Social Interest or Walmart at Santurce

Rogelio Báez (1974) articulates a debate on the appreciation of what is usually defined as "progress" in urban areas, the interruption of natural landscapes, and human experience in public spaces. The conceptual challenge in his artwork also questions the gentrification processes that tend to displace communities in favor of superficial modernity. The large-format of the painting, and the lonely and colossal commercial building represented in the canvas, express some of the social disparities that affect the metropolitan area of Puerto Rico and its suburbs.