Art 21: Everyday Icons Teaser
https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s11/everyday-icons-teaser/
Season 11 of “Art in the Twenty-First Century” Trailer
March 1, 2023
Season 11 of Art21’s long-running documentary series Art in the Twenty-First Century highlights some of the country’s most innovative artists as they go big and bold, responding to the challenge of our current moment with new paintings, sculptures, films, and performances that inspire and heal.
The first episode of the season, “Everyday Icons,” premiers on PBS on Friday, April 7, 2023 (check local listings), featuring Amy Sherald, Rose B. Simpson, Alex Da Corte, and Daniel Lind-Ramos as they build new and exciting visual worlds and question the monuments and icons that came before.
Over the course of three one-hour episodes, Season 11 offers stories of artists taking action, revealing little-known truths, creating new icons to honor, and finding new communities to serve. Working across the country from Philadelphia and Atlanta to New Mexico and Los Angeles, all the way to Puerto Rico, some of the most celebrated artists of our time share their creative processes and innermost thoughts alongside newer artists still finding their shape and power. Season Eleven features Amy Sherald and her beloved Michelle Obama portrait; acclaimed independent filmmaker, writer, and actress Miranda July staging an impromptu performance at a Los Angeles gas station; legendary art collective Guerrilla Girls guiding a mobile monument through New York City’s most august art institutions; and Hank Willis Thomas and the opening of his historical photography inspired Martin Luther King memorial on Boston Common. Produced in the series’ signature first-person storytelling style, the three episodes and twelve artists of Season 11 delight our senses with visually potent works and direct our minds towards some of the most pressing issues of our time: representation and visibility, indigeneity and heritage, technology and humanity, empathy and community.
The following two episodes of Season 11 will feature Cannupa Hanska Luger, Linda Goode Bryant, Miranda July, Christine Sun Kim, Anicka Yi, Guerrilla Girls, Tauba Auerbach, and Hank Willis Thomas.
Full episodes and segments can be streamed from Art21.org, PBS.org, and through PBS streaming platforms following each episode’s broadcast premiere.
Art World
Hank Willis Thomas, Amy Sherald, and More Star in the New Season of Art21’s Flagship Video Series, Dropping in April
‘Art in the Twenty-First Century’ returns to PBS. Watch the full trailer here.
Caroline Goldstein, February 22, 2023
Want to know what it’s like inside the studio of Hank Willis Thomas’s studio? What about Amy Sherald, or Christine Sun Kim?
This April, viewers can get a glimpse inside the creative processes and studios of some of the world’s most prominent artists when the 11th season of Art21’s flagship series, Art in the Twenty-First Century, premieres on PBS. One-hour episodes will be released over the course of 2023 organized by the themes “Everyday Icons,” “Bodies of Knowledge,” and “Friends & Strangers.”
The full roster of creatives participating in the new season include an impressive list of news-making artists: Tauba Auerbach, Linda Goode Bryant, Alex Da Corte, Guerrilla Girls, Miranda July, Christine Sun Kim, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Amy Sherald, Rose B. Simpson, Hank Willis Thomas, and Anicka Yi.
The first episode, debuting on Friday, April 7 at 10 p.m. EST, is called “Everyday Icons” and features Amy Sherald, who was commissioned to capture the likeness of both former First Lady Michelle Obama and the late Breonna Taylor; Alex Da Corte, who brought a sculpture of Big Bird perched atop an Alexander Calder-esque mobile to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s rooftop garden; sculptor and 2021 MacArthur “Genius” Grant awardee Daniel Lind Ramos; and sculptor Rose B. Simpson, whose first solo exhibition with Jack Shainman Gallery is slated to open on February 23.
“When we began thinking about how to frame this latest season of Art in the Twenty-First Century, we considered our current historical moment and decided to turn the lens inward and focus on the United States,” executive director and chief curator of Art21 Tina Kukielski said in a statement. “We see artists as leaders of change, and in this first episode, we wanted to highlight artists who challenge and question American monuments and iconography.”
Watch the full trailer for Season 11 of ‘Art in the Twenty-First Century’ below. Ahead of the premiere, past seasons will be available free and in-full for the first time on the Art21 YouTube channel throughout 2023.
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In Puerto Rico, Artists Transform Loss Into Creation
Rather than centering on death, Novenario broadens the meaning of mourning as it explores how artists transform pain and loss.
Carmen Graciela Díaz March 27, 2022
“Juan / Miguel / Milagros / Olga / Manuel / All died yesterday today / and will die again tomorrow / passing their bill collectors / on to the next of kin […] / All died / hating the grocery stores / that sold them make-believe steak / and bullet-proof rice and beans / All died waiting dreaming and hating” — from “Puerto Rican Obituary” by Pedro Pietri
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Upon entering Novenario, surrounded by art that evokes mourning, and artistic transformations of that universal experience, viewers might begin to grieve through a different light, and even find a spiritual refuge to meditate and celebrate despite their losses.
The exhibition, at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC) through April 12, provoked this feeling in me, a Puerto Rican living abroad who has experienced most of Puerto Rico’s recent duelos (mourning) from afar. Rather than centering on death, Novenario (Novena, in English) broadens the meaning of mourning as it explores how artists transform pain and loss, whether personal or collective, “into a state of creative potential in which pain, anger, and beauty insist on coexisting,” as curator Lydia Platón-Lázaro expresses in her curatorial essay.
The notion of mourning in Puerto Rico has taken on another dimension after María, a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall on the island and ripped through this already ailing country on September 20, 2017. Even though Novenario isn’t centered exclusively on María, the exhibition is timely — 2022 marks the five-year anniversary of the catastrophic hurricane that taught Puerto Ricans new, unexpected ways of facing the specter of death and mourning.
María’s path of destruction left thousands dead — during its powerful hit and in its aftermath. The hurricane also devastated the island’s infrastructure and created a humanitarian crisis that exposed local and federal authorities’ neglect of Puerto Ricans. Inevitably, Hurricane María is essential to Novenario.
Bringing together 35 works from 28 artists of different generations and diverse practices, Novenario considers themes that span from personal losses to tragedies that have impacted Puerto Rico collectively, such as the devastation of hurricanes Irma and María, earthquakes, and different forms of violences — from criminal to political to gender-based.
“The artwork selected commemorates imaginary novenas, nine night ceremonies to name the work of mourning. It marks the nine months of gestation of new lives, the nine days and nights in which different spiritual communities gather in Puerto Rico to say rosaries, play drums, or to wait for the passing of the spirit,” writes Platón-Lázaro in her curatorial essay, which considers the symbolic nature of this exhibition, conveying mourning and its rituals.
The works in Novenario underscore what Platón-Lázaro describes as “the labor of mourning” by provoking dialogues on mourning with viewers. By the “labor of mourning,” the curator refers to one of the core aspects of her investigation: what she describes as the transformation of mourning through the materiality of art, manifested here in various mediums. “A way of recovering is through action: doing,” she told me.
Walking through the exhibition alongside Platón-Lázaro, the memories conveyed in the artworks felt almost as if they were my own. I reminisced about my loved ones who had passed, like my grandparents, through Daniel Lind-Ramos’s painting “La abuela de la madre de la hija” (1999-2000), which represents maternal lineage and ancestral wisdom.
Novenario opens with Antonio Martorell’s book Los muertos cuentan, Serie: Libros (2018), in which each page displays a number in calligraphy accounting for a life lost during María. This piece was part of Martorell’s 2018 exhibition ¿Queslaque? Es que la… at the Taller de Fotoperiodismo in Puerto Pico. The show paid tribute to the victims of the hurricane while its title alludes to the Spanish word for obituary, “esquela.”
In this work, which resembles a funeral registry, the artist conjures up the collective frustration after the local government numbered hurricane-related deaths at 64 despite public knowledge that the death toll was much higher. A Harvard University study later estimated that 4,645 people had died due to the hurricane and its aftermath. Martorell’s piece urges that the dead are never forgetten, and their memories are respected.
Every artwork on display in the show reflects a personal connection. In Jotham Malavé’s painting “Viento Cegador” (2019), a blue tarp floating over a rural landscape refers to the roofs thousands of people lost after María, depicting a landscape intertwined with painful memories for many Puerto Ricans.
In the first gallery, Frances Gallardo and Elsa María Meléndez enact the “labor of mourning” through textiles and fabrics. Gallardo’s pieces trace in embroidery and openwork paper the familiar yet terrifying image of a hurricane, while Meléndez reflects on the hurricane and accumulation through works composed of textiles and embroideries from a fabric store destroyed by María.
Using an antique rug as his canvas, Martorell’s “Consuelo (Las manos de Andrea)” (2019) honors the artist’s sister, Consuelo, remembering her as an expectant mother. Adding another layer of mourning and remembrance, Consuelo’s hands were modeled by Andrea Ruiz-Costas, who would become a victim of gender violence and a failed system. The 35-year-old was murdered in 2021 by her former partner after she appeared in court more than once seeking protection.
The death of Ruiz-Costas, who was was mourned by Puerto Ricans, is a symbol of the island’s state of emergency over gender violence. Seeing her hands as Consuelo’s is emblematic of art’s power of freezing in time a memory of someone or something.
The loss of family members and tributes to loved ones recur across Novenario’s seven galleries. Nayda Collazo-Llorens’s poignant “Evidencia” (1999) is composed of found items collected in small plastic bags, each bag serving as a record of a moment in time. A number of works are dedicated to the loss of fathers, including the stirring photographic documentations in Marisol Plard’s “Me fui. Cuídate.” (2021), Gabi Pérez-Silver’s “Our Mind; A Weapon” (2018), and Gabriella Báez’s “Ojalá nos encontremos en el mar” (2018).
For her deeply contemplative work “Un minuto de silencio” (2005), Carola Cintrón-Moscoso requested a moment of silence from strangers in a park. Dhara Rivera’s “Minuflí ahora” (2021), an eerie gallery-wide installation, commissioned by the MAC en el Barrio program, was inspired by her grandmother’s stories of the 1899 hurricane San Ciriaco. In this piece, a rocking chair that swings to and fro ominously, like a pendulum, and a length of fabric with crochet patterns are juxtaposed with a video projecting the calming image and sound of water. As she invokes her grandmother and her family’s sewing history, Rivera transports viewers to a physical and emotional space in which, as the curator reflects, solace finally comes.
Some of the artists explore violent chapters in Puerto Rican history. For instance, Rafael Trelles’s mesmerizing 2011 painting “Camisa Negra” memorializes the 1937 Ponce Massacre, and the equally striking woodblock print “La muerte lo sorprendió en el campo” (1979) by Rafael Rivera-Rosa and drawing “Tríptico de Maravilla” (1986) by Nelson Sambolín address the 1978 murder of independentistas Carlos Enrique Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado Torres at Cerro Maravilla.
Along with mourning, transformation is a key concept in the exhibition. Yolanda Velázquez’s installation Terrario (2021), outside the galleries, offers an opportunity to meditate on change and continuity. In this terrarium, plants grow in cans on a wooden bench; above them, hanging blue tarps echo the natural disasters the island has faced and the resilience of its inhabitants.
Other artworks invoke mourning in relation to colonialism, AIDS, and migration. The exhibition also touches on anger; circling back to Hurricane María, Rosaura Rodríguez-Muñoz’s watercolors, such as “La gente está muriendo y nos tiran papel toalla” (2018), articulate the anger many Puerto Ricans felt toward the local and federal governments for their failed response to the hurricane. In this piece, the artist alludes to the island’s blackout following María’s destruction through images of fallen electricity poles and the public outcry that ensued when Donald Trump threw paper towels at a crowd while surveying the storm’s aftermath.
Since the exhibition opened, the MAC has hosted several events inspired by Novenario including Réquiem, a remembrance led by voice performer Ivette Román and Todos mis muertos, a performance by dancer Merián Soto, dedicated to the memory of her brother, featuring an altar made in collaboration with artist Awilda Sterling. These events are part of the museum’s socially engaged role in its community but also of Novenario’s role in familiarizing and educating people about the histories the artworks address.
The solemn complexity of Novenario evokes Puerto Rico’s novenas, processes, and rituals to cope with personal and collective losses. As curator and professor Nelson Rivera said to me, the exhibition “recognizes our dead who otherwise would remain ignored, as the government would prefer, and it offers a space to cope with pain and transform loss to a place of gathering, healing, and collective creativity.”
Novenario continues at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (Ave. Juan Ponce de León, esquina Ave. Roberto H. Todd, Parada 18, San Juan, Puerto Rico) through April 24. The exhibition was curated by Lydia Platón-Lázaro, supported by the MAC and a Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellowship.
https://hyperallergic.com/719842/in-puerto-rico-artists-transform-loss-into-creation/: News
Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña inaugura espacio con la “Muestra Legado”
Este proyecto especial mostrará en la sede del ICP obras de un centenar artistas puertorriqueños, incluyendo el trabajo histórico de maestros del siglo XVI, junto con talentos de la plástica contemporánea
miércoles, 24 de agosto de 2022, 11:40 pm
A partir de mañana viernes, 26 de agosto, el público tendrá la oportunidad de ver, en un mismo espacio, las obras más emblemáticas de la colección nacional delInstituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), además de 50 nuevas adquisiciones. La exhibición titulada “Muestra Legado” abrirá sus puertas en un nuevo espacio creado en el Asilo de Beneficencia, sede principal del ICP en el barrio Ballajá en el Viejo San Juan, lo que marca una nueva etapa en la historia de esta dependencia del Gobierno.
“Iniciamos un proyecto hace ya más de tres años, donde algunas oficinas administrativas se empezaron a convertir en una sala de exposición o una galería”. ExplicóCarlos Ruiz Cortés, director ejecutivo del ICP. “Esto es una nueva alternativa para la colección de arte más grande de Puerto Rico, entendiendo que no es sustituto de la Galería Nacional, por la cual ya estamos trabajando para mejorarla y en un futuro reabrirla”.
En estos arreglos al edificio para albergar el nuevo espacio, así como el trabajo de más de 100 personas que se han visto involucradas en este proyecto por los pasados tres años, incluyendo a curadoras, artistas, empleados, contrato del diseñador industrial, diseñadores, programa editorial también y las nuevas obras que se adquirieron, el ICP ha invertido cerca de $500,000.
“Estos fondos salieron de ahorros que pudimos hacer en los pasados años, así que fue un proyecto muy bien pensado. A fin de cuentas, este es un legado para el pueblo de Puerto Rico y es un nuevo espacio también para los artistas, para que puedan mostrar sus trabajos”, mencionó Ruiz Cortés.
Nueva colección
Además de las obras más importantes de la colección nacional del ICP, que incluye obras de José Campeche y Jordán, Francisco Oller, Manuel Jordán y Rafael Tufiño, entre muchos otros, la “Muestra Legado”, incluirá 50 nuevas obras de 34 artistas puertorriqueños, que se adquirieron en los pasados tres años y que formarán parte ahora de dicha colección.
Dentro de la muestra de unas 107 piezas, el público verá pinturas, esculturas, talla de santos, video arte, obras sobre papel o piezas que se generan de acciones performáticas. Esta exhibición abrirá de miércoles a domingo, en horario de 10:00 a.m. a 5:00 p.m. y tendrá un costo de entrada de $5 para los adultos, y de $3 para los estudiantes y seniors.
“Es imprescindible que nosotros, como puertorriqueños, vengamos a conocer la pieza de Daniel Lind-Ramos, un artista loiceño, multidisciplinario, que ha elevado la estética de estos ensamblajes que él trabaja con materiales encontrados en su entorno en el pueblo de Loíza y lleva la bandera de Puerto Rico por los museos más importantes del mundo”, explicó María del Mar Caragol, directora del Programa de Artes Plásticas y Colecciones del ICP. “También hay otros maestros de igual importancia como Dhara Rivera, una escultora veterana muy lograda; Haydeé Landing, profesora de la Escuela de Plásticas y Diseño; Julio Suárez, quien dentro del movimiento del minimalismo tiene una obra muy sobresaliente; Charles Juhasz Alvarado que por muchos años también trabajó en la Universidad de la Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño; Awilda Sterling, quien se conoce en la isla como pionera por ser una mujer afro puertorriqueña que está llevando a Puerto Rico a una escala internacional por su trabajo en el performance. También cabe destacar obras de Olga Albizu, Myrna Báez y Amalia Cletos Noa, entre otras”.
Esta muestra va acompañada de una investigación académica que trabajaron las curadoras, historiadoras del arte y artistas plásticos, Elsa María Meléndez y Linda Sánchez. Ambas hicieron una investigación exhaustiva de las 40,000 obras de arte y artefactos que comprenden la Colección Nacional del ICP. “De esta manera, identificaron cuáles eran esos vacíos que llamaban la atención en nuestro registro y se recomendaron una serie de artistas plásticos que accedieron a vendernos su obra. Estas adquisiciones, que consideramos de valor patrimonial, sirven para continuar robusteciendo la Colección Nacional de Arte de Puerto Rico”, añadió Caragol, quien lleva cerca de cinco años trabajando en el ICP.
De la misma forma, según la ejecutiva, estas adquisiciones sirvieron como una inyección económica para los propios artistas, sobre todo porque se llevó a cabo durante la pandemia, en 2020 y 2021, cuando tenían sus talleres cerrados y no tenían forma de generar nuevos modelos de negocio.
Plataformas electrónicas
Además de la exhibición física en la sede del ICP en el barrio Ballajá, este proyecto también se traducirá al plano virtual, ya que las nuevas piezas que se adquirieron van a estar accesibles a través de la plataforma Google Arts and Culture. Además de eso, tendrán un catálogo digital que va a estar disponible de manera gratuita en el sitio web oficial del ICP.
“También vamos a tener el catálogo impreso a la venta en nuestras tiendas culturales y, definitivamente, a través de todos nuestros canales en las redes sociales el público puede buscar información sobre eventos educativos y cualquier otra actividad complementaria a la exhibición”, añadió Caragol. “Este próximo domingo va a estar súper interesante, porque se llevará a cabo el Mercado Ballajá, con la participación de artistas plásticos y artesanos, y ese mismo público que visite Ballajá podrá enriquecer su recorrido, dándose la vueltita por la nueva galería”.
Galería Nacional
La Galería Nacional lleva clausurada desde 2014, ya que el antiguo edificio del Convento de los Dominicos necesitaba ser remodelado para poder brindarle a todas las obras de la colección un lugar apto para garantizar su estado y con las medidas de seguridad necesarias. Por casi una década, no se ha llevado a cabo ningún trabajo en este histórico edificio. Sin embargo, esto puede que concluya muy pronto.
“Aún estamos esperando la obligación de la reclamación a la agencia federal FEMA. En febrero pasado se anunció que el gobernador asignó un dinero para trabajar con los diseños de los interiores. Así que, estamos esperando a ese último número exacto que se va a dar en los dineros de recuperación”, explicó Ruiz Cortés. “Estamos todos los días trabajando para eso, pero no depende de nosotros. Hicimos nuestro trabajo, pero tan pronto tengamos la obligación de los dineros, arrancaremos con el proyecto de restauración del edificio, que es lo más importante. Mi esperanza es que para el 2024, en un periodo de dos años, por lo menos tengamos algún área abierta al público”.
Invitación al pueblo
Debido al cierre de la Galería Nacional, el público no ha tenido la oportunidad de apreciar las obras más importantes dentro de la colección de arte nacional del ICP, lo que hace de la “Muestra Legado” una oportunidad inmejorable para los puertorriqueños de apreciar estas piezas.
“Esta muestra es parte de la memoria histórica del pueblo de Puerto Rico. Hay piezas que no se pueden ver desde hace décadas o simplemente generaciones que no la conocen y que ahora, con estas nuevas adquisiciones, obviamente la mayoría no conocen sobre ellas”, añadió Ruiz Cortés, quien también dejó claro que ya se trabaja con la exhibición que comenzará el próximo año. “Esta ‘Muestra Legado’ intenta decirle tanto a los que estamos vivos, y a las próximas generaciones, lo que somos nosotros como puertorriqueños y puertorriqueñas, así como esos valores culturales, artísticos y creativos que trascienden en el tiempo”.
While the African American past has never been more visible, emphasis often falls on its patriotic dimensions. The belated recognition that Black history is American history has encouraged an impression that it is only American history, as though twelve million Africans crossed the Atlantic solely for the pleasure of exposing contradictions in the Declaration of Independence. This nationalizing tendency occurs along a broad political spectrum, from the conservative fringe of the reparations movement—obsessed with keeping any future payout from the children of Black immigrants—to the liberals who view Black voters as the destined saviors of constitutional democracy. When the 1619 Project suggested a new national birth date, it was not the first year that Africans arrived in the Americas, or even in Florida, South Carolina, and Puerto Rico, but the first year that they arrived in Point Comfort, Virginia, the better to serve as alternative founders in the civic religion of the United States.
What this narrative threatens to eclipse is an international vision of Blackness, emerging from resistance to a violent global system and constituting what the scholar Paul Gilroy described, in “The Black Atlantic” (1993), as a “counterculture of modernity.” Gilroy’s ideas have only gained relevance amid worldwide struggles over migration and climate justice. Nevertheless, today’s Black America feels little kinship with Africa, one writer recently argued, while its growing diversity is often reduced to a cosmopolitan garnish. In a 2021 essay for the London Review of Books, the scholar Hazel V. Carby observed that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (N.M.A.A.H.C.), in Washington, D.C.—designed by the Ghanaian British architect David Adjaye, who took inspiration from Yoruba crowns—exhibited “more items associated with the history of the black community on Martha’s Vineyard than with the whole of Latin America, including the Caribbean.”
Now, less than a mile from N.M.A.A.H.C., a powerful corrective has arrived in the form of “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” a visual survey of the diaspora at the National Gallery of Art. The show, which runs through July, assembles more than a hundred and thirty art works—paintings, prints, sculptures, and more—in an odyssey that extends from seventeenth-century Kongo to present-day Puerto Rico. Contemporary artists like Toyin Ojih Odutola share space with modernists like Aaron Douglas and Elizabeth Catlett, alongside records of the transatlantic slave trade and early modern Euro-American representations of Black subjects. The exhibition boldly dispenses with any distinction between artifacts and works of the imagination: A.A. Lamb’s “Emancipation Proclamation” (1864 or after), which depicts a saintly Abraham Lincoln delivering freedom on horseback, is on equal footing with Dalton Paula’s “Zeferina” (2018), an imagined portrait of a woman executed for leading a slave uprising near Salvador da Bahia in 1826.
“Afro-Atlantic Histories” premièred at the São Paulo Museum of Art, in 2018. Curated by a group including Adriano Pedrosa, it contained over four hundred objects, in a reflection of Brazil’s dense cultural networks across the diaspora. (The last country in the Americas to ban the slave trade, it was also the final destination for a plurality of its victims.) The D.C. version, organized by Molly Donovan, Steven Nelson, and Kanitra Fletcher, is around one-third the size but retains a monumental scope, enhanced by a few inspired acquisitions. The selection has been tailored to a local audience, with an emphasis on resonances between African American artists and their counterparts abroad. The museum has also organized a season’s worth of events, including lectures, film screenings, city tours, symposiums, and concerts. The invitation to see, hear, and even taste the diaspora—a special menu by the museum’s executive chef, Christopher Curtis, adapts Jamaican dishes for the Potomac region—was appropriately consecrated by Vice-President Kamala Harris, who appeared visibly moved during her remarks at the opening. “This is world history, and it is American history,” she said. “And, for many of us, it is also family history.”
The show’s entrance is a stone arch bracketed with projections of the continents—a doorway through the Atlantic. Immediately, a second map doubles the illusion: Hank Willis Thomas’s “A Place to Call Home” (2020), a stainless-steel mirror in the shape of Africa conjoined to North America by an imaginary isthmus. Nearby, in the British Guyanese painter Frank Bowling’s “Night Journey” (1969-1970), Africa and South America emerge from a primordial haze of colors. It’s an arresting welcome that evokes the dislocation of an ocean crossing, challenging visitors to navigate a world forged in the crucible of the Black Atlantic. The impressive stagecraft endows the exhibition with a questing tension, which resolves, in the final gallery, with the emergence of new solidarities, as visitors exit under David Hammons’s green, red, and black “African-American Flag” (19
In between, six sections—“Maps and Margins,” “Enslavements and Emancipations,” “Everyday Lives,” “Rites and Rhythms,” “Portraits,” and “Resistances and Activisms”—freely mix eras, genres, and cultures. At first, I was slightly skeptical of the wide selection, which seemed to risk flattening diverse traditions into an essentialist vision. But the show’s precision overcame my doubts. Anchored by specific historical convergences, from shared deities to analogous struggles with stigma and stereotype, “Afro-Atlantic Histories” also explores the creation of transnational unity by people of African descent. A shot from the Brazilian photographer Paulo Nazareth’s travel series “Cadernos de Africa (African Notebooks)” encapsulates the exhibition’s approach. Holding a sign marked “PRETO,” Portuguese for “black,” Nazareth stands next to a smiling African American man with a sign that reads “NEGRO”—two slurs bent into a bridge across the Americas.
The show moves by juxtaposition. One of the most striking moments pairs two figures in profile wearing metal collars: “Neck Leash (Who Shall Speak on Our Behalf?)” (2014) by the late Brazilian artist Sidney Amaral, and “Restraint” (2009) by Kara Walker. Amaral’s drawing, in pencil and watercolor, shows a man necklaced with microphones, which extend like weapons toward his defiantly shut eyes and pursed lips; Walker’s etching, almost the same size, depicts a woman trapped in a similar device strung with blades and bells. Both works draw a line between the anti-escape devices used to control the enslaved and the subtler constraints on contemporary Black dissent. Seductively encircled by invitations to betray themselves, the figures’ poise suggests an inner sovereignty, a refusal to submit to explanation.
In a nearby vitrine, a chilling British catalogue of punitive collars and masks lends archival gravity to Amaral’s and Walker’s compositions. Documentary artifacts—runaway-slave ads, bills of sale—feature throughout the exhibition, not merely as information but as an iconography that artists have revised. “The Scourged Back” (c. 1863), a famous photograph of a badly scarred fugitive taken at a Union Army camp, is flanked by two modern interpretations. Arthur Jafa’s “Ex-Slave Gordon” (2017) extrudes the original into a three-dimensional plastic sculpture, with thickly swollen wounds. Its disturbing corporeality finds a spectral counterpoint in a photograph by the Brazilian artist Eustáquio Neves, who restages the image with a contemporary model, replacing the long scars with ghostly projections of the word “Zumbi.” Zumbi was a legendary king of Palmares—Brazil’s largest quilombo, or settlement of fugitives from slavery—and his name inscribes resistance in what might otherwise scan as an image of suffering.
Another seminal image is “Description of a slave ship” (1789), an abolitionist diagram of enslaved Africans crowded belowdecks. The woodcut has long defined depictions of the Middle Passage, and it features alongside contemporary evocations of the crossing, by Emanoel Araújo, Rosana Paulino, and others. Particularly unsettling is José Alves de Olinda’s “Slave Ship” (2019), a wooden model acquired for the exhibition in São Paulo. The two-foot sculpture is crewed by statuesque African figures, who could be slavers, mutineers, or even restless spirits. The ambiguity is characteristic of a tradition that could be described as the Black Atlantic Submarine, which reconceives the ocean as a sacred realm somewhere between cradle and grave.
Squarely within this genre is the show’s most spectacular work, Kerry James Marshall’s “Voyager” (1992), which alludes to a slave ship that docked illegally on Georgia’s Jekyll Island in 1858. The seven-foot canvas features only two figures, who stand in a green shallop like Adam and Eve. One, a male nude, is concealed from just above his exposed genitals by a sail, while the other, female, stands at the prow, wreathed in pink clouds. Above, Marshall has pasted anatomical drawings of a developing embryo; below, a lapis-blue sea roils over a grinning gray skull. The conflicting symbols illustrate the paradox of tracing one’s lineage to a watery abyss. For some, like the Afropessimist scholar Christina Sharpe, the terrors of the slave ship’s hold still shape Blackness. For others, like the St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott, the crossing’s rupture marked a beginning.
“But they crossed, they survived,” he writes, in “Omeros.” “There is the epical splendour. / . . . the grace born from subtraction as the hold’s iron door / rolled over their eyes.”
In “Voyager,” the sky is constellated by drawings of vévé, geometric cosmograms that represent the deities in Haïtian Vodoun. Vodoun is one of many hybrid religions that link the diaspora, and “Rites and Rhythms,” one of the exhibition’s most mesmerizing sections, explores their lasting influence. In one gallery, a gilt statue of Benedict of Palermo, Catholicism’s first modern saint of African descent, reads the Bible opposite Rubem Valentim’s “Composition 12” (1962), which uses symbols associated with orishas to evoke a smirking spirit. The face-off suggests a metaphysical confrontation; elsewhere, though, are hints of a spiritual continuity that sectarian labels belie. One through line is the carnival tradition, which recurs, chameleon-like, in everything from a eighteenth-century landscape of Dutch Suriname to a crowded village masquerade painted by the mid-century Haïtian artist Sénèque Obin. The elaborate costumes underscore the role of celebration in self-determination. In a shot from Rio de Janeiro’s carnival, the Brazilian artist Carlos Vergara captures three young men with the word “poder,” or power, painted across their bare chests in white.
“Portraits” occupies the largest gallery, in what feels like a nod to the last decade’s figurative boom, especially in the United States. The earliest painting, from the Dutch Golden Age, depicts “Don Miguel de Castro, Emissary of Kongo” (c. 1643)—an African diplomat swankily attired in a hat with a flamboyant scarlet plume. Most of the rest, though, are contemporary challenges to the erasure of Blackness in the West. Flávio Cerqueira’s “Amnésia” (2015), a bronze sculpture of a boy dousing himself with white latex, allegorizes nineteenth-century efforts to “whiten” Brazil by encouraging European immigration. More playfully, the Cameroonian-born photographer Samuel Fosso kneels in a straw hat and bold purple heels, in his cheeky “Self-Portrait (as Liberated American Woman of the ’70s)” (1997).
The room’s centerpiece is Zanele Muholi’s “Ntozakhe II, (Parktown),” a superb self-portrait of the nonbinary South African photographer in the guise of the Statue of Liberty. Blown up to mural size, with skin artificially darkened to a glistening jet, they tower over the room with a faintly wistful expression, a ring of humble scrubbing pads standing in for the original’s spiked crown. Muholi’s monumental appropriation of a well-known symbol echoes similar moves, in surrounding works, by Barkley L. Hendricks, Mickalene Thomas, and Toyin Ojih Odutola. This now dominant mode of Black representation focusses on outwitting stereotype, subversively borrowing from the canon of Western portraiture, and developing new techniques for expressing Black features. The school has produced many masterpieces. But its reign has begun to feel analogous to that of the neo-slave narrative in African American film and literature—a genre whose further elaboration may have diminishing returns. There is more to Black art than the Black figure.
Of all the works on display, the most moving, to me, evoked collectives—in work and migration, resistance and celebration. Near the end, I lingered by Daniel Lind-Ramos’s “Figura de Poder,” (2016-2020), a towering masquerade figure assembled from maracas, boxing gloves, and other bric-a-brac, which brashly embodies the city of Loíza, in Puerto Rico. Humbler yet no less epic is Faith Ringgold’s magnificent story quilt “Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?” (1983), which elevates the figure of stereotype into the matriarch of a sprawling clan. Their loves and quarrels occupy fifty-six panels, from the opening of a family restaurant in New Orleans to a son’s deployment to Germany during the Korean War. Jemima never gets as far as Lagos or Rio de Janeiro. But, when she and her husband, Big Rufus, die at the end of the narrative, their son gives them an African sendoff, burying Jemima in cowrie-shell braids and Rufus in a gold dashiki. “They looked nice, though, peaceful,” Ringgold writes. “Like they was home.”
On Thursday night, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., held a preview of its long-awaited iteration of “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” an acclaimed exhibition that considers histories and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. There to toast the occasion was one of the Capitol’s most important figures: Kamala Harris.
In a speech delivered just hours after she presided over the confirmation of Kentanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court Justice, Harris called the exhibition “unlike any other in the National Gallery’s history.”
With a purview spanning several centuries and multiple continents, “Afro-Atlantic Histories” features more than 130 works that speak to the horrors of slavery and the persistence of Black communities across the world in the years since the slave trade’s end in the U.S., Europe, and Brazil.
It is an extremely ambitious show, with works from centuries past by Frans Post and John Phillip Simpson alongside works of the past 100 years by Glenn Ligon, Zanele Muholi, Barrington Watson, Frank Bowling, Paulo Nazareth, and more. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation and a trustee at the National Gallery, called the show “historic.”
Harris seemed to agree when she said, “This is world history, and it is American history. And, for many of us, it is also family history. Yet this history is rarely taught in our schools or shown in our museums.”
Her sentiment was matched by many who have been waiting years to see “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” a version of “Histórias Afro-Atlánticas“—a show that was about three times larger that was presented at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo in 2018. While the National Gallery’s show is smaller (and augmented with a few new works, including one standout sculpture by Daniel Lind-Ramos), it retains the original’s epic scope and grand ambition.
Harris praised the show for its potential to educate museum-goers on a subject that she said has gone under-recognized.
“What we are going to see, walking through these halls, is the story of the African diaspora,” she said. “Now, some of us grew up learning about it. I went to college to learn about it—I went to Howard University…. For so many others, it is a new experience—it is an introduction to an extraordinary aspect of the history of our world. When we think about it, it spans centuries and continents and, yes, local history.”
Though “Afro-Atlantic Histories” features depictions of violence, it also proposes that, under the most dehumanizing circumstances, Black people across the world found means of self-possession. Harris echoed the tempered optimism of portions of the show.
“This is an opportunity to experience joy at the artistry, at the creativity, and also an acknowledgement of all we must remember,” she said. “Let us find, when we walk through these halls, that we will be moved, but that we will also experience joy at seeing the expression. It has been about survival, about self-determination, about a commitment to humanity, about a commitment to endurance and strength and excellence.”
A new exhibition, “Daniel Lind-Ramos: Las Tres Marías,” recently opened at the Sarasota Art Museum. The exhibition runs from April 2 to August 7, 2022.
Description: The name María has various meanings. Depending on the language and context, María can mean both of the “sea,” (Latin; mare) and “rebellious” (Hebrew; Miryam). For the people of Puerto Rico, this duality is deeply understood.
On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico. Its winds were vicious, upwards of 115-mph, its thunder, rattling, and its rains, torrential. As a result, the Island experienced 84 days without power, 68 days without water, 41 days without cell service, and 4,600 lives lost. With no access to electricity, people on the Island were completely detached from reality—not knowing when the storm would end, how severe the damage was, and when, or if, to expect help.
The artwork of Daniel Lind-Ramos (b. 1953, Puerto Rico) recalls these experiences through collected objects from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, as well as items given to him by members of his town, Loíza. Through the combination of organic and industrial materials, Las Tres Marías echo the experiential elements of the hurricane—wind, rain, thunder, and lightning— as well as the detrimental impact of Hurricane Maria that is still visible on the Island and felt in its collective consciousness.
But rather than resting on this fear and loss, Lind-Ramos’ Las Tres Marías recall Puerto Rico’s resiliency—a resiliency that feels ancient and core to the Island’s identity, as a people who have endured colonialism, cultural erasure, and catastrophe for the last 500 years but have proved time again that the power of survival lies in community. While each of Lind-Ramos’ Marías has a unique appearance and meaning, they unite as a constellation of these histories, memories, and lived experiences.
[Shown above: 1) “María Guabancex 2018-2022,” Assemblage. 2) Installation view of Daniel Lind-Ramos: Las Tres Marías. Photos by Ryan Gamma.]
For more photos of the Lind-Ramos exhibition, see: https://www.sarasotaartmuseum.org/daniel-lind-ramos/
Figura de Poder, 2016–2020
mirrors, concrete blocks, cement bag, sledgehammer, construction stones bag, paint bucket, wood panels, palm tree trunk, burlap, leather, ropes, sequin, awning, plastic ropes, fabric, trumpet, pins, duct tape, maracas, sneaker, tambourine,
working gloves, boxing gloves, acrylic
overall: 274.32 x 152.4 x 119.38 cm (108 x 60 x 47 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
New Century Fund
2022.6.1
© Daniel Lind-Ramos
Daniel Lind-Ramos (b. 1953) is one of the foremost contemporary artists born and based in Puerto Rico. Raised by a family of artisans and initially trained as painter, he later began to work in assemblage in a way that resonates with the making-do and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora and with everyday life in his hometown, Loíza. The National Gallery of Art has acquired its first work by Lind-Ramos, Figura de Poder (2016–2020).
Figura de Poder suggests multiple figures that represent power (poder), sound, and force, such as a carnival reveler, a protester, a musician, a construction worker or manual laborer, an animal, or an athlete. The sculpture features three horns that evoke a vejigante reveler, a central figure in the Festival de Santiago Apóstol celebrated in the days surrounding the Feast of Saint James on July 25, while the dominant red color is associated with Chango, the deity of iron and war that is linked to Saint Barbara. Strong musical elements are found throughout the work—a tambourine that doubles as a face, buckets that make up the central “body” of the figure, and a maraca held by one of the gloved hands in the center of the sculpture. They refer to carnival traditions, contemporary political protest, and African-derived music as a site of cultural resistance in the Americas. Other objects—the boxing glove and sneaker seen in the back of the sculpture—are in part autobiographical and suggest the ways in which sports figures like Muhammad Ali became powerful Black social and political forces.
Lind-Ramos creates his assemblages from organic and found materials such as construction tarps, parts of palm tree trunks, and cinder blocks from Loíza, home to a historic Afro–Puerto Rican community and just east of the capital San Juan. His interest in these unconventional objects is also tied to his admiration of arte povera, the contemporary artistic movement that originated in Italy in the 1960s and relied on commonplace materials as a basis for artmaking. Drawing on music, sports, craft, and daily life, Lind-Ramos formed an arresting structure that evokes the indomitable spirit of Afro–Puerto Rican cultural practices and history.
https://www.nga.gov/press/acquisitions/2022/daniel-lind-ramos.html
NYU professors Nicole Fleetwood and Victor J. Torres and alum Daniel Lind-Ramos talk about their experience winning the prestigious MacArthur Foundation grant.
By Carmo Moniz, Contributing Writer|October 26, 2021
https://nyunews.com/news/2021/10/26/fleetwood-torres-lind-ramos-macarthur-fellowships/#
Daniel Lind-Ramos: La educación del arte en Puerto Rico no se debe relegar
sábado, 1 de enero de 2022
El pintor y escultor conversó con Luis Alberto Ferré Rangel sobre la importancia de su educación universitaria en las artes, cómo se debe promover el acceso a programas artísticos y sobre la dirección de su línea creativa gracias al apoyo de la beca MacArthur que recibió en 2021.
In the Eye of the Storm : le changement climatique vu des Caraïbes au centre d’art Z33 à Hasselt
Xavier Ess
Publié le jeudi 23 septembre 2021 à 17h21
Comment les artistes originaires des Caraïbes réagissent-ils au changement climatique ? In the Eye of the Storm à la Maison d’Art Actuel Z33 rassemble le travail de plus de 10 artistes des Caraïbes, venus e.a. de Porto Rico, Haïti, de Guadeloupe, Martinique et de la diaspora antillaise. Les ouragans dévastent la nature, détruisent les habitations, les infrastructures et tuent les hommes. Ce chaos à répétition impacte les communautés condamnées à reconstruire encore et encore.
La saison des tempêtes tropicales et des ouragans s’étend de juillet à novembre. En 2017, les Caraïbes subissent 10 ouragans dont Irma et Maria de catégorie 5. Résultat, 200 milliards de dollars en dégâts et plus de 3300 morts, dont un bilan officiel à Porto Rico pour Maria de 2975 morts. Les artistes traduisent cette violente réalité de façon poétique et métaphorique.
Le parcours d’exposition s’ouvre sur un sol jonché de milliers de fleurs jaunes de catalpa, fabriqués à la main, qu’on dirait soufflée par le vent à l’intérieur du Z33. Ces fleurs représentent les sept stades de la décomposition. Graft, du duo Allora &Calzadilla travaillant à Porto Rico, renvoie à l’épuisement systématique de la faune et la flore des Caraïbes. Beatriz Santiago Munoz a filmé le monde dévasté après le passage de l’ouragan. Elle renforce l’impression de chaos en filmant les scènes à l’envers ou en décalant la caméra.
Rituels
Le syncrétisme religieux, la fusion de croyances et pratiques animistes comme le vaudou et chrétiennes, bien présent dans les Caraïbes, s’exprime dans la video The Whole World is Turning d’Ada M.Paterson (Barbades) qui figure un rituel d’accueil de l’ouragan avec un récit sur la façon dont la crise climatique déstabilise une communauté. Quant au portoricain Daniel Lind-Ramos, il présente deux sculptures imposantes, à la fois autel, personnage et totem, constitués de matériaux quotidiens comme des fèves de cacao, des cuillers, des filets de pêche, des casseroles etc. Maria de los Sustentos (Marie des substances) évoque tant la Vierge Marie que l’ouragan Maria qui fit près de 3000 morts. La plupart moururent par manque de soins, d’eau potable et d’électricité. Une évocation des connaissances ancestrales sur l’utilisation des matériaux de base pour sa survie.
Tempête intérieure et vent de révolte
L’énergie meurtrière de la nature provoque des tempêtes dans les esprits qui poussent à refuser la fatalité d’une part et réclamer justice et développement d’autre part. Manuel Mathieu, de la diaspora haïtienne, occupe une salle entière avec de grands tableaux et une installation faite de lambeaux de tissus brûlés, Transient, qui évoque la fugacité des choses. Les impressionnants tableaux grands formats dégagent la sensation d’un bouillonnement d’énergie dans un tourbillon de formes colorées. L’artiste puise son inspiration dans son pays d’origine, Haïti, dévasté par les catastrophes naturelles, cyclone et tremblement de terre, et une instabilité politique qui génère désolation et violence au quotidien.
Loin de la résignation, les haïtiens se cherchent un avenir sans corruption, sans gangs, sans pauvreté où le feu du combat sera celui de la renaissance. The Wake, le réveil, est un tryptique video du collectif The Living and the Dead Ensemble établi en Haïti, et co-produit entre autres par le Z33 et le Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Un cri polyphonique en prise directe avec l’actualité. La video intègre des images des manifestations contre la corruption et la misère de février 2019. Certaines ont réunis un million de personnes.
In The Eye of The Storm a un double intérêt: celui de nous faire découvrir des artistes caribéens contemporains peu montrés en Europe et celui d’amener à la conscience du spectateur, par la poésie et la métaphore, une réalité meurtrière au-delà des jolis prénoms donnés aux cyclones et ouragans.
Rendre à la nature ce qu’elle nous donne
Le Z33, Maison d’Art Actuel mais aussi de Design et d’Architecture, prolonge l’exposition par un volet centré sur l’usage des ressources naturelles dans un processus circulaire. Grounds for Return présente le travail artistique et de recherche sur les biomatériaux de la ghanéo-philippine, spécialiste en architecture, Mae-ling Lokko. Elle développe entre autres des panneaux muraux de mycelium, l’ensemble des filaments dans le sol qui assurent la croissance du champignon. Mycelium alimenté par des déchets naturels. Depuis 2011, elle étudie le recyclage des déchets de coques de noix de coco au Ghana pour des applications de matériaux de construction. Une vision d’avenir qui vient clore un parcours d’une grande pertinence.
En pratique :
In The Eye of The Storm – Grounds For Return
Du 26.09 au 09.01.2022
Z33, Maison d’Art Actuel, de Design et d’Architecture
Bonnefantenstraat, 1 – 3500 Hasselt
Somos Loíza: Daniel Lind-Ramos y su canto a Colobó
El artista puertorriqueño encontró su voz en el arte del ensamblaje
martes, 2 de noviembre de 2021 – 9:40 p.m.
Por Diana Ojeda
Loíza – Durante su niñez, cuando se despertaba en las mañanas, la primera estampa que Daniel Lind-Ramos veía, era la misma: su abuela cosiendo en un rincón de la sala, su mamá tejiendo en otra esquina, su tío tallando máscaras y, en el balcón, otro tío, trabajando en la ebanistería.
Su hogar, en el sector Colobó, en Loíza, era prácticamente un taller, donde le era permitido pintar en las paredes de cartón. Por eso, dedicarse al arte, fue algo que para el destacado artista nació de forma orgánica.
Para la década del 1960, cuenta Lind-Ramos, en la casa de sus padres no había servicio de energía eléctrica. Las noticias llegaban a través del desaparecido periódico “El Imparcial”. Según recuerda, el diario hizo un certamen de dibujos para niños, en el que participó y ganó el primer premio (que constaba de $2), con el dibujo titulado “Regadores de abono”, inspirado en los trabajadores que veía en el cañaveral desde su escuelita.
“Eso fue como un superestímulo… (Este año) me acabo de ganar una beca, la gran beca en Occidente, y yo dije: ‘Oye, toda mi vida he estado haciendo lo que me da la gana y ganando premios’. Entonces me recordé de ese premio (del periódico)”, cuenta el artista de 68 años, quien el mes pasado fue reconocido con la prestigiosa beca Mac Arthur -junto a un selecto grupo que incluye a científicos, cineastas, historiadores, coreógrafos y escritores- que ofrece un estímulo de $625,000 para darle continuidad a sus proyectos.
Las artes trazaron el camino del reconocido artista, quien tras graduarse de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en 1975 y realizar una maestría en New York University (1979), partió a París en 1989 -tras ser el primer puertorriqueño en ganar la Arana Scholarship- para estudiar en la prestigiosa École des Beaux Arts, bajo la tutela del reconocido pintor y grabador Antonio Seguí.
“Yo quería encontrar un lenguaje, quería encontrar una voz propia, quería encontrar el signo personal, quería encontrar un proceso que hablara de una experiencia, que es la experiencia del yo ubicado en un lugar específico en Colobó en Loíza, Puerto Rico, en las Antillas, y que eso repercutiera en diferentes naciones. ¡Mira que proyectito, ah! Encontré esa voz diciendo: ‘bueno, voy a alejarme de la pintura, que ya es un medio bien conocido, voy con materiales que hablen de esa experiencia’. Por ahí es que entra el ensamblaje”, recuerda el catedrático de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, en Humacao, sobre su proceso de evolución hacia la técnica que consta de la incorporación de objetos cotidianos en la creación de obras de arte.
Mientras el huracán María azotaba la isla, el artista estaba encerrado en su taller haciendo bocetos con los objetos que tenía cerca, que evocaban la emoción provocada por el paso del ciclón. Tras la catástrofe, surge “María María” (2019), considerada una de las diez piezas más relevantes de la década, y que forma parte de la colección permanente del Whitney Museum de Nueva York. El periódico The New York Times publicó el anuncio de la exposición a página completa, uno de los acontecimientos más significativos en su carrera, expresa Lind Ramos, cuyos trabajos han sido ampliamente premiados y expuestos en museos de Estados Unidos y Alemania.
“Lo que uno es en el pasado, es importante en relación a lo que tú eres en este momento y esa es la dirección que yo he tomado en relación a lo que hago. Es un canto a esa memoria, una canción a esa memoria, a través de los vestigios que tienen que ver con la economía… Por mi entrenamiento, yo quiero crear poesía, ¿me entiendes? Y tú sabes que el poeta en general, el visual o el escritor, sugiere un sentimiento fuerte. Así que desarrollé un sentido de pertenencia a Loíza, que parte de una experiencia bellísima con mi familia, con mi comunidad y con Loíza mismo”, abunda el artista, autor de cinco mosaicos escultóricos desplegados en el pueblo como parte de un proyecto de arte público.
A las nuevas generaciones de artistas, el maestro les aconseja explorar sus raíces, para que desarrollen un sello personal.
“Sean auténticos. Es decir, hablar de lo que usted sabe, de lo que usted experimenta y no tenga ningún reparo en hablar desde el lugar de donde viene. Porque si se estudia la historia del arte, es eso. Cada artista en lugares particulares, en tiempos particulares, se expresan en relación a lo que experimentan de la vida. Y es obvio que en mi experiencia, yo trato de plasmarla simbólicamente con mi obra y es como un canto a eso que me tocó, y lo disfruto un montón”, destaca.
Mosaicos escultóricos de Daniel Lind:
1. “La leyenda”: en la plaza pública de Loíza.
2. “El encuentro”: en el sector Las Carreras
3. “Mascaritas”: en la carr. 187
4. “El viejo y la loca”: en la carr. 187
“Vejigantes”: en el barrio Las Cueva
Artists Jordan Casteel and Daniel Lind-Ramos, Art Historian Nicole Fleetwood Win MacArthur Fellowships
BY ALEX GREENBERGER September 28, 2021 3:03pm
Painter Jordan Casteel, sculptor Daniel Lind-Ramos, and art historian Nicole Fleetwood were among the 2021 winners of the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” fellowships, one of the most highly esteemed arts awards in the world. Each will receive $625,000 over the course of five years.
Though not limited to the art world, the MacArthur Foundation’s fellowships are considered a sign of the winners’ far-reaching influence in their respective field. Past fellows have included some of today’s most widely acclaimed artists, from Rick Lowe to Wu Tsang.
Casteel is best known for her intimate portraits of residents in Harlem, the New York neighborhood she has long called home. In placing a focus on Black and Brown sitters, she represents people whose images are not typically seen in art institutions, all while imbuing their pictures with deeply felt psychologies. In an interview with the New York Times last year, Studio Museum in Harlem director Thelma Golden praised Casteel for her ability “to capture a sense of spirit, a sense of self, a sense of soul.”
In 2020, Casteel was the subject of her biggest solo show to date, at the New Museum in New York, and the artist’s portrait of fashion designer Aurora James appeared on the cover of Vogue‘s vaunted September issue. Her work is set to appear in the survey “Black American Portraits” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in November.
Fleetwood organized the acclaimed 2020 MoMA PS1 exhibition “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” which opened earlier this month at the University of Birmingham’s Abroms-Engel Institute for Visual Arts in Alabama. The subject of a related book of the same name published ahead of the exhibition by Harvard University Press, “Marking Time” surveys art made about and in response to mass incarceration in the U.S. It features art by former inmates, among them Tameca Cole, James “Yaya” Hough, and Jesse Krimes, as well as non-incarcerated creators like American Artist and Sable Elyse Smith.
In addition to illuminating forms of racism and exploitation that often go unseen, “Marking Time” also showed how visual art could act as a kind of protest within the carceral system. “It’s revolutionary to turn that experience into one of aesthetic engagement, creativity, something beyond the state’s management,” Fleetwood told ARTnews in 2020. The New York Times called the show one of the best exhibitions of 2020.
Lind-Ramos crafts sculptures from objects found in Loíza, the Puerto Rican town in which he is based. The artist once told Garage that his found materials “cause me to be inspired by an image or memory, they take me there.” Often resembling science-fictional beings, these works draw on Lind-Ramos’s life as a Black Puerto Rican man, as well as the history of Puerto Rico, with an eye toward colonialism and racism.
In 2019, he showed one of the most memorable works at the Whitney Biennial, a sculpture vaguely resembling the Virgin Mary—a pun intended to also recall the damage wrought by Hurricane Maria and the sluggish response to it by U.S. politicians. Last year, he received a $50,000 award from the Pérez Art Museum Miami. His work is currently on view at the Haus der Kunst in Munich.
Also among the winners this MacArthur winners this year were filmmakers Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera; Jacqueline Stewart, a film scholar and the chief artistic officer of the newly unveiled Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles; Ibram X. Kendi, whose book How to Be an Antiracist became a bestseller in 2020; and historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
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NEWS
September 29, 2021 at 12:53pm
JORDAN CASTEEL, NICOLE FLEETWOOD, AND DANIEL LIND RAMOS WIN MACARTHUR FELLOWSHIPS
Painter Jordan Casteel, art historian and curator Nicole Fleetwood, and sculptor and painter Daniel Lind-Ramos are among the twenty-five recipients of the 2021 MacArthur Fellowships. Known colloquially as the MacArthur “genius” grants, the fellowships provide beneficiaries with $625,000 each. The money is disbursed over a five-year span and is to be used as the recipient sees fit.
Casteel, who lives and works in New York, is known for her deeply empathetic and engaging portraits of people of color, whom she depicts in everyday surroundings, her subjects and their settings frequently made strange by her use of vivid and unexpected hues. In awarding her the fellowship, the MacArthur Foundation cited her “Visible Man” series of 2013–14, depicting nude Black men, lauding the works for refusing “all-too-common” media characterization of Black males, noting in a statement, “Her intensely personal and emotionally resonant renderings of male nudes highlight her subjects’ vulnerability and affirm their individuality.”
Fleetwood, a professor in the department of media, culture, and communication at New York University, was praised for her groundbreaking 2020 book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, and for the accompanying exhibition of the same name, both focusing on artistic production within the US carceral system, and inspired in part by Fleetwood’s visits to imprisoned family members.
Lind-Ramos, who was born in Loíza, Puerto Rico, where he lives and works, is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Humacao Campus. The sculptor was laureled for his practice “transforming everyday objects into assemblages that speak to the global connections inherent in Afro-Caribbean and diaspora legacies.” Lind-Ramos typically incorporates organic materials native to Puerto Rico with mass-produced objects to create sculptures that investigate memory, community and belief.
Awarded annually by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the fellowships are intended to “encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations.” Candidates do not apply but are nominated by peers in their fields, with the result that fellowship winners are frequently surprised to learn that they have been chosen.
A full list of MacArthur Fellows is below.
Hanif Abdurraqib, 38, music critic, essayist and poet
Daniel Alarcón, 44, writer and radio producer
Marcella Alsan, 44, physician-economist
Trevor Bedford, 39, computational virologist
Reginald Dwayne Betts, 40, poet and lawyer
Jordan Casteel, 32, painter
Don Mee Choi, 59, poet and translator
Ibrahim Cissé , 38, cellular biophysicist
Nicole Fleetwood, 48, art historian and curator
Cristina Ibarra, 49, documentary filmmaker
Ibram X. Kendi, 39, American historian and cultural critic
Daniel Lind-Ramos, 68, sculptor and painter
Monica Muñoz Martinez, 37, public historian
Desmond Meade, 54, civil rights activist
Joshua Miele, 52, adaptive technology designer
Michelle Monje, 45, neurologist and neuro-oncologis.
Safiya Noble, 51, digital media scholar
Taylor Perron, 44, geomorphologist
Alex Rivera, 48, filmmaker and media artist
Lisa Schulte Moore, 50, landscape ecologist
Jesse Shapiro, 41, applied microeconomist
Jacqueline Stewart, 51, cinema studies scholar and curator
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, 49, historian
Victor J. Torres, 44, microbiologist
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, 70, choreographer and dance entrepreneur
El artista puertorriqueño Daniel Lind-Ramos gana la prestigiosa beca MacArthur
El pintor y escultor natural de Loíza recibirá $625,000 a lo largo de cinco años, al igual que las otras 24 personas seleccionadas, para adelantar sus proyectos o explorar otras vertientes en su trabajo
martes, 28 de septiembre de 2021, 1:18 pm
Por Mariela Fullana Acosta
El artista loiceño Daniel Lind-Ramos todavía no sale de su asombro al saber que acaba de ser reconocido con la prestigiosa beca MacArthur, junto a otras 24 personas de diversas disciplinas.
Lind es uno de dos puertorriqueños en el selecto grupo de este año que incluye a científicos, cineastas, historiadores, coreógrafos y escritores, como el peruano Daniel Alarcón, fundador del podcast en español Radio Ambulante.
La Beca MacArthur es la distinción más importante que ofrece la Fundación MacArthur desde 1981. Esta subvención premia anualmente a personas de cualquier especialidad que “demuestran méritos excepcionales y prometen un continuo y mejorado trabajo creativo”.
Como parte del reconocimiento, Lind-Ramos, recibirá $625,000 a lo largo de cinco años para adelantar sus proyectos o explorar otras vertientes en su trabajo.
“Esto ha sido ver para creer”, dijo el artista en entrevista telefónica sobre este premio que no se solicita ni se promueve, sino que personas anónimas nominan al candidato y el proceso de selección también es secreto.
Lind-Ramos recibió una llamada a principios de mes notificándole sobre el premio. Podía compartir la noticia solo con una persona hasta que se hiciera el anuncio oficial, pero prefirió no decirle nada a nadie “ante la duda”. En el momento que recibió la llamada, el artista se encontraba en el estacionamiento de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Humacao, pensando en su retiro, ya que se jubila de la academia luego de 38 años de servicio.
“Estaba pensando en los ajustes que tengo que hacer porque tengo un proyecto que seguir cuando me llaman. Creo que es un familiar que me ha estado llamando desde Boston, y lo contesté. Cuando me dicen de lo que es, yo soy muy escéptico, y dije ‘suena como lindo para ser verdad’, pero ellos insistían en que me había ganado el premio MacArthur”, narró el artista con evidente felicidad.
Lind-Ramos dijo que todavía le cuesta creer que se ganó un premio que asociaba con “genios”, como el saxofonista Miguel Zenón y el artista plástico Pepón Osorio, otros de los puertorriqueños que se han ganado esta beca.
“Asociaba la beca con estos grandes talentos, pero nunca me imaginé estar ahí”, agregó con su característica humildad.
Pero Daniel Lind-Ramos tiene razones de sobra para ser reconocido con este importante premio. Es actualmente uno de los artistas puertorriqueños contemporáneos de mayor alcance a nivel internacional por sus maravillosos ensamblajes escultóricos que realiza con material que recoge de su propia comunidad en Loíza, donde mantiene su taller de trabajo. Para el artista -egresado de la Universidad de Puerto Rico y quien obtuvo su maestría en la Universidad de Nueva York, para luego continuar estudios en París bajo la tutela de Antonio Seguí- su propuesta artística está ligada directamente a su experiencia familiar y comunitaria.
Este trabajo lo ha hecho a la par con su labor como educador, siendo profesor universitario de dibujo, pintura, teoría del color y apreciación del arte. Anteriormente, también dio clases en las escuelas públicas de Loíza y Río Grande.
Desde que inició el año, Lind-Ramos ha recibido varias buenas noticias, entre ellas que varias de sus piezas formarán parte de la colección permanente de los museos Guggenheim en Nueva York y Pérez Art Museum, en Miami. Además de adquisiciones, Lind Ramos recibió otra beca en febrero de la organización artística sin fines de lucro United States Artists.
Latinx Files: The six Latinx ‘geniuses’
(Photo illustration by Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times; photos by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)
BY FIDEL MARTINEZ AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EDITOR SEPT. 30, 2021 8 AM PT
On Tuesday, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the 25 recipients of the 2021 MacArthur Fellowship. This so-called genius grant is awarded to “individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”
In addition to the prestige, each fellow receives a no-strings-attached grant of $625,000 over five years.
This year, six Latinxs were awarded the fellowship: writer and radio producer Daniel Alarcón; microbiologist Dr. Victor J. Torres; filmmakers Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera; painter and sculptor Daniel Lind-Ramos; and historian Monica Muñoz Martinez.
“I’m stunned,” Rivera told The Times. “Over the moon and grateful. I’m also processing the scale of the challenges we face in our field.”
Rivera noted that the financial support he and Ibarra would get — the two are married (they are the first husband and wife to be named fellows in the same year) and are frequent collaborators — was critical.
It’s also, as Rivera put it, “less than half the budget of a one-hour episode of ‘Narcos.’”
“This fellowship will allow me to continue producing Latino cinema that is visually elevated and socially grounded. But there’s a massive machine already in place that produces representations of our community that are often misguided, sometimes hateful. To compete with that, I’ll have to build on this moment. Inspired by the recent achievements of politically committed, visionary filmmakers like Ava DuVernay, I know another cinema is possible. There’s no time to waste.”
While Rivera looks to the future (fitting given that some of his films, like 2008’s “Sleep Dealer,” which I’ve briefly written about in this space, are science fiction), Ibarra took time to acknowledge their predecessors.
“I can’t help but think about the story of our careers and our cinematic roots in socially driven documentaries and narratives,” she said.
“It wasn’t until I was exposed to the films of pioneer Chicana/o filmmakers like Lourdes Portillo, Nancy de los Santos, Hector Galán and Luis Valdez that I even realized we can make films. Today, as we look forward, I also want to think about the groundbreaking voices that opened up a space for us to keep pushing, updating and inventing our own visual language.”
With the exception of Torres, whose work focuses on better understanding drug-resistant bacteria in order to develop potential lifesaving therapies, the rest of the Latinx MacArthur fellows have something in common: They’re in the business of telling our people’s stories.
Alarcón is co-founder of “Radio Ambulante” and editorial director of “El Hilo,” two Spanish-language podcasts that explore the ties shared among Spanish speakers throughout the Americas.
Lind-Ramos uses found objects to create works of art that reflect his Afro-Puerto Rican roots.
“My practice is like an exercise of memory,” said Lind-Ramos. “Objects linked to my personal, communal and regional Afro-Caribbean experience give me the opportunity to connect to that memory and to experiment with the formal and symbolic possibilities of its materiality.”
And then there’s Muñoz Martinez, whose projects center on telling the forgotten history of violence (much of it state-sanctioned) perpetrated against Mexicans and Mexican Americans along the Texas borderlands. If her work sounds awfully familiar, that’s because I frequently reference it in this newsletter. I did it last week when writing about the Border Patrol’s cruelty toward Haitian refugees near Del Rio, Texas.
“Historians have a responsibility to the profession to contribute new findings and advance knowledge,” said Muñoz Martinez. “But historians also have a responsibility to society more broadly to make sure that people have access to that knowledge. People have a right to learn truthful accounts of history in schools, museums, the news and popular culture, even when those histories are troubling.”
I love finding out that Latinxs have been named MacArthur fellows. It fills me with pride knowing that some of us are not only imagining cosas chingonas but actually doing them.
To learn more about the MacArthur fellows and their work, you can go here.
Ocula Magazine | News | Artists
Jordan Casteel and Daniel Lind-Ramos Named 2021 MacArthur Fellows
Other artists to receive recognition this week include Rashid Johnson and Julie Mehretu, who were inducted into the National Academy of Design.
By Sam Gaskin
Washington D.C.
30 September 2021
Denver-born painter Jordan Casteel and Puerto-Rican sculptor Daniel Lind-Ramos are among 25 ‘geniuses’ in the 2021 class of MacArthur Fellows.
The fellows were selected based on their exceptional creativity, promise of important future advances, and the potential the fellowship has to facilitate new creative work. Each receives a no-strings-attached stipend of US $625,000.
Casteel, who primarily paints portraits of people of colour, is represented by Casey Kaplan Gallery and Massimo De Carlo.
On her website, she wrote that the acknowledgement ‘has left me breathless—genuinely stopped me in my tracks—laid me flat—had me confused—and brought me to tears.’
‘While I try to embrace the reality of this moment and all the moments that have brought me here I can’t help but see all of the people who saw my potential when I couldn’t see it for myself,’ she said.
Daniel Lind-Ramos paints and makes assemblages from everyday materials. He is a Senior Professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao Campus.
Other American artists to receive major acknowledgements this week include Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Joanne Greenbaum, Peter Halley, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Joanna Pousette-Dart, and Gary Simmons, all of whom will be inducted into the National Academy of Design.
The National Academy of Design was founded in 1825 as America’s first artist-led arts organisation. New Academicians are elected by existing members to form a community of up to 450 people representing the breadth of cultural practice across the United States.
Also this week, painter Sam Gilliam received a Distinguished Honour Award as part of Washington D.C.’s 36th Annual Mayor’s Arts Awards.
The award is given to an individual or entity who has made substantial contributions to arts and culture in the District of Columbia for 20 years or more. —[O]
https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/jordan-casteel-daniel-lind-ramos-macarthur/
Springweather and people
USA Artist Fellowships Go to Njideka Akunyili Crosby, rafa esparza, Carolyn Lazard, and More
The Chicago-based arts nonprofit United States Artists (USA) has named the 60 recipients of this year’s fellowships, which each come with a $50,000 cash award. The selected artists were drawn from 22 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and represent all age groups and career stages.
Among the awardees in the visual arts, craft, and traditional arts categories are performance artist rafa esparza; quilt portraitist Bisa Butler; photocollage artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby; video and installation artist Carolyn Lazard, and painter and assemblage sculptor Daniel Lind-Ramos.
The program, now in its 15th year, has become closely watched, since many of its awardees go on to achieve fame in the years after winning a fellowship. Among those who have won USA fellowships at various points in their careers are Mark Bradford, Catherine Opie, and Wangechi Mutu.
Awardees are encouraged to use the cash prize in whatever means best supports their lives, from paying rent to financing new projects. In 2020, as a founding partner of Artist Relief, USA helped to distribute $20 million in direct funding to artists impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.
“We are grateful for every artist whose artmaking, music, writing, and more is helping us to navigate and cope through this harrowing time in our country,” United States Artists president and CEO Deana Haggag said in a statement. “The 2021 USA Fellows are a testament to the power of art in shaping the world around us and navigating its complexities.”
The complete list of 2021 USA Fellows follows below:
Architecture & Design
Jennifer Bonner / MALL
Walter Hood
Olalekan Jeyifous
Craft
Diedrick Brackens
Bisa Butler
Amber Cowan
Salvador Jiménez-Flores
Cannupa Hanska Luger
Tiff Massey
Erin M. Riley
Dance
Ishmael Houston-Jones
JanpiStar
Emily Johnson
Cynthia Oliver
Ni’Ja Whitson
Film
Faren Humes
Macha Colón
Stephen Maing
Darius Clark Monroe
Naima Ramos-Chapman
Jennifer Reeder
Media
Morehshin Allahyari
Stephanie Dinkins
Lauren Lee McCarthy
Mother Cyborg
Music
Martha Gonzalez
Edward “Kidd” Jordan
Tomeka Reid
Wadada Leo Smith
Mazz Swift
Theater & Performance
Jibz Cameron
Carmelita Tropicana
Christopher Chen
Sandra Delgado
Idris Goodwin
Mia Katigbak
Karen Zacarías
Traditional Arts
Ofelia Esparza
Nathan P. Jackson
Basil Kincaid
Kawika Lum-Nelmida
Carolyn L. Mazloomi
Geo Soctomah Neptune
Delina White
Visual Art
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Lex Brown
rafa esparza
Maria Gaspar
Sharon Hayes
Carolyn Lazard
Daniel Lind-Ramos
Aki Sasamoto
Writing
Alexander Chee
Eve L. Ewing
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Dunya Mikhail
Elizabeth McCracken
Natalie Y. Moore
Danez Smith
Ocean Vuong
USA Artist Fellowships Go to Njideka Akunyili Crosby, rafa esparza, Carolyn Lazard, and More
February 03, 2021 at 11:14am
UNITED STATES ARTISTS ANNOUNCES 2021 USA FELLOWS
Chicago–based arts nonprofit United States Artists (USA) has announced sixty recipients of its 2021 fellowships, marking the largest fellowship class in its fifteen-year history. Each of the selected artists, working across ten creative disciplines—Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing—will receive an unrestricted $50,000 cash award.
Among this year’s cohort, drawn from all corners of the country and representing all age groups and career stages, are performance artist Jibz Cameron, aka Dynasty Handbag; photocollage artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby; painter and sculptor Daniel Lind-Ramos; video and installation artist Carolyn Lazard; performance artist rafa esparza, and performance and installation artist Aki Sasamoto.
The program, founded in 2006, aims to honor recipients for their past contributions to the arts, and to support their ongoing artistic and professional development. To that end, the organization stipulates that the cash award may be used for anything from creating new work to paying rent or obtaining health care. Despite the continuing Covid-19 crisis, USA in 2020 was able to distribute $20 million in direct funding to nearly 4,000 artists in need.
“We are grateful for every artist whose artmaking, music, writing, and more is helping us to navigate and cope through this harrowing time in our country,” said United States Artists president and CEO Deana Haggag in a statement. “The 2021 USA Fellows are a testament to the power of art in shaping the world around us and navigating its complexities. Artists do so much for our communities, and we are grateful to be able to support these sixty incredible practitioners and welcome them into the United States Artists fellowship.”
Writer Edwidge Danticat, a 2020 USA Fellow, noted the importance of the fellowship in relation to the pandemic. “Now more than ever,” she said in a statement “artists need this kind of support, not just for continuity, but for safety and survival.”
The complete list of 2021 USA Fellows is below.
Architecture & Design
Jennifer Bonner / MALL
Walter Hood
Olalekan Jeyifous
Craft
Diedrick Brackens
Bisa Butler
Amber Cowan
Salvador Jiménez-Flores
Cannupa Hanska Luger
Tiff Massey
Erin M. Riley
Dance
Ishmael Houston-Jones
JanpiStar
Emily Johnson
Cynthia Oliver
Ni’Ja Whitson
Film
Faren Humes
Macha Colón
Stephen Maing
Darius Clark Monroe
Naima Ramos-Chapman
Jennifer Reeder
Media
Morehshin Allahyari
Stephanie Dinkins
Lauren Lee McCarthy
Mother Cyborg
Music
Martha Gonzalez
Edward “Kidd” Jordan
Tomeka Reid
Wadada Leo Smith
Mazz Swift
Theater & Performance
Jibz Cameron
Carmelita Tropicana
Christopher Chen
Sandra Delgado
Idris Goodwin
Mia Katigbak
Karen Zacarías
Traditional Arts
Ofelia Esparza
Nathan P. Jackson
Basil Kincaid
Kawika Lum-Nelmida
Carolyn L. Mazloomi
Geo Soctomah Neptune
Delina White
Visual Art
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Lex Brown
rafa esparza
Maria Gaspar
Sharon Hayes
Carolyn Lazard
Daniel Lind-Ramos
Aki Sasamoto
Writing
Alexander Chee
Eve L. Ewing
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Dunya Mikhail
Elizabeth McCracken
Natalie Y. Moore
Danez Smith
Ocean Vuong
https://www.artforum.com/news/united-states-artists-announces-2021-usa-fellows-84962
Daniel Lind-Ramos
B. 1953, Loíza, Puerto Rico. Lives and works in Loíza.
To create his work, Daniel Lind-Ramos gathers materials from his community of Loíza, Puerto Rico. His otherworldly sculptures involve binding, sewing, and welding together heirlooms from his family home, found objects gifted by neighbors, and earthly objects such as tree husks and coconuts. Lind-Ramos sees his work as a way to bring a physicality to his personal experiences and memories as a Black Puerto Rican man. The work is also a vehicle through which he addresses Puerto Rico’s history—from its colonialist origins to its recovery from Hurricane Maria and relationship with the United States.
One of Lind-Ramos’s standout sculptures from the 2019 Whitney Biennial, Maria-Maria (2019)—made from coconuts and a blue FEMA tarp, among various other materials—reflects on Hurricane Maria, as well as Mary, mother of Jesus. The piece is a dichotomy of destruction and protection: a symbol of the tragic loss and the U.S.’s unconscionable failure to provide aid in the wake of the disaster, as well as the glimmers of faith and ritual at the heart of religion. After the exhibition, the Whitney Museum acquired Maria-Maria.In 2020, Lind-Ramos had a solo show at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico. In March—just before the COVID-19 lockdown—he opened his first New York solo show, at Marlborough, and was awarded the $50,000 Pérez Prize from the Pérez Art Museum Miami. In the next year, Lind-Ramos is due for inclusion in group shows at the Drawing Center in New York and at Haus der Kunst in Munich.
The Artsy Vanguard 2020
The Artsy Vanguard 2020 is our annual list of the most promising artists shaping the future of contemporary art. This year, artists are organized into two categories: Newly Emerging, which presents artists who’ve gained momentum in the past year, showing at leading institutions and galleries; and Getting Their Due, which identifies artists who have persevered for decades, yet only recently received the spotlight they deserve. Now in its third edition, the feature was developed by the Artsy staff, in collaboration with our network of international curators and art professionals. Explore more of The Artsy Vanguard 2020.
Casey Lesser is Artsy’s Lead Editor, Contemporary Art and Creativity.
Header and thumbnail image, from left to right: Daniel Lind-Ramos, “Centinelas (Sentinels),” 2013. Photo by Erica Lambeth; Portrait of Daniel Lind-Ramos by Raquel Puig; Daniel Lind-Ramos, “Figura de Cangrejos (Figure of Crab),” 2018–19. Photo by Pierre Le Hors; Daniel Lind-Ramos, “Con-junto (The Ensemble),” 2015. Photo by Pierre Le Hors. All images: courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Gallery, New York.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artsy-vanguard-2020-daniel-lind-ramos
February 18, 2020 at 10:00am
PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI AWARDS DANIEL LIND-RAMOS $50,000 PÉREZ PRIZE
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) has selected Puerto Rican artist Daniel Lind-Ramos as the recipient of the second annual Pérez Prize, a $50,000 award which honors recent achievements in artistic innovation.
Lind-Ramos was recognized for producing works which explore Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American identities such as his installation Centinelas (Sentinels), 2013, which was featured at the 2019 Whitney Biennial in New York. The assemblage piece was made with steel bars, palm tree tunks, burlap, and other found materials from his home town of Loíza, a predominantly black town in Puerto Rico, and merges African political, mystical, and spiritual motifs from the region.
“The vital experience that inspires my sculptural assemblages derives from our Afro-Puerto Rican communities and from the African diaspora as a whole,” said Lind-Ramos. “The goal of these works is to honor our ancestral communities with narratives, historical references, and tangible traces of their lifetimes. The idea is to appreciate and express their contribution with specific examples through an inclusive aesthetic that stimulates a range of readings and meanings. The Pérez Prize is a powerful acknowledgement that materially encourages and promotes the continuation of this project.”
Funded by a gift from local patrons of the arts and longtime PAMM supporters Jorge and Darlene Pérez, the Pérez Prize will be presented to the artist on March 7 at PAMM’s Art of the Party, the museum’s largest fundraising event of the year. Lind-Ramos was chosen by a jury comprising Kate Fowle, director of MoMA PS1 in New York, and Jose Roca, artistic director of FLORA ars + natura in Bogota, as well as PAMM curators Jen Inacio, René Morales, and María Elena Ortiz, and Patricia García-Vélez Hanna from El Espacio 23.
PAMM director Franklin Sirmans remarked: “We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to support artists financially thanks to the Pérez Family. The prize is the perfect embodiment of our shared belief in the power of artists as critical voices in all of contemporary life. Lind-Ramos’s engagement with history and present-day life in Puerto Rico sheds valuable light on vexing early twenty-first-century problems centered around geopolitics, economics, race, and society as they play out in a ‘postcolonial’ land.”
Jorge Pérez added, “Being able to support such talented young artists like Daniel, and inspire others like him, is the very reason this prize was created. His efforts to highlight the often overlooked influence of African diaspora artists across Latin American and Caribbean cultures are incredibly important, and we couldn’t be prouder to be able to further empower him through this year’s Pérez prize.”
Last year’s award went to artist Christina Quarles for producing works which grapple with questions of racial and sexual identity, gender, and queerness.
JOAN MITCHELL FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES 2019 GRANT RECIPIENTS
September 25, 2019
“The Joan Mitchell Foundation announced today the twenty-five recipients of this year’s Painters and Sculptors Grants, which provide $625,000 in unrestricted funds to artists annually. In addition to receiving $25,000 in financial support, each grant recipient is eligible to apply for residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. Among the 2019 grantees are Lauren Halsey, Baseera Khan, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Kate Newby, and Young Min Moon”.
Full article: https://www.artforum.com/news/joan-mitchell-foundation-announces-2019-grant-recipients-80839
El artista Daniel Lind Ramos gana prestigiosa beca de arte
Fue uno de los merecedores de la “Painters & Sculptors Grant” que otorga la Joan Mitchell Foundation
“El artista puertorriqueño Daniel Lind Ramos está de celebración luego de conocer que fue merecedor de la beca para pintores y escultores que otorga anualmente la Joan Mitchell Foundation”…
Full article: https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/nota/elartistadaniellindramosganaprestigiosabecadearte-2520241/
Daniel Lind Ramos: de Loíza para el mundo
El artista puertorriqueño ha sido elogiado internacionalmente por su participación en la Bienal de Whitney en Nueva York, donde participa por primera vez
“Para encontrar al artista puertorriqueño Daniel Lind Ramos basta con llegar hasta su querido barrio Colobó, en Loíza. Allí, en una casa de tres niveles que él mismo construyó, se encuentra su taller de trabajo, donde se puede descubrir parte de su universo creativo. Con una amplia sonrisa, Lind Ramos da la bienvenida a su espacio, toda vez que va narrado parte de su vida, que es intrínseca a su obra”…
Full article: https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/nota/daniellindramosdeloizaparaelmundo-2518643/
Whitney Museum acquires 88 works by 2019 biennial artists
By: Nancy Kenney (November 13, 2019)
“The Whitney also cited Janiva Ellis’s brilliantly hued mural-like painting Uh Oh, Look Who Got Wet, in which one woman appears to be crossing a river to freedom; Carissa Rodriguez’s 2018 video The Maid, which follows Sherrie Levine’s glass and crystal copies of Constantin Brancusi’s Newborn in collectors’ homes; and Daniel Lind-Ramos’s Maria-Maria, a sculpture made of found materials that evokes the Virgin Mary but also Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico two years ago”.
Full article: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/amp/news/whitney-acquires-88-works-by-biennial-artists
Lin-Manuel Miranda Teams Up with Google for Major Art Digitization Project in Puerto Rico
By: Claire Selvin (November 7, 2019)
“The project, which launched on Thursday with 350 artworks added to Google Arts and Culture’s website, will highlight pieces from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, and the Museo de Arte de Ponce. Thousands of additional works will be photographed using Google’s ultra-high resolution Art Camera, and they will be digitized by international Google Arts and Culture teams in the coming months”…
“…Artworks of a range of mediums—including paintings, works on paper, engravings, and wood carvings—created by Puerto Rican artists will be available for viewing online. Pieces by José Campeche y Jordán, Rafael Tufiño Figueroa, Francisco Oller, Daniel Lind-Ramos (whose work appeared in the 2019 Whitney Biennial), María de Mater O’Neill, and others figure in the first group of works to be digitized”…
Full article: http://www.artnews.com/2019/11/07/lin-manuel-miranda-puerto-rico-google-art-culture/
DANIEL LIND-RAMOS RECEIVES 2019 NADA ARTADIA AWARD
December 11, 2019
Congratulations to Daniel Lind-Ramos, recipient of the 2019 NADA Artadia Award. Art Daily reports that curators Alexandra Cunningham Cameron and Gean Moreno selected Puerto Rican artist Lind-Ramos for the award. His work is on view at Embajada, booth 9.10 at NADA Miami 2019.
In a joint statement, Cunningham Cameron and Moreno noted: “Comparing artists from so many places is always a challenge. But Daniel Lind-Ramos’s looming sculpture Armario de la Conciencia stood out to us for its visceral materiality and impressive range of references. It transcends its immediate context, reminds us of long and complex historical narratives, and stands as a testament to the foundational role that the African diaspora has played in shaping the Americas.”
Daniel Lind Ramos obtained a Bachelor’s Degree at Universidad de Puerto Rico in 1975. In 1980, he earned his MFA from New York University. In 1989, he was the first artist to be awarded the Fundación Arana Scholarship, which allowed him to study that year in Paris, France, where he attended at Antonio Seguí’s Studio at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He received the First Prize at the Salon International Val D’or at Hyères in the South of France (1990), the Delegation Prize at the Salón Internacional de Plástica Latina at Meillant, France (2000), among other achievements. In 2002, he was selected for a Public Art Project to develop a series of five sculptures in the town of Loíza, Puerto Rico, in homage to Santiago Apostol. Currently, he is a Senior Professor and at Universidad de Puerto Rico’s Recinto de Humacao, Puerto Rico. Lind Ramos has participated both solo and group exhibits in Africa, Haiti, France, Dominican Republic, United States and Puerto Rico. In 2019, he was selected to participate in the Whitney Biennial in New York City.
NADA Artadia Award: Each year, an open-call application is made available in each of the six active partner cities for any artist who has lived within that city for a minimum of two years and is not currently enrolled in art school. Supporting artists equitably is a critical part of the Artadia Award process: we consider the unique populations of each community and are proud to reflect our country’s diversity with an Awardee pool that is 50 percent female and 33 percent persons of color.
Awardees also receive a dedicated webpage on Artadia’s online Artist Registry; studio visits with renowned curators and collectors; and regular dialogue with Artadia’s staff members, who offer guidance and facilitate valuable connections. The inclusion of Awardees in prominent exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial (five Awardees were featured in 2017, and six in 2019) attests to Artadia’s standing as a influencer and connector in the art community.
[Above: Daniel Lind-Ramos’s “Armario de la Conciencia,” 2012.]
Source: http://artdaily.com/news/119041/Artadia-and-NADA-announce-the-2019-NADA-Artadia-awardee
Also see https://artadia.org/awards/
The 100 Works of Art That Defined the Decade, Ranked: Part 1
In the first installment of a four-part series, our critic reveals his picks—number 100 through number 76—of the key artworks of the 2010s.
Ben Davis, December 27, 2019
Puerto Rican sculptor Lind-Ramos’s assemblage for the Whitney Biennial 2019 incorporated blue disaster relief tarps from the wake of the devastating Hurricane Maria, drawing the comparison with the blue vestments of the Virgin Mary to build this ambiguous but expressive altarpiece. For me, Maria-Maria also represents a kind of healing, totemic use of materials that has become more general.
Full Article: https://news.artnet.com/opinion/100-works-that-defined-the-decade-part-1-1729962
‘Performance’ en Vacía Talega
El artista valora el aporte de la microhistoria
Jorge Rodríguez, EL VOCERO 10/01/2020
Tras una larga carrera como pintor, cuya obra ha expuesto por varios continentes, apasiona nuevamente al artista loiceño Daniel Lind el mundo tridimensional que le ha ofrecido sus esculturas o “musaestructuras” —como las ha calificado— hasta el viaje que viene realizando en la creación de ensamblajes y “performances” fusionados a la cultura primigenia de su pueblo.
Esto lo ha logrado pictóricamente y con dibujos, además de la utilización de mosaicos, vídeos, vestigios, “gestus”, arte público y la recolección antropológica que hace de su memoria.
El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC), en su serie De Loíza a Loíza, le ha comisionado el evento performático Talegas de la memoria, que realizará mañana entre las 10:00 a.m. y 1:00 p.m. en la playa piñonera de Vacía Talega. Lind Ramos cuenta con un grupo de colaboradores, entre los que se encuentran Maribella Burgos, Marcos Peñalosa, Iván Carrasquillo y el maestro William Cepeda y su conjunto de Jazz.
“Homenajear a las comunidades tradicionales a través de la presentación de los vestigios materiales que las representan, es valorar el aporte de la microhistoria y a la vez sugerir lo autobiográfico como parte fundamental de las estrategias de un programa expresivo que intenta crear, desde lo particular y lo específico, una estética que, como una misa incluyente y totalizante, refleje desde la lectura polisémica de sus significados, a la humanidad entera”, expresó Lind sobre esta hechura artística.
Con esta nueva obra, continúa cantando la gesta comunitaria y épica de su gente, paralelas al arte global contemporáneo que proponen, como ha subrayado, lo local y lo diferenciado como fuentes primarias de inspiración y de contenido.
The Cornell Fine Arts Museum acquires works by Puerto Rican artists
WINTER PARK, FLA.-The Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida announced a series of new acquisitions by contemporary Puerto Rican artists. Committed to collecting and exhibiting works by artists who represent multiple experiences and diverse backgrounds, including the interests and affinities of our Central Florida community, CFAM is proud to share the acquisition of works by Antonio Martorell (b. Santurce, Puerto Rico, 1939), Rafael Trelles (b. Santurce, Puerto Rico, 1957), and Daniel Lind-Ramos (b. Loíza, Puerto Rico, 1953). Martorell’s ¿Quéslaque? Es que la… (2018) and Trelles’ La Autopista del Sur (2011) will be featured for the first time at CFAM in January in the exhibition The Place as Metaphor: Collection Conversations.
Martorell’s piece, created in 2018, comments on the number of deaths in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane María in 2017 and critiques the poor handling of its effects by the local government. The monumental work is the first piece by Martorell to enter the permanent collection of a Florida museum. Trelles’ large-scale painting, La Autopista del Sur, is an evocative visual metaphor inspired by the short story of the same title by Julio Cortázar. This piece is the first work by Trelles to be included in a museum’s permanent collection on the mainland. These transformational acquisitions further enrich CFAM’s diverse collection.
Daniel Lind-Ramos’ sculpture Vencedor: 1797, which will be on view at CFAM in the summer of 2020, addresses the attempted British assault on the island of Puerto Rico and the resiliency of Puerto Rican militias who resisted the occupation. One of three sculptures by Lind-Ramos included in the prestigious Whitney Biennial exhibition in 2019, Vencedor: 1797 incorporates materials and objects from Lind-Ramos’ hometown of Loíza and speaks to the larger narrative of colonialism in the Caribbean.
The museum is committed to growing the collection of Puerto Rican art to include artists from the island and diaspora and reflect the diversity in perspectives, styles and media. The current acquisitions build upon the 2018 purchase of works by performance and multi-media artist Wanda Raimundi-Ortíz (b. Bronx, NY, 1973). These works will be in dialogue with the rest of CFAM’s collection in the context of exhibitions and programs that respond to the museum’s educational mission. In addition to the acquisitions, the museum is mounting an exhibition featuring the work of Frances Gallardo (b. San Juan, 1984) and Nathan Budoff (b. Massachusetts, 1962) that explores the effects of natural phenomena in Puerto Rico and the connections to social and political structures. Gallardo/Budoff: Growth, Breadth, and Terrain opens in January of 2021.
CFAM Curator Gisela Carbonell commented on the importance of these acquisitions: “Central Florida is home to a large Puerto Rican community that has grown significantly after Hurricane María devastated the island. The acquisition of these works is the first step in what will become a strong collection of Puerto Rican art that resonates with our community and we are especially excited to begin this initiative with artists of the highest caliber such as Martorell, Trelles, and Lind-Ramos, who are beloved on the island as well as in the diaspora.”
Talegas de la memoria es el performance que Daniel Lind Ramos presenta el 11 de enero de 2020 en la playa Vacía Talega, es parte de El MAC en el Barrio
Por: Javier Martínez
El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC) se enorgullece en presentar el evento performático más reciente del reconocido artista Daniel Lind Ramos, Talegas de la memoria, que se realiza el próximo sábado 11 de enero de 2020, entre las 10:00am y 1:00pm en la playa loiceña Vacía Talega. El evento forma parte de la comisión artística De Loíza a la Loíza, que Lind Ramos inició el pasado mes como parte de la quinta edición del programa de equidad cultural y artística El MAC en el Barrio. La propuesta de Daniel Lind Ramos establece una conexión entre San Mateo de Cangrejos en San Juan y el pueblo de Loíza, vinculando la comida, la pesca, la labor del pregonero y la trata transatlántica a través de la música, baile, ensamblajes escultóricos y performance.
El encuentro en la playa consiste en una “pesca” metafórica de cono-cimiento en la costa de Vacía Talega, haciendo referencia a la historia del lugar, donde antiguamente se vaciaba una variedad de mercancía (talegas). Los participantes del encuentro están invitados a colaborar en la rea-lización de una instalación que alude a episodios históricos de Loíza y de otros pueblos caribeños.
“De Loíza a la Loíza es una extensión de mi práctica, donde la experiencia comunitaria, basada en un fuerte sentido de pertenencia al lugar de origen, informa mis imágenes. La historia, la memoria –la personal y la colectiva– los objetos, los materiales, prácticas y la gestualidad y música vinculada a las tradiciones son elementos fundamentales en la creación de símbolos visuales manifestados en medios bidimensionales como son la pintura y los dibujos. También en mis ensamblajes escultóricos, en videos y en acciones en el tiempo y espacio real”, definió Lind Ramos.”
““En el caso de este encuentro, la historia de este lugar en Piñones provee un ámbito donde los vecinos participantes, partiendo de una gestualidad inspirada en sus experiencias como trabajadores y performeros populares relacionados a las procesiones de las Fiestas de Santiago Apóstol, realizan unas acciones que alinean labor, prácticas y tradiciones. De esta manera se enfrentarán, no sólo a su propia historia, sino también a la de Puerto Rico y la región en general”, expresó el artista.”
Lind Ramos cuenta con un grupo de colaboradores, entre los que se encuentran Maribella Burgos, Marcos Peñalosa, Iván Carrasquillo y William Cepeda y su conjunto de Jazz, quienes proveen los hilos conductores poéticos y musicales.
El primer evento, La ruta del pregonero, fue realizado el pasado 7 de diciembre en la casa familiar del artista en el sector de Colobó en Loíza. Este encuentro por invitación se organizó a partir de las memorias de Lind Ramos y su investigación de historia oral sobre las economías barriales y vínculos ancestrales que unen estas comunidades. El evento fluctuó entre el tiempo mítico y el actual a través del hablar, declamar, bailar, comer y recordar en torno a la gastronomía.
Visto en su totalidad, el proyecto De Loíza a la Loíza destaca la cultura resultante de intercambios transatlánticos. La serie de presentaciones vincula la comida, las economías barriales, la tradición del pregonero, y otros intercambios transatlánticos a través de unos ensamblajes y encuentros por la zona de Colobó y Piñones. Este proyecto es la primera comisión del Museo en el marco de la expansión del programa extramuros El MAC en el Barrio: de Santurce a Puerto Rico en el pueblo de Loíza, curado por Marianne Ramírez Aponte, Directora Ejecutiva y Curadora en Jefe y Marina Reyes Franco, Curadora del MAC.
Según expresa Ramírez Aponte, “Daniel y el MAC tenemos una larga relación de colaboración y la realización de este proyecto es algo que hemos perseguido hace años. La comisión tiene especial pertinencia ya que es una extensión de piezas suyas que tenemos en nuestra colección y luego estaremos mostrando en contexto.” Para Reyes Franco, “El trabajo de Daniel siempre ha estado vinculado a la labor manual e intelectual de cocineras, músicos y constructores de su pueblo. Esta comisión reúne magistralmente todos esos elementos a través de la integración del performance y su trabajo escultórico. El evento en Vacía Talega es particularmente importante porque es una alegoría de la historia de Puerto Rico desde las expresiones culturales propias de Loíza.
“Nuestro interés en trabajar en Loíza responde a destacar las aportaciones de las personas negras y afrodescendientes en Puerto Rico, la diáspora y el Caribe, apoyando el compromiso de trabajadores culturales de Loíza en pro de la cultura afro y su importancia para el Puerto Rico actual. Esta es la primera comisión de varias que se estarán realizando gracias al apoyo de Mellon Foundation y el Fondo Flamboyán para las Artes” finalizó Ramírez Aponte.
El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo sigue apostando a las comunidades
Este sábado y domingo la institución presentará jornadas artísticas y culturales en su sede en Santurce
martes, 21 de enero de 2020
El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC) sigue celebrando la quinta edición de su proyecto “MAC al Barrio” con sendas actividades a celebrarse este sábado y domingo en su sede en Santurce.
Música en vivo, talleres creativos, recorridos por los barrios de Santurce guiados por artistas invitados, y encuentros historiadores, gestores culturales y activistas comunitarios, es parte de la oferta cultural que el público disfrutará.
La primera actividad será este sábado, a partir de la 1:00 p.m., en la institución, donde cerrará el proyecto “De Loíza a la Loíza: Comunidades de conocimiento”, del artista Daniel Lind Ramos. Creado bajo el programa de equidad cultural “MAC en el Barrio”, la propuesta artística de Lind Ramos establece una conexión entre San Mateo de Cangrejos en San Juan y el pueblo de Loíza, vinculando la comida, la pesca, la labor del pregonero y la trata transatlántica a través de la música, baile, ensamblajes escultóricos y performance. En el evento se presentarán la documentación de los eventos previos (“La ruta del pregonero” y “Talegas de la memoria”), la instalación de nuevos ensamblajes de su autoría y su contextualización junto a otras piezas que forman parte de la Colección Permanente del MAC.
El itinerario de actividades para el día incluye un taller sonoro para toda la familia a cargo del artista y educador Joudy Santaliz, así como conferencias sobre la historia, tradiciones y vínculos entre Loíza y San Mateo de Cangrejos como dos pueblos fundados por personas negras a cargo de Lester Nurse y Marcos Peñaloza Pica. Además, la directora ejecutiva del MAC, Marianne Ramírez Aponte, y la curadora Marina Reyes Franco, realizarán una entrevista pública a Lind Ramos. El cierre del evento estará a cargo del grupo loiceño Ballet Folklórico Majestad Negra, quienes interpretarán diferentes ritmos de bomba como sicá, yubá, holandés, seis corrido y otros ritmos de procedencia africana.
El domingo, 26 de enero, por otro lado, se realizará “Estamos aquí”, que comenzará a partir de las 9:00 a.m., con recorridos por las comisiones artísticas “Oda a la Memoria”, en Trastalleres, y “En la Laguna hay una historia, recuentos del Alto del Cabro” a cargo de las artistas Nicole Cecilia Delgado y Nina Méndez Martí. Las personas se encontrarán en la institución y de ahí saldrán a realizar el recorrido.
De acuerdo con un comunicado de prensa del museo, la autodeterminación, justicia climática, racial y social en Puerto Rico, así como en otras latitudes, guiarán las actividades de este día, que celebra la autogestión comunitaria a través de los proyectos realizados por el MAC en alianza con la organización “nuyorican” de planificación, diseño y desarrollo urbano, Hester Street. La colaboración establecida con el Museo tiene como objetivos la producción de herramientas para el desarrollo económico cultural y la resiliencia a largo plazo en Santurce con énfasis en las comunidades de Alto del Cabro, Trastalleres y Machuchal. La colaboración con artistas locales, residentes, líderes comunitarios y activistas ha contribuido a identificar necesidades y prioridades en estas comunidades y definir estrategias donde el arte pueda ser utilizado como catalizador social, según se informó en la declaración escrita.
La alianza con Hester Street -que ha sido posible gracias al National Endowment for the Art- amplía la intención del MAC hacia el estudio y la reflexión en la configuración y el desarrollo de los barrios para que se corresponda de manera justa e inclusiva en contextos específicos del entramado urbano.
Además de recorridos por las comunidades Trastalleres y Alto del Cabro para conocer los proyectos de arte público creados bajo el programa “MAC en el Barrio”, las actividades del día incluyen -continúa el parte de prensa- paneles interdisciplinarios que destacarán las formas concretas en que el arte y la cultura preservan la memoria y el patrimonio, reafirman la identidad de la comunidad y evitan el desplazamiento. Habrá, también, un conversatorio del rol activo de las instituciones artísticas en estos procesos. El día culmina con la presentación del grupo de plena cangrejera Los Tremendos.
Estos eventos, así como las comisiones artísticas y los programas de educación cultural del “MAC en el Barrio” son posibles gracias al apoyo económico de The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Fondo Flamboyán Para Las Artes, la Comisión Especial Conjunta de Fondos Legislativos para Impacto Comunitario, el Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, National Endowment for the Arts, Hester Street, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Liberty y Embajada. https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/nota/elmuseodeartecontemporaneosigueapostandoalascomunidades-2542115/
El artista puertorriqueño Daniel Lind Ramos gana importante premio en Miami
El Pérez Prize reconoce una obra innovadora relacionada con las identidades afrocaribeña y afrolatinoamericana
martes, 18 de febrero de 2020 – 8:59 PM
Miami – El artista puertorriqueño Daniel Lind-Ramos ganó este martes el Pérez Prize, un galardón con el que se reconoce una obra innovadora relacionada con las identidades afrocaribeña y afrolatinoamericana, anunció el Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM).
El jurado de la segunda edición de este premio dotado con $50,000 estuvo compuesto por Kate Fowle, del MOMA de Nueva York, y José Roca, director artístico del centro artístico Flora de Bogotá, además de los curadores Jen Inacio, René Morales, María Elena Ortiz y Patricia García Vélez, los tres primeros del PAMM y la cuarta de El Espacio 23, un centro de arte creado en Miami por el empresario inmobiliario y coleccionista de arte Jorge Pérez.
En el comunicado que anuncia al ganador del segundo Pérez Prize, el artista puertorriqueño afirma que el objetivo de sus obras es honrar a las comunidades ancestrales de origen africano en Puerto Rico y a la diáspora africana en su conjunto.
Lind-Ramos subrayó su interés en resaltar y dar a conocer la contribución de las comunidades afrodescendientes “a través de ejemplos específicos y con una estética inclusiva”.
El artista, cuya obra consiste especialmente en instalaciones y esculturas, agradeció un premio que “materialmente alienta y promueve la continuación de un proyecto”.
Lind-Ramos ganó el favor de la crítica en la Bienal Whitney 2019 por sus obras de ensamblaje hechas con materiales hallados cerca de su ciudad natal, Loiza, cuya población es mayoritariamente de origen africano.
Su obra mezcla motivos políticos, místicos y espirituales de la región en esculturas dinámicas que rinden tributo al papel que individuos descendientes de africanos han desempeñado en América LAtina y el CAribe y que alientan una discusión amplia sobre la raza en el arte contemporáneo.
El director del PAMM, Franklin Sirmans, agradeció a la familia Pérez la oportunidad de apoyar económicamente a artistas como Lind Ramos.
Jorge Pérez, por su parte, dijo que el premio fue creado para ayudar a artistas jóvenes como el ahora ganador e inspirar a otros.
Los esfuerzos de Lind Ramos por destacar “la influencia a menudo pasada por alto de los artistas de la diáspora africana en las culturas de América Latina y el Caribe es increíblemente importante, y no podemos sentirnos más orgullosos de poderle empoderar con este premio anual. Estamos deseando ver cómo su carrera y su práctica se desarrollan en los años por venir”.
El primer Pérez Prize fue para la artista Christina Quarles.
Lind Ramos ha expuesto individualmente en el Museo de las Américas, la Galería San Juan; y el Palacio Santa Catalina, en Puerto Rico.
Sus obras también han formado parte de exposiciones grupales en el Whitney Museum of American Art, de Nueva York, en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico y otras instituciones en República Dominicana y en Estados Unidos. https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/nota/elartistapuertorriquenodaniellindramosganaimportantepremioenmiami-2547667/
Daniel Lind-Ramos © 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Triunfa en el paraíso de la memoria
Sus raíces loiceñas se apoderan de una galería en Nueva York
Jorge Rodríguez (24/04/2020)
En la instalación Armario de la conciencia (Storage of Memory), del maestro pintor y escultor Daniel Lind, título que utiliza para su exposición actual en la Marlborough Gallery, en Chelsea, Nueva York, un televisor ocupa el espacio de una memoria que es sostenido por enseres, naturaleza y un arma de guerra, producto de su geografía loiceña y por una arqueología de restos terrenales.
Esta obra y sus componentes constituyen ayer y hoy, códigos y costumbres que al pasar por su cedazo se compilan en poderosas metáforas épicas.
En medio de la devastación que vive el mundo por el Covid-19, se cernió sobre Puerto Rico otra esplendorosa noticia de su obra, reseñada ampliamente por The New York Times el 3 de marzo, reconociendo nuevamente en Lind el artista que transforma los desastres de su tierra en poesía.
Igual empoderamiento causó en la Bienal del Whitney Museum del pasado año, con sus esculturas María-María, correlacionando a la Virgen María y el temible huracán, y su pieza 1797: Vencedor, inspirada en la victoria de la milicia de esclavos y libertos de Loíza sobre la armada inglesa y su invasión de San Juan a finales del siglo 18.
En su narrativa plástica, rebusca en el cúmulo de sus recuerdos los planteamientos estéticos de su obra.
“En la exposición permanente Puerto Rico Plural, del Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR), 1797: Vencedor, está ubicada —perdonando las distancias— al lado del óleo de José Campeche, Gobernador Ramón de Castro de 1800. De Castro en la pieza señala hacia el espacio de aquellos combates, y eso me llenó de un orgullo porque ambos cuadros tienen que ver con ese evento en dos tiempos distintos. El está en el Castillo de San Cristóbal y al final del paisaje se ve San Mateo de Cangrejos, que era Loíza entonces y llegaba hasta mi pueblo”, expone.
“En ese símbolo visual de una resistencia, sales de lo local y llegas a lo humano porque en el mundo tienes esta situación que se repite históricamente en la lucha de clases. No es de un sitio consciente como expresión porque a través de esa narrativa hablas de lo universal y por la lucha por permanecer y persistir en espacios de origen. Eso se da y quiero que el espectador conozca los objetos, entre por ellos, y si no los conoce pues que vaya por lo formal de cómo está construida la imagen”, agregó.
En sus instalaciones, donde cada objeto encontrado contiene parte del cuento total, estas se fecundan por herramientas de trabajo, estacas auténticas de mondar coco, un burén, máscaras talladas por él, madera, cabezas de penca con punta de metal, materiales de la palma de coco, otros ‘ready-made’ y hasta elementos gastronómicos. En su sector loiceño de Colobo, conocido por sus artesanías, los vecinos le llevan a su taller objetos y entran —en medio de una simbiosis— a su expresión desde sus experiencias activando el poder de su obra.
“Esa combinación de experiencias vividas en París, Nueva York, Guyana, Cuba, República Dominicana y Puerto Rico me ayudó mucho a darle forma a mi obra de hoy. Trabajando y trabajando he ido haciendo esta obra con una actitud crítica para articular mi lenguaje en lo narrativo y formal, e irradiar significados mucho más allá del ámbito local. Narro el tiempo que estoy viviendo, por eso cuando pasa María viene ese impulso de recrear mi lenguaje, el que he llevado siempre, donde combinas emoción y sentimiento”, terminó diciendo.
LE MOSTRE DA VEDERE QUESTA SETTIMANA: ARRIVANO DA TUTTO IL MONDO, SI GUARDANO A CASA
Dalla Pop Art allo storytelling della memoria. Dalle trasformazioni dell’interior design in questi ultimi 100 anni all’esposizione virtuale, diffusa, dei video d’autore. Fino all’autoprogettazione di opere d’artista e alla viewing room allargata di 12 gallerie di New York
Di SILVIA AIROLDI11/04/2020
L’agenda delle mostre on line di questa settimana esplora molteplici tematiche; l’arte nelle sue diverse espressioni, pittura, scultura, illustrazione e video, ma anche il design e le discipline ad esso collegate. La cultura del progetto e l’arte, critiche nei momenti di crisi ed emergenza, diventano sempre più flessibili e versatili, in grado di leggere gli scenari attuali trovando modalità di fruizione e di interazione, facendosi soluzione e mettendo in atto capacità propositive inaspettate. Così di fianco alle esposizioni on line e ai tour virtuali, ai talk e ai video in diretta su Instagram e Facebook, ormai entrati nel nostro vivere quotidiano, scopriamo l’autoprogettazione, con opere d’artista che si fanno condivise per essere realizzate a casa, in autonomia, da chiunque lo desideri, con l’intento di “auto(ri)progettare”, attraverso l’arte, anche la propria esistenza. Possiamo comunque accomodarci sulla poltrona per una visita virtuale delle mostre che erano in corso lontane da noi e che oggi almeno riusciamo a vedere, anche se pensavamo non fosse possibile. Dalle opere iconiche di Andy Warhol a uno sguardo nell’armadio della memoria dello scultore-storyteller Daniel Lind-Ramos, dall’indagine complessa della materia nell’espressione artistica di alcuni interpreti contemporanei alle trasformazioni dell’interior design nel corso di questo ultimo secolo o alla rivelazione del design degli oggetti quotidiani. Poi, per uno sguardo ancora più ampio, possiamo visitare virtualmente 12 mostre degli artisti di spicco selezionati dalle gallerie più in vista di New York, presentati in un’unica viewing room, oppure seguire on line l’esposizione diffusa dei video d’artista immergendoci nelle visioni di autori di un mondo, oggi, non ancora senza confini.
ANDY WARHOL
© Tate photography, Andrew Dunkley
Non si corre il rischio di perdere la mostra dedicata all’artista icona della pop art, fra le figure più emblematiche del XX secolo, in corso prima della chiusura per Coronavirus alla Tate Modern di Londra. Comodamente da casa si può seguire da questo mese il tour virtuale, sul sito e sul canale You Tube della Tate, guidati dagli esperti della galleria d’arte moderna londinese (Gregor Muir, direttore della Collezione si arte internazionale della Tate, e Fiontán Moran, assistente curatore), per scoprire la selezione dei 100 lavori di Andy Warhol, rappresentativi della carriera eclettica e della sua visione provocatoria che tanto ha influenzato la scena artistica e culturale internazionale. Al filmato video si aggiungono molti altri contenuti di approfondimento legati alle opere e alla vita dell’artista statunitense, che riguardano, fra gli altri, il rapporto con la madre Julia Warhola, la storia e i retroscena della serie meno nota di dipinti, “Ladies and Gentlemen”, e una visione personale di Warhol da parte dell’amico Bob Colacello. Oltre all’esposizione dedicata a Warhol, dal 13 aprile la Tate apre al pubblico, on line di tutto il mondo, la mostra virtuale dell’altra esposizione, chiusa prima del suo termine alla Tate Britain, dedicata ad Aubrey Beardsley, pittore e illustratore inglese, dandy ed amico di Oscar Wilde, che con i suoi disegni in bianco e nero ha scioccato e deliziato la Londra di fine Ottocento.
#VDMHOMESTORIES
© Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Ludger Paffrath
Anche il Vitra Design Museum, temporaneamente chiuso, non rinuncia a proseguire il suo programma di attività legate al design e all’architettura, coinvolgendo il pubblico, ora costretto fra le pareti domestiche, in una serie di iniziative digitali, in continuo aggiornamento, contraddistinte dall’hashtag #VDMHomeStories su Instagram, sugli altri canali social e sul sito del museo. Oltre al catalogo delle collezioni, aIl’appuntamento settimanale con gli Instagram Live Talk del direttore Mateo Kries, che dopo Josep Grima, primo ospite dei suoi incontri, dialogherà con altre figure del mondo del progetto, Vitra Design Museum propone dei video tour per vedere, seduti a casa, le mostre che erano in corso prima del lockdown. In particolare, Jochen Eisenbrand, chief curator, ci guiderà nella visita di “Home Stories: 100 Years, 20 Visionary Interiors”, per esplorare, attraverso 20 progetti visionari ed iconici le trasformazioni sociali ed estetiche dell’interior design nel corso di questo ultimo secolo. La curatrice Viviane Stappmanns, invece, ci accompagnerà virtualmente all’interno dell’esposizione “Typology: An Ongoing Study of Everyday Items”, allestita nella Gallery del Vitra Design Museum, per scoprire la progettualità e le storie legate al design degli oggetti quotidiani, solo in apparenza banali.
ARTISTS’ FILM INTERNATIONAL – XII EDIZIONE
Courtesy l’artista e Norma Mangione Gallery
La XII edizione della rassegna dedicata alla videoarte che, dal 2008, coinvolge alcune delle principali istituzioni d’arte contemporanea internazionali, con la partecipazione di artisti provenienti da tutto il-mondo, continua la sua programmazione on line. Dopo la chiusura dei musei per l’emergenza Coronavirus, le 22 realtà aderenti al network allestiscono virtualmente una mostra diffusa, proponendo on linele opere video degli artisti selezionati quest’anno. In particolare GAMeC, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, presenta l’artista Francesco Pedraglio selezionato dalle curatrici Sara Fumagalli e Valentina Gervasoni . Nel tema del ‘Linguaggio’, dell’edizione 2020, Pedraglio è l’autore di “Racconto antiorario (6 costellazioni)”. Sulla base di una performance live, il video sviluppa una narrazione astratta per immaginare sei possibili costellazioni che prendono forma nello spazio creato fra narratore, attori, oggetti e il buio della notte. Il linguaggio, per l’artista, definisce la realtà in tutte le sue parti, e funge da strumento di mediazione fra ciò che ci circonda e noi. L’opera video di Pedraglio resta visibile sul sito GAMeC per tutta la durata della rassegna mentre, a cadenza settimanale, sono proposte le opere selezionate dalle altre istituzioni partecipanti.
AUTOPROGETTAZIONE
Courtesy Photo
I tempi attuali del lockdown, che ci costringono a casa, ci inducono a rivalutare il nostro modo di vivere. Scopriamo che sono cambiate le nostre necessità esistenziali, che ora è importante sapere fare, essere in grado di realizzare noi stessi quello di cui abbiamo bisogno. Prende spunto da questo concetto il progetto “Autoprogettazione”, a cura di Toni Merola, Nicola Pellegrini e Bianca Trevisan, rivolto alla creazione di un’opera d’arte che chiunque possa riprodurre nella propria abitazione. D’altra parte l’idea vanta l’illustre precedente di Enzo Mari, che nel 1974 nella mostra “Proposta per un’autoprogettazione” aveva messo a disposizione i disegni e le istruzioni per la realizzazione di mobili. In questo modo le persone, affinando le proprie capacità manuali, potevano costruire gli oggetti d’arredo liberamente a casa loro e in piena autonomia, in contrapposizione alla produzione, su larga scala, dominante. “Autoprogettazione” coinvolge al momento oltre 70 artisti che creeranno la loro opera d’arte e condivideranno in una mostra on line, con le persone a casa, le indicazioni per realizzarla, mettendo in atto, così come nell’obiettivo dei curatori, “una doppia possibilità: creare un’opera autonomamente e, attraverso l’arte, auto(ri)progettare la propria esistenza”. I progetti, con tutte le istruzioni per la loro costruzione, sono pubblicati sul sito e sulla pagina Instagram e a questi se ne aggiungeranno, ogni giorno, di nuovi.
MATERIAL MATTERS
© Sui Jianguo
Pace, galleria d’arte contemporanea con due sedi a New York e altre cinque nel mondo, dedica una mostra on line al ruolo della materia nell’espressione artistica, presentando la produzione di 11 fra gli artisti, oggi, di spicco. L’esplorazione nella viewing room, che si articola in un periodo di 60 anni, mette in luce la diversa natura dei materiali e dei processi di lavorazione, i molteplici aspetti della sperimentazione e della ricerca, la gamma inedita delle interpretazioni estetiche e formali da parte degli artisti, sintesi di significati e contenuti simbolici. Fra le opere di “Material Matters”, a cura di Joe Baptista, Danielle Forest e Andria Hickey, vi sono le sculture in terracotta o ceramica di Lynda Benglis, Arlene Shechet, Richard Tuttle e Lee Ufan che evidenziano la relazione fra materialità, alchimia e intuizione, caratteristiche riconducibili alla natura plasmabile di un materiale di base come l’argilla. E ancora i lavori di Yin Xiuzhen and Song Dong, nei quali la materia racconta il potere e le storie del mondo contemporaneo attraverso un linguaggio simbolico legato a contesti sociali ed economici. Robert Rauschenberg combina scultura e pittura in unico lavoro, mentre Sui Jianguo e Claes Oldenburg&Coosje van Bruggen realizzano studi di fusione; le opere di Tara Donovan che trasformano materiali come piatti di carta, spille e cannucce dando loro una nuova identità, interpretano un gioco formale in dialogo con luce e spazio. Si interrogano, invece, sulla composizione fisica dei materiali in relazione alla tecnologia e all’ambiente contemporanei gli studi di DRIFT, che utilizzano componenti di iPhone e biciclette. Fino al 21 aprile.
PLATFORM: NEW YORK
Una viewing room diffusa, che riunisce 12 gallerie newyorkesi, è il progetto ospitato da David Zwirner Online. La mega galleria, con sedi a New York, Londra, Parigi e Hong Kong, ha pensato di riunire gli sforzi espositivi presentando on line le personali d’artista, in corso o di prossima apertura, delle gallerie colleghe, 47 Canal, Bridget Donahue, Bureau, Company, David Lewis, Elijah Wheat Showroom, Essex Street, James Fuentes, JTT, Magenta Plains, Ramiken e Queer Thoughts, chiuse per l’emergenza Coronavirus. Gli appassionati d’arte di tutto il mondo possono così vedere i lavori di artisti di spicco, alcuni dei quali hanno partecipato alla Biennale di Whitney 2019, come Josh Kline (galleria 47 Canal) che esplora il futuro alterato dai cambiamenti climatici e dal riscaldamento globale causati dell’uomo; Keegan Monaghan (galleria James Fuentes) che nei suoi dipinti gioca con la distorsione della prospettiva, utilizzando trucchi visivi per fare apparire piccoli oggetti sproporzionatamente grandi, considerando lo spettatore come un voyeur che guarda una scena; o ancora Kyle Thurman (galleria David Lewis) che impiega fotografie, trovate on line, come immagini da tradurre, attraverso il disegno e la pittura, in opere su carta dove, senza l’ambiente circostante, restano figure isolate in campi di colore molto intimi; oppure Troy Michie(galleria Company) che assembla nelle sue opere tessuti, indumenti e carta d’archivio rovesciando, in un confronto fra passato e presente, le narrazioni dominanti. Fino al 1 maggio. Nelle prossime settimane David Zwirner Online presenterà sul web l’edizione Platform London, dedicata alle gallerie londinesi.
GENE BEERY. TRANSMISSIONS FROM LOGOSCAPE RANCH
Courtesy Bodega
Bodega, galleria d’arte contemporanea di New York presenta on line la mostra dedicata all’artista concettuale californiano Gene Beery, a cura di Nick Irvin e Jordan Stein, che è stata chiusa per l’emergenza Covid 19. Il progetto espositivo è un adattamento di una personale del 2019 presentata a San Francisco che percorreva la sua carriera artistica. Se le prime opere di Beery su tela sono riflessioni postmoderne sulla natura dell’arte e sul ruolo dell’artista, i lavori successivi sono insegne che riproducono battute, sentenze proclami di un autore ribelle mentre le successive racchiudono il suo segno poetico. In particolare “Transmissions From Logoscape Ranch” comprende una serie di piccoli dipinti, riferiti alla sua pratica artistica meno conosciuta, e tre video sulla zona, ai piedi della Sierra Nevada, dove l’artista ha vissuto e lavorato per oltre 40 anni. Fino al 26 aprile
ZOYA CHERKASSKY. LOST TIME
Zoya Cherkassky
La seconda mostra on line della galleria d’arte contemporanea Fort Gansevoort presenta 19 dipinti su carta dell’artista ucraina, immigrata in Israele, Zoya Cherkassky. Chiusa nel proprio studio da quando ha avuto inizio la pandemia, Cherkassky ha realizzato un’opera al giorno illustrando la vita ebraica prima della seconda guerra mondiale nell’Europa orientale, come nell’immaginario e nella memoria collettivi. Facendone l’allegoria dei nostri tempi di crisi, i suoi lavori ritraggono la società ebraica prima dell’Olocausto, un tempo ormai scomparso e a cui fa riferimento il titolo dell’esposizione, attraverso scene domestiche e rituali senza tempo, affascinanti e allo stesso tempo ossessivi, con un tocco oscuro di melanconia, lasciando una sensazione indefinita, simile a quella che stiamo vivendo, per cui nulla sarà mai più come prima. Fra i dipinti “Black Chuppah”, che riguarda la pratica dei matrimoni della peste, noti anche come matrimoni neri, nati per scongiurare le distruzioni e le malattie e tenuti nei cimiteri ebraici; l’illustrazione della canzone della Pasqua ebraica “Chad Gadya”e alcuni dipinti ispirati alla storia di Anna Frank, per noi forse ancora più coinvolgente in questo periodo di quarantena. L’esposizione è a cura di Alison M. Gingeras. Fino al 10 maggio.
DANIEL LIND-RAMOS. ARMARIO DE LA MEMORIA
Daniel Lind Ramos
La mostra ospitata alla galleria d’arte Marlborough di New York, ora chiusa per l’emergenza Coronavirus, è visibile on line. Le sculture di Daniel Lind-Ramos, assemblaggio di oggetti ritrovati e memoria della sua infanzia, raccontano storie intense e vibranti ripescando nella tradizione orale, musicale, visiva e culinaria della cultura afro, nel dna delle sue origini portoricane. Ognuno delle sette figure in mostra, possenti nel loro aspetto e allo stesso tempo nel loro messaggio profondo e spirituale, sono realizzate con pezzi o componenti di strumenti musicali, attrezzi agricoli, per l’edilizia, oggetti d’uso quotidiano in cucina o nei lavori domestici, per interpretare lo storytelling personale di Lind- Ramos, inedito e distaccato rispetto alla cultura dominante. Le storie dell’artista di Puerto Rico attingono alle sue radici, al patrimonio ancestrale, alla natura; sono il racconto del lavoro svolto dal suo popolo, dei loro passatempi e piaceri, con un’attenzione particolare alla musica, che ha sostenuto lo spirito e la resistenza della comunità ai tempi della schiavitù. Fra i lavori, “María-María”, inclusa nella Biennale di Whitney del 2019, che rimanda al catastrofico uragano del 2017 abbattutosi su Porto Rico, diventa per Lind-Ramos un esempio di “resistenza attraverso il ricordo”. Fino al 18 aprile.
https://www.elledecor.com/it/lifestyle/a32113755/mostre-da-vedere-online-pasqua-2020/
Daniel Lind-Ramos 