through contemplation.

My African American heritage, African diasporic identity, and spiritual beliefs provide a context for my work, and facilitate my role as an artistic medium. My performance works are ceremonial in nature and have an intention towards the construction of new tradition and rituals. My body is the object, material, and site utilized to physically explore and experiment with socio-cultural issues.

I am truly a seeker and a wanderer in constant search of my primal identity, and my contemporary art practice is with the effort towards exploring the transformative potential of art.

is an artist based in New York City. His work incorporates the use of New-media technologies, physical environments, cinematic and performative narratives. In his work he explores and treats issues related to construction of identity, gender roles, and the politics of migration. His performances mediate movement, endurance, and ritualistic processes as well as the interaction with the public. Canonge’s visual arts projects and performance art work have been presented in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Exhibitions to his credit include: GAYLERIA (2011), ABSENCE at Queens Museum of Art (2010), BABEL at Space 37 (2010), FRAMING AIDS – Positive I (2008) for Queens Media Arts Development, and Queering Bodies for VISUAL AIDS (2007). He organizes the monthly artists’ program A-LAB Forum at Crossing Art Gallery, directs the monthly independent film series CINEMAROSA, and organizes ITINERANT, the annual Festival for Contemporary Performance Art in New York City. Canonge’s work has been reviewed by The New York Times, ART FORUM, New York Daily News, Manhattan Times, Hispanic Magazine, by major networks ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, UNIVISION, etc., and by online art publications such as Art Experience NYC, NYRemezcla, Turbulence, ART CARDS Review, NYFA Classifieds, and HYPERALLERGENIC among others. After living for seven months in various regions in South America -where he created and exhibited a new body of work- Canonge returned to the USA this past February to start working on LAB.ORAL, his Franklin Furnace Award 2013 project, and to present new works at various venues and programs in New York City.

His transgressive work seeks to open road windows with questions, as opposed to closing ladder doors with answers. He lives in Brooklyn. Go there; knock on his door and you’ll see. JK has performed at University of Cincinnati. Museum gallery gallery museum, semantics gallery, 424 gallery, blue gallery, and fountain square. Panoply Performance Lab, English Kills Art Gallery (unauthorized), and participates regularly at Grace Exhibition Space. He also performs in the streets and transit lines