Curatorial Statement
Esto A Veces Tiene Nombre (This sometimes has a name) Exhibiting artist collectives always involves risking the unknown; hence the title of this show alludes to the uncertainty of collaborative enterprises. As a curator, your expectations are guided by the general sensibility that the group expresses through their mission statements and past performances, but the final product is the group‟s own choosing. The element of surprise is one of the reasons I enjoy working with collectives. This occasion was no different. My role as a curator primarily consisted in selecting the collectives and assigning wall space; the rest was left to a process of artistic improvisation that worked out beautifully. Sala Diaz represented here by its founder, Alejandro Díaz, represents a vital strain evident in works by M.F.A. trained Mexican-American artists who came of age in the 1990s, yet still identity with the popular “low brow” sensibility known as rasquachismo that artists in the Chicano Movement of the 1960s brought to (inter) national attention. As Tomas Ybarra Frausto writes, rasquachismo “finds delight and refinement in what many consider banal and projects an alternative aesthetic—a sort of good taste of bad taste.” In the present installation Díaz‟s gesture of placing a miniature sombrero on a copy of a Venus de Milo intertwines high and low-brow signifiers is rasquache. However, whereas Chicano Movement artists blasted gallery walls with garish colors and wild patterns, Alejandro Díaz‟s neorasquachismo is tempered by minimalist refinements. The whole installation, comprised of artists that exhibited at Sala Díaz, is composed of black, white and brown works. This spare high modernist palette unifies a divergent group of objects that could be mistaken for trash if Díaz had not salvaged them. And, this was Díaz‟s reason for founding Sala Díaz; too many artists in San Antonio (largely of Mexican descent) were being ignored and destined to fall into the dustbin of art history. Díaz‟s distinctive, stylized manner of re-presenting the works of a wide range of artists in his living room provided an important forum after the Chicano Art Movement was considered “old hat” in the southwest. O.P. Art has lived up to its mission of gaining attention for artists of Puerto Rican descent in New York by organizing shows in spaces that range from tiny restaurants in Loisaida to museums in Puerto Rico. My past
collaborations with O.P Art have involved installing works of over 50 artists. However, success has its drawbacks. Typically, the founders of artist collectives are so busy keeping the organization going, that they seldom get to exhibit much of their own work. On this occasion, I wanted to showcase O.P Art‟s founders, Luis Carle and Reyes Melendez. Organized in a grid, Luis Carle‟s cloud series takes its cue from postminimalist aesthetics, as does his soft sculpture of bright orange Cheetos heaped in a corner. The large-scale format and highly saturated colors in Reyes‟ photographs transform documentary shots into stunning formal compositions of historical significance. On display here is Reyes‟ (in)famous behind the scene shot of Wigstock founder, Lady Bunny. The visual conversation established between Carle and Reyes in this installation alludes to motifs found in the work artist/activist Felix Gonzalez Torres. A co-founder the artist collective Group Material and a groundbreaking installation artist, Torres‟ courageous manner of confronting life and death during the AIDS epidemic continues to serve as an inspiration to many artists. Miguel Trelles is another key member of O.P. Art. A strong advocate of maintaining a place for painters and printmakers in the collective, Trelles is represented by a large-scale print of a Puerto Rican dump truck carting off huge plantain peels, and a mixed-media work comprised of used tubes of paint affixed to a bright red canvass. To describe Spanic Attack as a multi-art, interdisciplinary collective is an understatement. Founded in the Bronx in 2003 by keyboardist/social anthropologist, Libertad O. Guerra, Spanic Attack‟s core membership includes: composer/political scientist, Monxo Lopez; anthropologist/filmmaker, Ulla Dalum Berg; performance poet Urayoán Noel; singer/songwriter/environmental psychologist Rebio Díaz, performance poet, Edwin Torres, and installation artist Ivelisse Jiménez. Spanic Attack performances/installations mix Punk aesthetics with tropical tropes, liberally employ neologisms yet stringently respect the rules of written Spanish, encourage political activism and spurn political correctness, express the belief that art is eternal but its forms are transient. This mixed media installation, IN-OUT-ENTIC, IN-OUT-ETNIC, IN-OUTTECNIC, explores the immigrant experience of feeling in and out of place in the United States. Threaded together by Ivelisse Jimenénz‟s colorful assemblages, the installation features a series of raw-edge drawings by Renzo Ortega, digital photographs by Stephania Grambaroff and Chris
Kralik, a wall piece by Alejandro E. Torres and audio by Edwin Torres. Significantly, the installation includes stills from Julien Jourdes‟ documentary film about Puerto Rican veterans, men and women who were drafted to defend the United States but were not allowed to vote in U.S. Presidential elections. These limited voting rights continue to dis-empower all persons presently living in Puerto Rico. Addressing the status of Puerto Ricans who are citizens of the United State yet are denied full political participation, as well as alluding to parallels between Puerto Ricans and other groups in the United States and beyond, is a leitmotif in this and other Spanic Attack installations. Bronx natives, Wanda J. Ortiz and D.J. Jose Mr. Bless, founded Mi Sala in 2003—the same year Spanic Attack became active. Members of Spanic Attack and O.P Art participated in happenings at Mi Sala and vice versa. Rather than exhibit her own formidable body of work created at Mi Sala, Wanda J. Ortiz chose to create an archive of some of Mi Sala‟s most memorable events including the Ferria del Besos when poet Sandra Garcia Rivera ran a kissing booth and serenaded the audience with boleros and poems on Valentines Day 2004. Now defunct, the donation-based events at Mi Sala did not generate enough income to keep up with rising rents. Ironically, the New York Times article that “discovered” Mi Sala, foretold its demise. The amount of love, kisses, creativity and networking that initially sustained Mi Sala couldn‟t withstand the overpowering wave of gentrification and media hype once word spread about this artsy haven in the South Bronx: “ „Mi Sala‟ has, at times, inspired its guests to consider major life changes. Han Van Hees, a physical therapist from Bellmore, N.Y., attended a ''Mi Sala'' party a while back and came away ''very impressed by the whole aura.'' Recently he was back in the neighborhood, this time by day to scout out potential real-estate investments. The plan: move his wife and pets from the relative peace -- and, for him, boredom -- of Long Island into a South Bronx building he can renovate. (His college-age daughter has already taken dibs on the top floor of whatever he buys.)” Seth Kugel, “In the South Bronx, Art Beckons” (NYT January 30, 2004) Latin@ art collectives in a post-movement millennium Historically, Latin@ Art Collectives such as Taller Boricua in El Barrio, New York and Self-Help Graphics in East L.A., arose in partnership with
mass movements in the 1960s and 1970s to enfranchise women, people of color, lesbian, gays and artists in the United States. That period of broadbased collective action was short lived. Today we live in an era when massmobilizations are suppressed. Nevertheless, the archival element in all the installations on view demonstrate that contemporary Latin@ Art collectives maintain certain continuities with their antecedents. Though they operate multiple websites to reach global audiences, these collectives remain connected to the working class communities in which they are housed. They celebrate and innovate Latin@ customs, language and vernacular aesthetics. Likewise, Latin@ artists suffer many of the same socio-economic oppressions as their neighbors, despite holding jobs and advanced degrees in any number of disciplines. These artists may appear to nest in smaller, seemingly insular social networks, but their collective actions offer expansive views of Latin@ life and art in America. We thank the Director of the Latino Studies Program, Dr. Maria Saldana, for inviting O.P Art, Mi Sala, Spanic Attack and Sala Díaz to exhibit and the graciousness that the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis of New York University has shown us. We hope that this exhibition will foster further exchanges between artists and academic communities. Yasmin Ramirez, Ph.D. Arts Fellow Centro de Estudios Puetorriqueños
and small networks of artist/activists operate below ground and over the Internet