Puerto Rican artist Wilfredo Labiosa recently passed away in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wilfredo Labiosa is well known for his watercolors, especially his seascapes and paintings of Old San Juan, many of which were on view at his gallery—Galería W. Labiosa—located at 200 Tetuán Street in Old San Juan.

Labiosa, who was born in New York, studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the School of American Arts and the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. During his career, he exhibited his artworks in individual and collective exhibitions in local and international galleries. His works are in many public and private collections in Latin America, Europe, the United States and the Caribbean. He taught at the Art Students League of San Juan and the University of the Sacred Heart in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

For original post (in Spanish), see http://artnewspr.blogspot.com/2015/06/fallece-el-acuarelista-y-pintor.html?spref=fb and http://www.noticel.com/noticia/177495/fallece-pintor-wilfred-labiosa.html

The latest exhibition by ADÁL (Adál Maldonado), “Un mixto de artistas hispanoamericanos” features a broad selection of photographs of Latin American artists (singers, musicians, actors, visual artists, writers, and more). The show opened on July 6 and will be on view until October 15, 2015, at Popular Center (located at 208 Juan Ponce de León Avenue in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico).

Description: This exhibition draws on a selection of photographs from the books Portraits of the Puerto Rican Experience (IPRUS Institute, NY, 1985) and Mango Mambo (Luiggi Marrozzini Gallery, San Juan, 1987). The linking of the two projects presents an interesting array of important Latin American actors, poets, composers and Hispanic musicians.

Spanning three decades of our history, ADÁL’s remarkable portraits provide new insights into the vision of each personality. We see the picaresque smile in the eyes of Rita Moreno, the provocative and sensual body language of Nydia Caro, the patriarchal stance of Don Rafael Cepeda Atiles, and the image of Tito Puente as drum major posing against a background of singing birds.

The gathering of portraits from Portraits of the Puerto Rican Experience and Mango Mambo is a celebration. It is a tribute to the strength of Puerto Rican and Latin American culture in the diaspora that has kept its traditions in spite of multiple changes, while tropicalizing this new space, and simultaneously creating a new environment where they acquire power through their creative intentions. (This exhibition was made possible by a collaboration with the Roberto Paradise Gallery.)

ADÁL: Photographer, artist and playwright, Adál is currently based in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Adál has presented and is part of the permanent collection of important art spaces in the US and Europe, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Francisco; Houston Museum of Art; Museo del Barrio, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museé d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; The Photography Museum in Belgium; Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC;  Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

One of his forthcoming projects is the publication of the book on his self-portraits, I Love My Selfie, with text by Ilan Stavans (Duke University Press, 2015). Also, a retrospective of his work has been scheduled for the 2017 season at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

[Photo above: “Marc Anthony” by Adál.]

“Calibán: San Juan, ciudad de vanguardia en el arte contemporáneo” [Caliban: San Juan, Avant-Garde City of Contemporary Art] features work by Alia Farid, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Melvin Martínez, Jesús (Bubu) Negrón, Radamés ”Juni” Figueroa and Chemi Rosado Seijo. Their work will be on view at the Cervantes Institute Gallery (located at 211-215 East 49th Street) in New York; opening Thursday, July 30, 2015, at 7:00pm.

According to the organizers, the group of artists named “Calibán” echoes “the art scene in Puerto Rico, sharing two qualities: their commitment to experimental art and their dedication to their local environment. They explore the artistic and cultural heritage [of the city], and the exhibited works address various topics based on this unique collaborative work, not only through the realization of the pieces, but also through the public’s active participation.”

The exhibition brings together a group of renowned contemporary Puerto Rican artists featured in the book Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes (Phaidon Press), which positions San Juan, Puerto Rico among the twelve avant-garde cities in contemporary art worldwide. The exhibition includes a selection of representative works, and commissioned work of the artists including drawing, installation, sculpture, video and painting. This traveling group exhibition, under the auspices of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, was previously shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico [Museo de Art Contemporáneo, MAC] in December 2014; The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (NMPRAC) in Chicago, Illinois, from April to July 15, 2015; and will later travel to Canada and Bogotá, Colombia. [See previous post Art Exhibition: Calibán—An Exhibition of Puerto Rican Contemporary Artists.]

For more information, see http://nyork.cervantes.es/FichasCultura/Ficha101123_27_1.htm

“¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York” was organized by The Bronx Museum of the Arts as a multi-venue artistic and cultural survey of The Young Lords Organization—a radical social activist group founded by Puerto Rican youth in the 1960s that demanded reform in health care, education, housing, employment, and policing.  This is a reminder that the show at El Museo del Barrio opens tomorrow, July 22 (1230 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York) and will open at Loisaida Inc. on July 30, 2015.

“¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York” has been on view at The Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 18, 2015), and will be on view at El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17, 2015) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10, 2015).

As Hyperallergic describes it: “A complement to the Young Lords exhibition at the Bronx Museum and another show opening at Loisaida later this week, Presente! The Young Lords in New York at El Museo explores the legacy of the Young Lords in East Harlem, the Bronx, and the Lower East Side (hence the three locations). For El Museo’s part, the curators will draw from the museum’s own collection including copies of the Young Lords weekly newspaper, Palante. It also explores the group’s legacy of art and activism.”

Description (from The Bronx Museum of the Arts): The Bronx Museum of the Arts is organizing Exhibitions of art and archival materials at three cultural institutions in New York City will explore how the Young Lords’ activities, community-focused initiatives, and their affirmation of Puerto Rican identity inspired artists from the 1960s to the present day, and had a major impact on the City and the social history of the United States.

The initiative will include public and educational programs across partnering venues to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. The institutions partnering in ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York are all located in neighborhoods where the Young Lords were most active, and each exhibition reflects on the Young Lords’ activities in that part of the City. “The Young Lords had a defining influence on social activism, art, and identity politics, but the lasting significance of their achievements has rarely been examined,” said The Bronx Museum’s Executive Director Holly Block. “[. . .] The issues the Young Lords struggled with are still timely, and their aesthetic and cultural vision still inspires both artists and community leaders today. We’re pleased to work with our partner institutions to bring this story to the public.”

[Photo above by Máximo Colón; “Untitled,” 1970.]

For more information, see http://www.bronxmuseum.org/exhibitions/presente-the-young-lords-in-new-york and http://hyperallergic.com/223276/artrx-nyc-56/

So sorry to have missed this inspiring piece by Amy S. Choi in The Mash-Up Americans earlier this year. [Many thanks to artist Marta Mabel Pérez for sharing it on Facebook.] The interview focuses on Puerto Rican artist Pepón Osorio and his work: simultaneously, art installations and community education projects. Here are excerpts:

Acculturating to the U.S. is as much about place as it is about language and food. Certain places can evoke community, aspiration, and even terror. Nobody knows this better than Pepón Osorio, the Boricua installation artist and MacArthur Genius behind such works as “En la barberia no se llora,” which examines the masculinity and education that takes place in the barbershop, and “Face to Face” which takes audience members into the chaotic world of child welfare offices.

Osorio launched his newest large-scale installation this month in Philadelphia. “reForm” engages the mostly Latino students from the shuttered Fairhill Elementary school in North Philadelphia, who, with Osorio, will relocate the left-behind chalkboards, desks, chairs and other school ephemera to Temple Contemporary, the art gallery at Temple University. The recreated school will serve as community gathering and planning space, creating an interactive installation for both art fans and the community at large. [. . .]

How does that fluidity inform your work? My work is universal, it is not only Puerto Rican. I have a universal language that everyone can relate to. But it is for the working class, and it can be seen through a lens of a Puerto Rican reality. In “reForm,” I’m raising a question about education. It is worth it? Was the education you received worth it? How do you create urgency about education? How do you prioritize kids who aren’t prioritized by education, and who aren’t prioritizing it? These questions apply to every community of color and every citizen who has been disenfranchised. My work is about raising a mirror to see yourself and see how you fit in a much larger society. Who are you and how does that position you in relation to everyone else?

[. . .] That’s so interesting — because it’s such a hospitable community, but it also makes you uncomfortable.  I hang out with people who are 100% Puerto Rican and I consider myself to be 100% Puerto Rican. But when I’m around them, I often feel that there’s no room for other alternatives. And I am for alternatives and for the new and different and possibilities within that, whether it’s food, or music, or neighborhoods, or education. There is a reality outside of the place we’re in. So I see myself as someone who understands 100% of what it is to be Puerto Rican but I want to look and go out there for other experiences. I’m often criticized because people believe that’s a threat to Puerto Rican culture, and I understand where that fear is coming from, but I want to give myself the freedom to be who I am. [Editor’s note: Welcome to the world of mash-up!]

Is that what you want to share with the kids in “reForm”? With “reForm,” I am introducing the possibility of higher education. And if they want to get a quality education, they have to negotiate being something else other than just Puerto Rican, and understand that they can only expose themselves to new things by giving up a little bit of something that is old — whether that is their neighborhood or their ideas about education and priorities. I want them to understand their culture and also see how that fits in a much larger society.

There’s no apology to being Puerto Rican. There’s room for all of your identities to exist. I’m not giving my culture up. None of us should have to.

AMY S. CHOI is a freelance journalist, editor, and co-founder of The Mash-Up Americans. She specializes in getting people to tell stories they never expected to share. You can follow her @awesomechoi.

For full interview, see http://www.mashupamericans.com/issues/pepon-osorio-on-reforming-his-identity/

Jason Mena’s “Coste de Oportunidad” [Cost of Opportunity] curated by María José Chavarría will be on view starting Thursday, July 30, 2015, at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design [Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo (MADC)] at the National Center of Culture, Antigua FANAL in San Jose, Costa Rica.

María José Chavarría writes: Jason Mena’s proposals touch on issues mainly related to the economy. Through the intervention of objects, painting, and various actions, his projects present reflections on exchange values, job opportunities, inflation and minimum wages, among other themes.

The artist has consistently investigated the operation of the black market and its link with government policies, global finance, and how this has some kind of grip on the art circuit. All this explores a relationship with the reality that is lived in different Latin American countries, and with marked social differences on this side of the map. Although he comes from Puerto Rico, the artist has also worked for several years, and very closely, in other Latin American contexts such as Mexico.

For more information, see http://www.madc.cr/

Kate Kilpatrick (Al Jazeera America) tackles the art scene in Puerto Rico. The good news is that some people—such as members of the creative class—are sticking it out on the island (she focuses on artists in San Juan), seeking out inspiration and new opportunities. Kilpatrick quotes José Luis Vargas [shown above] who says, “In mythology, monsters rise when there’s a crisis. This is maybe the worst crisis in every respect on the island, and yet it’s also the most critical time for creativity to arise.” [Many thanks to Maritza Stanchich for posting this article on Facebook.] See excerpts here and full article in the link below:

Three awful things happened back to back to Santurce architect and restaurateur Bryan Torres this summer that he believes underscore Puerto Rico’s deteriorating economic situation. He arrived at work one morning to learn his restaurant had been robbed. A few hours later, a neighbor and regular customer hanged herself in the stairwell. Then he learned the building he rented for his business was being repossessed. “We are living the crisis at it unfolds,” said Torres, who closed the restaurant at the end of July. But unlike the more than 50,000 residents the island has been losing annually in recent years, Torres isn’t leaving Puerto Rico or even Santurce. Instead he’s moving to a cheaper, smaller location in a rougher part of the neighborhood. “I believe Puerto Rico is a land of opportunity. Why go to a place where everything’s figured out?” he said.

He is part of what a local gallery owner has labeled “la resistencia” (the resistance) — artists, designers, restaurateurs, gallery owners and other creative types who, in the face of massive migration from Puerto Rico, have chosen to stay on the island and build a movement that sustains area businesses and preserves local culture.

Santurce, a working-class, heavily immigrant neighborhood in San Juan that has seen an influx of artists in recent years, is the heart of the movement.

“There are a bunch of us like me that are trying to stick to it and ride it as it is,” said Hector “Tito” Matos, a Grammy-nominated musician who was born and raised in Santurce and leads the plena-bomba fusion group Viento de Agua. “I am not saying the ones who go don’t have the commitment. But we decided the nation needed people to stay and work it out in order to bring back Puerto Rico from the economic hole in which we are now.”

His wife, Mariana Reyes Angleró, runs La Calle Loiza, a nonprofit group that documents the history of the Santurce neighborhood and promotes its cultural events. The couple met in New York, where they own a home in the Bronx, but have lived in Puerto Rico since 2003. [. . .]

When Puerto Rico raised its sales tax from 7 percent to 11.5 percent on July 1, instead of calling it quits, Valeria Bosch, the owner of Len.T.juela, a vintage boutique on Calle Loiza in Santurce, started to offer local shoppers an 11 percent discount on their purchases. “I believe in the island. I believe in Puerto Rico. I believe in the people,” she said. “I think this is a transition, and when things are bad, I don’t think on leaving. I think on working on them and make the difference, make the change. I know there is a lot of potential here and believe in that. We have a lot of young people hungry to work hard.”

Like Torres, Bosch hopes the crisis spurs Puerto Ricans to use the fewer dollars they have in their pocket to support local businesses. According to a 2014 analysis by Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Reporting (CPI), Puerto Rico has more Walgreens and Walmart stores per square mile than anywhere else in the U.S.

Francisco Rovira Rullán has run art spaces in Santurce for the past 12 years and currently runs the Roberto Paradise gallery, which is in the process of relocating to a cheaper but larger space just a few blocks from Torres’ new restaurant. He has been through bad economic times before, closing a gallery in 2008 during the first wave of the financial crisis. “At that point it wasn’t because people didn’t have money but because they were scared they were going to lose it,” he said. “Fear is bad for business.” Regardless of the crisis, it’s an exciting moment to be working in Puerto Rico, Rovira said during a recent walk through Santurce. “We’re living a historic moment of huge transition, where things will reset for the next 40 years,” he said. “The uncertainty and crisis provides the setting for creativity to blossom and artists to be more poignant and observant in their work.” [. . .]

[Photo above: Artist José Luis Vargas, in his Santurce studio, draws on supernatural and freakish themes to examine the Puerto Rican consciousness. Christopher Gregory for Al Jazeera America.]

For full article, see http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/8/7/viva-la-resistencia-artists-vow-to-stay-in-puerto-rico-despite-crisis.html

The exhibition “Rodríguez Calero: Urban Martyrs and Latter Day Santos” (I love this title!) opened on July 22, 2015 and is on view until October 17, 2015, at El Museo del Barrio. El Museo del Barrio’s “Urban Martyrs and Latter-Day Santos” is the first museum survey of the Nuyorican artist Rodríguez Calero and the second in a series of five women-artist retrospectives in El Museo’s current five-year plan. El Museo is located at 104^th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.

Description: Rodríguez Calero forges her powerful and unique style from the richly varied traditions of her own background. Born in Puerto Rico and raised mainly in New York City, she received her artistic education at San Juan’s prestigious Escuela de Artes Plásticas and the famed Art Students League of New York. After living and studying abroad, in both France and Spain, she returned to New York where she became a participating artist in the historic Taller Boricua.

Availing herself of both classical and deeply contemporary elements including surrealist collage, Catholic iconography, medieval religious painting, and hip-hop street culture, Rodríguez Calero creates vibrant and multilayered canvases that defy easy categorization. Her work offers a masterful balance of the abstract and figurative, sacred and profane, the meditative and boldly graphic. Her unerring use of dazzling color might be the first thing that attracts us to a Rodríguez Calero work, but it’s her depth of thought, complex imagery, and humane, empathetic gaze on society that draw us ever deeper in, stopping us in our tracks.

Exhibition Outline: Rodríguez Calero’s original technique is called “acrollage,” a technique of layering glazes of luminous colors with rice and other kinds of paper. The blending of fermenting surfaces and stenciled patterns attains lustrous color and texture. Guest-curated by Alejandro Anreus, the installation includes 29 large acrollage canvases, 19 smaller collages, 13 fotacrolés (altered photography) on canvas board, and 3 works of mixed media on paper. The exhibition will be accompanied by a brochure and a scholarly catalogue.

About the artist: A member of the same generation as Juan Sánchez and Pepón Osorio, and highly regarded by her fellow artists and many curators, Rodríguez Calero has not received the attention she deserves. El Museo is proud to address this omission by mounting the first museum survey of her work. Rodríguez Calero has also received awards, honors, and fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She was awarded residencies from The New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2006, she was featured in New Jersey Networks Public Television State of the Arts Series, “Sign Of The Times,” and in 2008-2009, she received the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in painting. She has exhibited in galleries and museums across the USA, in the Caribbean and China and her works are in many private and public collections.

For more information on the exhibition and concurrent programming, see http://www.elmuseo.org/roca/

The 80grados article “Cromática, Caguas a Color” reminds us that today marks the beginning of an exciting project directed by artist Sofia Maldonado. “Cromática, Caguas a Color” gathers a group of Puerto Rican artists who aim to revitalize various abandoned buildings around the city of Caguas, Puerto Rico, through their artwork. The initiative is a collaboration between six local artists: Sofía Maldonado, Omar Torres Calvo, Guillermo Rodríguez, Javier & Jaime Suárez, Quintín Rivera-Toro—and students from Columbia Central University. The project will be open to the public for five consecutive Saturdays, starting today, August 15, until September 12, from 12:00 noon.

[. . .] The project headquarters will be the piece entitled “Kalaña” by Sofia Maldonado. “Kalaña” is an expanded painting covering roofs, walls, and floors inside and outside the Angora building (previously the site of La Reina) in the Savarona neighborhood. With this project, the building will become an art piece in which several educational workshops, documentary screenings, lectures, musical performances and tours will be held.

As part of the proposals for “Cromática, Caguas a Color,” artist Omar Torres-Calvo’s “Sobrearquitectura”—located in the in the former post office site—makes reference to the security patterns inside mailing envelopes. In Torres-Calvo’s work, these graphic elements are placed in dialogue with the architectural design of the building.

Guillermo Rodríguez presents “Fachada/Cianómetro (Caguas),” a project that will turn the entire facade of a building into a large-scale cyanometer. This project—susceptible to the changing hues of the sky, as was the 18th century instrument—will involve viewers with the sensitive, luminic reality of their environment.

The brothers Javier and Jaime Suárez will create “Para Los Pájaros,” an ephemeral work created with seeds in the middle of the Caguas town square. At the conclusion of this creative action, it will fade and dissolve as the artistic gesture is consumed by the area’s birds.

Quintín Rivera-Toro  will present a public large-scale painting of the 2015 series entitled “Sin Señal.” The artist works the idea of being without signal, documenting a formal exercise in times of intellectual paralysis and creative blockage. [. . .]

Excerpted and translated from the Spanish-language original at http://www.80grados.net/cromatica-caguas-a-color/

As a follow-up to our previous post Urban Art: “Cromática, Caguas a Color” (from 80grados), here is a new review on Sofia Maldonado’s “Kalaña” and group project “Cromática, Caguas a Color.” Lalaboy PR writes:

Renowned emerging artist Sofia Maldonado is set to generate and lead a group of local Puerto Rican artists in revitalizing the city of Caguas, Puerto Rico with their public art. The initiative, Cromática, Caguas a Color, will transform several unused buildings throughout the city while serving as a model for artistic revitalization and community engagement. Maldonado, alongside Omar Torres Calvo, Guillermo Rodríguez, Javier & Jaime Suárez, Quintín Rivera-Toro will work with local university students on the interactive exhibit that opens on August 15th and runs for five consecutive Saturdays.

Cromática serves as a pilot project for reactivating unused spaces through art and community efforts. The initiative came from Maldonado’s commitment to Puerto Rico. She recently returned to her homeland after several years in New York City at a time when around 50,000 people a year leave Puerto Rico. She felt the need to return not only to bring forth an evolved aesthetic and sensibility but also to contribute to her country. “I came back to Puerto Rico a Crear Pais [to build my country], to support the arts and the local economy. In its simplest form, this project activates unused spaces through the use of color, abstraction, art, and community engagement. Each intervention respects the building that hosts it. At the same time this project is much more than an art piece to me. It’s a way to contribute to Puerto Rico in however small way I can.”

The project centers on and evolves from Sofia’s piece, Kalaña, which serves as a main hub leading to all other pieces. Taking over a former tobacco warehouse, Kalaña is a kind of expanded painting, covering walls, roofs, and floors both inside and outside. With the project, the building will be transformed into an art piece that also functions as an educational space with art workshops, documentary screenings, talks, concerts, and tours to the other art pieces.

Kalaña marks the beginning of a new stage in Sofia’s artistic expression. “Since 2012, I went into a gestation period, exploring and evaluating what my work does and is about. I have become more of a conceptual and cultural advocate. That process led me to open the studio in Puerto Rico and ultimately to what became Kalaña. Kalaña is a social experiment, a post-medium expression, meant to explore the reaction of the public towards an abstract -public- composition. By making away with the kind of figurative art that has come to be associated with public spaces, Kalaña diversifies what society perceives and approves as a contemporary public art.”

The other pieces dovetail from Kalaña, transforming spaces from the city’s main plaza to an old post office into interactive art abstractions. Beyond the pieces themselves, Cromática brings to the Puerto Rican community a series of activities that include documentaries such as Vic Muñiz’s Waste Land, and Gordon Matta-Clark’s Summer 77. The talks will range on topics from art, community initiatives, economy, interior design, amongst others. Hence this project will not only beautify Puerto Rico’s public spaces, it will also impact community building and engagement in Caguas and throughout the island.

See original review, photo series, and more about the artist at http://www.lalaboypr.com/artist-sofia-maldonado-transforms-herself-and-abandoned-puerto-rican-spaces/

Temple Contemporary, the gallery of Tyler School of Art at Temple University, presents “reForm,” a large-scale participatory installation/exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Pepón Osorio. The project will take place from Friday, August 28, 2015 through May 20, 2016. The Tyler School of Art is located at 2001 N. 13th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [Thanks to Marta Mabel Pérez for bringing this item to our attention.]

Description: The exhibition is part of a two-year project conceived by artist Pepón Osorio in which installation, performance, public art and advocacy components are interwoven to explore a school closing from the perspective of one North Philadelphia community. reForm relocates Fairhill Elementary—one of 24 schools closed by Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission since 2013—to a classroom at Tyler that will in turn be transformed into an immersive, changing installation.

The over-the-top tableau will evoke a landscape of memory and evolve daily as neighborhood residents hold a steady stream of community planning meetings, workshops and public programs there. The programs will be planned by the project participants, not by Tyler, nor by the artist. For Osorio, the sense of agency that residents may gain from the group process is as important as the installation environment: “I am hoping that this project, with all its components, counters the feelings that I’ve heard so many North Philadelphians describe—feeling invisible in the bureaucratic decision-making of the school closings.”

reForm will be accompanied by a full-color publication, available in the spring of 2016 from D.A.P. and Cornerhouse. This publication will include commissioned texts by Tom Finkelpearl, Amalia Mesa-Bains and Martha Rosler.

Media information: Anne Edgar: T +646 336 7230 / ann@annedgar.com

About Temple Contemporary: Temple Contemporary’s mission is to creatively re-imagine the social function of art through questions of local relevance and international significance.

See www.reForm-project.org and www.templecontemporary.info

For full article, see http://www.artandeducation.net/announcement/pepon-osorios-reform/

The Museum of the Americas in San Juan, Puerto Rico is presently hosting the 50-year retrospective of leading Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell: IMALABRA. The exhibition opened on September 3, 2015, and will be on view until January 17, 2016. [Photo above, courtesy of Dr. María Cristina Rodríguez, University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras.]

Executive director of the Museum of the Americas Maria A. López Vilella says: “[The museum] is honored to host IMALABRA, retrospective of Antonio Martorell and his friends, which includes more than fifty years of work and represents the trajectory of an artist who has managed to exceed the parameters that define artistic production through generations, styles, and concepts.

More information: IMALABRA is a traveling exhibition that opened in April 2014 at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba, and continued its journey at Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico City and the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. [. . .]

The Museum of the Americas has developed a series of activities based on the IMALABRA exhibition: guided tours by the artist and his friends, lectures, a theatrical performance, screenings of documentaries on the artist’s work, creative workshops, and storytelling, among others. You can download the calendar of activities IMALABRA here.

IMALABRA honors the career of one of the most outstanding artists of Puerto Rican visual arts. In Puerto Rico, IMALABRA ceases to be an exhibition alone to become a multidisciplinary cultural project held simultaneously in various venues.

The following institutions will host exhibitions and activities honoring IMALABRA:

Galería San Juan Bautista, San Juan, Album de familia, August 13

Casa Ashford, Municipio Autónomo de San Juan, El ABC de Abelardo, September 10

Museo de Arte de Bayamón, A restos: una instalación gráfica, September 24

La Casa del Libro, La letra dibujada, September 30

Museo de Arte de Ponce, El papel del retrato, October 4

Escuela de Artes Plásticas, Aprehender, aprender y prender sobre arte y Antonio Martorell, October 15

Museo Casa Roig, Humacao, La casa en la casa, October 28

Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular, Los surcos de Martorell, November 7

Mona Lisa and Galería Guatíbiri, Río Piedras, November 12
Modelo para armar: saludo a Imalabra de Antonio Martorell (Mona Lisa)
Las moscas de Machado (Galería Guatíbiri)

Fundación Casa Cortés, Intervención achocolatada en Casa Cortés, November 19

Liga de Arte, White Christmas Revisited, December 3

For more information about the activities above, you may can contact the relevant institutions.

For more information on IMALABRA, visit www.museolasamericas.org or call the Museum at (787) 724-5052.

The information above is based on excerpts translated from http://www.museolasamericas.org/exhibiciones/imalabra.html

In “Ricky Martin Has a Unity Party at the Garden,” Jon Pareles (The New York Times) reviews the Puerto Rican singer’s energy at his recent show at the Madison Square Garden. The show was a stop on Martin’s “One World” international tour, following the release of his 10th studio album, A Quién Quiera Escuchar [To Whom May Want to Listen]. Here are excerpts with a link to the full review below:

Mr. Martin got his start as a member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo and, at 43, is still an exultantly boyish trouper — a song-and-dance man who keeps his music up-to-date for Latin pop radio, and who smiles his way through electronic beats, hard rock, lovelorn ballads and carnival-ready Caribbean rhythms. He’s the kind of performer who can make a fully choreographed workout look like nonstop fun. “Tonight is about love,” he declared early on, then added unity, equality, freedom and “being yourself” to the list.

In 2010 Mr. Martin told interviewers that he is a “fortunate homosexual man.” Onstage, he was welcomed as an all-around sex symbol. He drew loud female shrieks as he shimmied through “Shake Your Bon-Bon.” [. . .] When Mr. Martin got to a string of ballads about heartache, high voices loudly sang along with his torchy baritone.

Mr. Martin, like many of his listeners, took being bilingual for granted throughout the concert, often singing in Spanish but speaking to the audience in English. One of his 2015 Latin-radio hits, “Adiós,” was trilingual, with some lyrics in French.

His music thrives when it, too, mixes cultures with skillful ease. The final stretch of the concert was an accelerating string of pan-American dance tunes, new and old, among them the cumbia-reggaetón-salsa hybrid of the 2015 “La Mordidita” (“The Nibble”) and the samba-meets-merengue beat of the 1998 “Por Arriba, Por Abajo” (“Upward, Downward”). Mr. Martin announced, to waves of screams, “This is the moment where you have to allow yourself to be free,” and stoked a full-arena dance competition to shout “I don’t care” and wave arms upward and downward.

Then he came back for an encore with even more dancing: “Pégate,” strongly rooted in Afro-Caribbean traditions, and “Copa de Vida”/”Cup of Life,” a soccer anthem aimed worldwide — a measure of Mr. Martin’s unifying ambitions. “It doesn’t matter if you have rhythm or not,” he urged. “Just do it!”

For full article, see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/arts/music/review-ricky-martin-has-a-unity-party-at-the-garden.html

Jen Chung (Gothamist) writes that a group of eleven internationally-known street artists will be bringing new murals to East Harlem and the South Bronx in a program called MonumentArt, which will run through today (Sunday, October 11). Puerto Rican-born City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito offered a glimpse of “what is emerging, from El Mac (who our own Jake Dobkin calls the ‘best muralist’ in LA) and Puerto Rican artist Cero.” Here are excerpts:

[Melissa Mark-Viverito] said in a statement, “El Barrio/East Harlem and the South Bronx are both known for their vibrant public and street art. There is great power in the arts and their importance is critical in preserving the historic cultural identity of the neighborhoods I represent. This year, the MonumentArt festival will bring nine walls to life in El Barrio and the South Bronx, celebrating our neighborhoods’ culture, documenting our history and capturing our imagination.”

MonumentArt, presented by La Marqueta Retoña initiative, first brought new murals to the neighborhoods a couple of years ago, and director Jose Morales recalled, “In 2013, the Los Muros Hablan art festival was a huge success and went a long way in cultivating the rich, beautiful history of East Harlem. This year, we are excited to bring the project to even more spaces in El Barrio and extending it to the South Bronx. We look forward to the final products and thank Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for the opportunity to complete such a great project in her district once again.”

Here’s a list of the artists and where they are putting up their pieces:

Viajero (New York City) is at P.S. 102, 113th Street and 2nd Avenue; El Mac (Los Angeles) and Cero (Puerto Rico): Mosaic Preparatory Academy, Harlem Success Academy 3, Mickey Mantle School, 111th Street and Lexington Avenue; Faith 47 (South Africa) and Sego (Mexico): P.S. 171 and Central Park East II, 103rd Street and Madison Avenue (two murals); Ever (Argentina): El Barrio’s ArtSpace P.S. 109, 99th Street and 3rd Avenue; Roa (Belgium): Lexington Gardens, 108th Street and Lexington Avenue; 2ALAS (Puerto Rico): 138th Street and Park Avenue underpass, Bronx (two murals); Elizam Escobar (Puerto Rico): Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center, 106th Street and Lexington Avenue; and Luis R. Vidal (Puerto Rico): Con Edison, 111th Street and 1st Avenue. [. . .]

[Shown above: mural in progress by 2ALAS (Puerto Rico)]

For full article and photos of murals in progress, see http://gothamist.com/2015/10/08/street_art_rock_stars_harlem.php

In Puerto Rico, Ponce artist Wichie Torres and Antonio Martorell (now Ponce-based), were commissioned by Plaza del Caribe Shopping Mall to create a unique work that reflects local elements of the region: the carnival theme in Torres’s work of Torres, and Ponce’s iconic ceiba tree in the work of Martorell.

Torres explained, “My work, including vejigantes and pleneros (plena musicians) celebrating, makes reference to the southern region; [. . .] my proposal reflects a traditional view of our Ponce, a scene that has been kept alive for years in the traditions of our people.”

Martorell specified that, through this work, the public can see a version of the work as if it were taking flight. “These are images to be viewed from above. They may be seen and enjoyed from any viewing angle [. . .]”

The works of both artists will be reproduced in two large medallions measuring 12 and 13 feet in diameter, respectively, in the Central Atrium. The pieces are being created based on small pieces of terrazzo in different colors, which join together, give life to the designs.

Translated from the Spanish language original at http://elvocero.com/arte-monumental-en-plaza-del-caribe/

Arnaldo Morales’ “Manta-raya No. 14” is on view from October 23 to November 18, 2015.

On Friday, October 23, the Delta del Picó Gallery at the Liga de Arte [Arts League] of San Juan hosted the opening of “Manta-raya No. 14” [Stingray No. 14]—an exhibition by artist Arnaldo Morales. Morales, Puerto Rican artist based in New York, is a sculptor who has made his mark by creating mechanical objects that—through their parts or actions—require us to keep alert in their presence. These objects are a reminder of human ingenuity and, at the same time, they show us the breach between the human and the mechanical.

Liga de Arte is located at Plaza del V Centenario (in front of the Totem) in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Arnaldo Morales was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1967 and has lived in the New York area since 1996. He has exhibited internationally for over 20 years. His work has been included in key projects such as Wizard Chamber (Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland, 2013); Deluxe (Sala Plaza de España, Madrid, and traveling, 2003); Pay Attention Please (Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Sardinia, 2001); Greater New York (PS1-MoMA, NY, 2000); and Así está la cosa (Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporánea, Mexico DF, 1997).

He has shown at Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe (Valencia), The Living Art Museum (Reykjavik), Rice University Art Gallery (Houston), Galería de la Raza (SF), Real Art Ways (Hartford), Islip Art Museum, El Museo del Barrio, The Americas Society, Exit Art, White Box (all NY), as well as with Galería Botello (San Juan), Galería Salvador Diaz (Madrid), Galería Casas Riegner (Miami), and De Chiara/Stewart Gallery (NY).

His awards include a John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Residency (WI, 2008); an Islip Art Museum Carriage House Residency (NY, 2006); and a Jerome Foundation Award for Residency at Franconia Sculpture Park (MN, 2002); fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2001) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2000), and a commission from the Public Art Fund (NY, 1997). Morales’ work is included in private collections across the United States and Puerto Rico, as well as the Permanent Collections of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte Contemporánea, and
Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (all San Juan); El Museo del Barrio and Chase Manhattan Bank (NY); and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI).

For more information on Liga de Arte, call (787) 725-5453 or see http://ligadeartesj.org/

For original posting, see http://autogiro.cronicaurbana.com/arnaldo-morales-manta-raya-no-14-liga-de-arte-2/

See the artist’s page at http://www.arnaldomorales.com/

Pamil Fine Art congratulates one of the gallery’s artists, Cristina Córdova, for having been selected as one of the Unites States Artists Distinguished Fellows of 2015. Each year, United States Artists (USA) awards $50,000 fellowships to the country’s most accomplished and innovative artists working in the fields of Architecture & Design, Crafts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts and Visual Arts. Córdova, from Puerto Rico, was selected for the “Crafts” category.

Cristina Córdova received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez and continued to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Upon graduation in 2002 she entered a three year artists’ residency program at Penland School of Crafts where she later served in the board of trustees from 2006 to 2010.

Recognitions include an American Crafts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant and several International Association of Art Critics Awards. Cristina has taught at Penland School of Crafts (NC), Haystack Mountain School (ME), Santa Fe Clay (NM), Mudfire (GA), Odyssey Center for Ceramics (NC) and Anderson Ranch (CO), among others.

In 2011 she founded TravelArte (travel-arte.com), an ongoing platform that provides educational experiences within the ceramics medium while immersing students in the creative culture of a particular geographical setting. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), the Fuller Craft Museum, (MA), the Mint Museum of Craft and Design (NC), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (PR), the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico (PR), and the Joseph-Schein Museum in NY. She currently lives and works in Penland, NC.

[Work above: Cristina Córdova’s “Aquí siempre hay más sol.”]

For more information, see http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/fellows/2015/cristina-cordova and http://www.pamil.com/

Prolific Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell will revisit his unforgettable 1980 exhibition-installation, “White Christmas,” which opens on Thursday, December 3, 2015, at 7:00pm, at the Art League of San Juan, Puerto Rico. 80grados writes that the exhibition offers “an innovative gaze, focused on the reality of the island today.” The exhibition—which includes photography, video, digital prints, and more—includes new versions of snowy postcards in emblematic tourist spots in Puerto Rico and a typical piragua [snow cone] cart covered with snow. At the same opening, Lluvia con nieve [Rain with Snow] a video installation by artist Sofia Gallisá Muriente, will be presented. The video installation focuses on the same event that Martorell depicted 35 years ago: the day when snow was brought to Puerto Rico by plane (by the San Juan mayor Felisa Rincón) in the early fifties.

Here are excerpts of the article (rough translation is mine):

“White Christmas was in 1980, the first performance/happening made in the country based on the ‘arrival of snow to Puerto Rico’ in the early fifties [. . .] by Doña Fela, mayor of San Juan, who brought loads of it by plane, specifically to Sixto Escobar Park, so that Puerto Rican children could experience snow,” says ceramist Ivonne Prats, director of the Art League.

“Of course,” she adds, “This time we predict that White Christmas Revisited will have the same success as the irreverent and controversial exhibition of 1980 had. We call on attendees to the opening to dress in winter-appropriate clothing. To this successful event, we will also add the presentation of the video installation by Sofia Gallisá Muriente.” [. . .]

Meanwhile, Martorell said White Christmas Revisited “is a look back but also forward. It incorporates elements present in its original staging by adding new technological approaches. The show includes photographic touristic postcards with snowy areas added by hand with white pigment simulating snow. It includes a Ponce-style piragua cart [snow cone cart] named “La Piragua Nacional,” which I carried through a carnival of Ponce in the early nineties, now snow-covered for the occasion. “In addition,” the artist added, “there will be a photo mural of a typical San Juan street with steps painted with snow for the occasion and, as in the previous opening, we invite the public to come to the event wearing winter outfits.”

Martorell also said that in addition to the fact that this exhibition is part of the celebration of his 50-year trajectory in the arts, the “White Christmas 1980 portfolio—which consists of the musical score by Irving Berlin with snow postcards and photocopied portraits Bing Crosby, Felisa Rincon, and Carlos Romero Barcelo—will be exhibited just as it was shown in the first exhibition. The installation counts on the collaboration of the Taller de la Playa de Ponce, Milton Ramírez, Roberto Alicea, Javier Santos, José Vega and Pablo Padrón; it was curated and designed by Humberto Figueroa; and, like last time, we will have the soundtrack of White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby.”

For original article (in Spanish), see http://www.80grados.net/martorell-revisita-su-white-chritsmas-en-la-liga-de-arte/

I just found out that Puerto Rican artist Miguel Luciano was invited by Brooklyn Museum’s education department to speak about history, culture and identity, and the work of Francisco Oller earlier today (December 2, 2015). This was part of a bilingual public program for young people entitled “El Brooklyn Museum es para ti” [The Brooklyn Museum is for you]. Luciano’s “Plátano Pride” (2006) was brought in from the permanent collection into the gallery and placed beside Francisco Oller’s “Plátanos amarillos” (1892-93) for the discussion.

Also, on December 12, the museum will host a Curator Talk and Roundtable Discussion with Puerto Rican artists on Francisco Oller at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor.

1:00 pm Curator Talk
Richard Aste, Curator of European Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Edward J. Sullivan, Helen Gould Sheppard Professor of the History of Art, New York University, discuss the exhibition Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World.

2:00 pm Artist Roundtable
Contemporary Puerto Rican artists respond to the work of Oller and talk about how identity and art are affected by place. With Pepón Osorio, Juan Sanchez, María de Mater O’Neill, and Miguel Luciano. Moderated by Susana Torruella Leval (Director Emerita, El Museo del Barrio).

For more information, see https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/calendar/event/roundtable_discussion_francisco_oller_december_2015

[Above: “Plátanos Amarillos” 1892-93, Francisco Oller; “Plátano Pride”, 2006, Miguel Luciano. Brooklyn Museum Collection.]

“Hablando” is a series of conversations with artists hosted by the Visual Arts Program of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. In the next installment, foremost Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell will be speaking about “Imagining the word and wording the image” [my rough translation of the delightfully ingenious title: “Imaginar la palabra y apalabrar la imagen”]. The conversation will take place on Wednesday, December 16, 2015, at 7:00pm, at the Institute’s book store at the National Gallery (Calle La Puntilla 3, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico).

Antonio Martorell has produced numerous prints, paintings, drawings, installations, set and costume designs, illustrations, books, and articles. He has also taught courses and led workshops at the university level and in a wide variety of venues. He is one of the most prolific artists in the contemporary Puerto Rican art scene and an heir to the visual arts tradition initiated by teachers of the 50s Generation [la Generación de los 50]. After completing studies in diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, he pursued the visual arts. In 1961, with a scholarship from the Ferré Foundation, he studied painting and drawing with Julio Martín Caro in Madrid. On his return to the island, he began a graphic apprenticeship under Lorenzo Homar’s direction at the Graphic Workshop of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. In 1968 he established Taller Alacrán, one of the first independent printing workshops in Puerto Rico.

Martorell has taught printmaking in Puerto Rico, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, and in his passion for human and artistic expression (which he sees as one) he has created, organized, and sponsored countless artistic, community, and multi-media events. Martorell’s prints and paintings communicate his freedom and exceptional creative talent. He is recognized for figurative compositions that show his commitment to portraiture, the written word, theater, playfulness in all aspects of his creative life, and his incorporation of the sensory and the sensual into all his projects.

Biography above, adapted from http://www.mapr.org/en/museum/proa/artist/martorell-antonio

Also see http://www.petrusgallery.com/antonio-martorell/