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Dont call it a tour, Modesto Flako Jimenez says as we pull up to the curb.
Still, Jimenez insists theres a distinction between whatTaxilandiais doing and what other trend-chasing tour guides are up to.
Voguetold them Bushwick is hot, he says, his voice dripping disdain.
The simultaneous layering of those feelings comfort and discomfort is part of the shows complex and delicate choreography.
Boundaries slide and shift and melt.
In some form, Jimenez has been working onTaxilandiafor more than ten years.
One of his earlier bilingual pieces,Oye!
I cant even tell you how longTaxilandiais because Im not sure when it ended.
Was that the show?
Taxilandias key metaphorsurfaces at a wall covered in graffiti.
We drive up and park for a while, so we can examine it in detail.
He finds significance in this overwriting, how graffiti writers superimpose but do not erase.
His subject is gentrification, and certainly the only way to tell such a story is in onionskin layers.
For Flako, everything is a monument.
Jimenez has thought carefully about the hustle (We all have one, right?
), so parts ofTaxilandiaare actually … ads.
Hes hustling drugs, Im hustling clarity, he says.
Well, not exactly.
It illuminates by jumbling; it reveals by piling up.
It shows all the neighborhoods lives superimposed at once, painted one on top of another.
And in this way, Jimenez offers a way to see the citys constant churn with subtler vision.
Tickets toTaxilandiaare available at nytw.org through May 30.
