STAFF PROFILE: Angel Perdomo

NOTE: These interviews have been edited for clarity and length. Interview conducted and edited by FreeQuency, photos provided by the staff member, Antenna archive or a google search.

FreeQuency: To begin, let folks know your name, your pronouns, how you wound up here in New Orleans and we’ll go from there. 

Angel: My name is Angel Perdomo, I use He/Him/El pronouns. I’ve been in New Orleans proper, in the Greater New Orleans area since 1996. I’m technically a by-product of the United Fruit Company. The United Food Company was destroying all of Central America, and my grandpa and his dad worked there. My grandpa worked as a watchman for them and for some reason he got residency through a work visa or something and ended up here. Then when he became a resident, he asked for my mom and her siblings, so each one of them started coming one by one, and we ended up here in ‘96. Originally we were going to end up in the West Bank, but we ended up in Metairie. My family is mostly blue collar, they do lighter construction like sheet rock floating, finishing work, painting and that kind of stuff that makes a place nice and pretty right before you get into the house or building. I was around a lot of that stuff, but after graduating, I couldn’t find a real job in the arts. I worked in production and stuff like that, but I needed more money because of life in general. So I worked on construction sites and that’s where I learned a lot of trade things that I use here. So it’s just outside world experience, but a lot of it too.

FreeQuency: Tell me about how you came into the art scene here in New Orleans and about your time in the Antenna Collective. 

Angel: Well, there’s two parts if you want to break it down into the ‘Art Scene’ and ‘Antenna’.

Art scene wise, it’s probably the Jefferson Parish School programs that got me started. They had a “gifted” art program…and I put “gifted” in quotations (laughter), but it took me a while to get into that program because of the language barrier. They make people who want to join do this hard test, almost like a college entry level test to get into the program. I eventually got in and went through it and my dad was pretty supportive about it – he thought I was going to be an architect or something. He’s like, “you gotta do these drawings! If you’re in there, you gotta be all the way in it”. Prior to coming here, my dad was an Agricultural Engineer who traveled a lot so he saw lots of art and was always fascinated about art. Here, he’s a day worker, a construction worker. My dad was one of the main persons to support me in the arts, but he also treated it like it was a job. He’s the one who pushed me, but then I got to high school and I was like…  “i dont think i wanna do art, i wanna make money!”, and I almost went into the medical field, but when I got to college and saw what a biology book costs, I was like “oh, no, I’m going to back to the arts!”, and that’s how I ended up in the New Orleans arts scene. 

And then also just hustling and bustling and being present every day and treating it like it was a job, even if it was a school project in undergrad, I just treated it like “this is gonna give me to the gallery”…even though it didn’t in the beginning, I was treating it with that level of seriousness and wanting to reach the highest possibility because I had to prove being an artist was a livable thing. Immigrants…they think artists are like starving or eating paint or sniffing glue or some thing crazy (laughter)…

FreeQuency: I mean…theyre not wrong (laughter)

Angel: My mom always says in Spanish, “Siempre hay trabajo en construccion” . My mom and dad were worried that being a painter or artist means you’re struggling, but I had this drive that I was using within myself, saying “oh, we have to be in these things. We have to prove that we can make money in art” And when I say we, I’m talking ‘me, and myself and I’, that I have to prove to them that it’s a thing you can make money and could travel with. With the art I’ve done, I’ve traveled throughout different parts of the world and the United States and made money off of my work, so now they’re kind of down (laugher).

I ended up at Antenna close to 2012. I was an undergrad at UNO and I was taking a higher level class about working in museums or something, but they didn’t have anywhere for me to work at. There was this gallery I don’t remember the name of, but they had an artist who needed assistance making cardboard sculptures. I didn’t know how to do sculpture but I went to hang out with another artist to get a class credit, and the person who was on the project was Bob Snead. Bob was doing “The Dollar General Store” project where everything was made out of boxes of items in Dollar General. I would go after class and work helping him with that stuff, and eventually he’s like, “what are you doing? what year are you in in college?”. I was close to graduating and he told me about this collective named Antenna and I showed up to a Collective meeting and here I am, 13 years later. 

FreeQuency: What is your role now at Antenna and how did that transition come about? 

Angel: As of summer 2025, I became the Facilities Coordinator at Antenna. I do maintenance, installation, and oversee the physical operations of the buildings and making sure things work correctly. By ‘operations’ I mean things like making sure we have supplies and equipment, that the toilets and lights work, there’s no leaks or anything in the building, etc. 

During my time in the Collective, I did alot of installation support and coordinating with artists – pretty much what I do now. When the job posting came up, I figured, I’m already doing it with the Collective, I might as well get a buck off it too! I had the skills because of my time in the Collective but also, my family’s blue collar with experience in construction. I’ve learned these skills also working at the UNO gallery as a student and learning from other artists things like measurements for where a painting goes or how to rearrange a show. Also, a lot of this knowledge is learned just from being an artist and learning your own process and developing skills to show your work. 

I also assist and supervise the hanging of the work and I assist in the curation of the show. Even if there’s a curator, they may still need help figuring out things like ‘how does the flow of the show go’? And by “flow”, I mean the movement from one piece to another piece to another piece so the show doesn’t look stagnant or like it’s thrown all over the place. You kind of want an exhibition to be like reading a book – you want to read one part and go to the next piece and read it and then leave at the end and feel satisfied that you see the show that has a complete unity and togetherness. 

I also help with things like how to hang the work, what hardware to use in case the piece is too big or too heavy, or the orientation. I try to give advice on the way things are hung, like not just using a fishing line or wire. I relay how activating a piece with how it’s installed sometimes changes the conversation of the piece, it changes how the piece is seen or makes more conversations and/or makes the piece more interesting. Sometimes art it’s like…like a school lunch, you get so used to it, but changing it up and adding these installation pieces, it’s like adding apple fritter funnel cake to the menu! Then you’re like, “yo, they brought the good stuff from the back!” from just one small change.

I’ve seen many people come through. A lot of times, Antenna has emerging artists that’ve never shown before, so they ask me to put eyes on their pieces. I’ve seen a lot of artists that have had the first chance to exhibit here and how Antenna has propelled them to the next level in the art world.

FreeQuency: (laugher) I feel you, the display adds dimensions …

Angel: and gives it a different taste and allows you to digest it differently. You have to pay attention to all this stuff. And I’m not gatekeeping, a lot of the things that I give people advice on things I think about for myself and for my work.

FreeQuency: So folks really benefit from you not just having the technical expertise of this is a hammer and nail, but the creative investment in this actually looking good when it comes out?

Angel: Yeah I want it to look good too if I’m putting my time into it! It’s more than just, ‘it looks good for Antenna’ or ‘it looks good given my own preference’, but it’s “does it look good” for the artist, their archive and their trajectory as an artist. This is something Antenna believes in. I try to carry it to and emphasize that care and intention and make sure that the artist feels that. 

FreeQuency: Now that you work here at Antenna, what do you hope you can contribute during your time at Antenna through Antenna for your communities in New Orleans? 

Angel: I want people to know that Latinos in the South can work in the arts. In the South sometimes we get this connotation that it’s not like LA or Chicago or New York where you see Latinos in the arts. I want people to know you don’t have to go be a day worker or lawyer if you don’t want to be. You could be an artist and work in the arts, and yeah, your parents will give you crap about it, but…just push for what you want. 

I’m lucky enough that my mom and dad were supportive in that sense, and I know other Latino parents aren’t always as supportive, but I’m here to say go for it! If your mom and dad don’t go for it, I’ll be here – I’ll be your papá, I’ll be your mamá, I’ll be your hermano, I’ll be your predino, I’ll be whatever you want me to be that helps you the best as I can. My other contribution is I hope that people that come through here learn how to hang and put together an exhibition and consider how each piece talks to itself and other pieces and helps create the overall story. Sometimes I’m a sounding board where talking with me and putting things together means the thing you have in your head now comes to fruition. My contribution is – if an artist wants to learn, then I’ll teach you, I’ll show you, then you can do whatever you want after. 

I don’t think in my position I’m changing the world, I think I’m just…making the exhibitions look good, you know? 

FreeQuency: Well, actually, I don’t know – I’m newer to visual arts – talk to me a little bit more about that. I know a poem can change some worlds, what do you think a good exhibition can do for and in the/a world? There is such a thing as ‘art for arts sake’, for the sake of aesthetic beauty and pretty for the sake of being pretty, but you’ve talked in this interview about how you actually go out of your way to not just have something like, look good, but be meaningful too. So, maybe you’re not Superman directly pulling someone out of the way of an attack, but what contribution do you actually think a role like yours makes in the world?

Angel: It’s a smaller role…it’s not like I’m feeding the world or doing mutual aid or anything like that. People come and be like, ‘well, that was a really good show I saw’ to the artist which helps their confidence as artists. 

Like, if a show is hung all crooked and looks janky, as a non profit, Antenna may not be as supported, but if they see the work is nicely hung and presented its good for everyone, especially the artist. We also give the artists documentation and so I’m like the guy with his hands up trying to boost you up over the wall so you get to the next spot. I also try to teach people how to replenish a space after their exhibition is done, how to make sure the place is properly turned over back or paying attention to lighting. 

Then the community comes and sees the show and appreciates it. Sometimes I do gallery sittings here at night and I leave the door open and get the regulars from the block to come in and they come in all angry but leave happily out of here. I try to make art seem not so scary to the artists and audience.