Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2

Gender and Marginalization in Puerto Rico

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Guest curated by Raquel Torres Arzola

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

The second part of the exhibition, titled Anarchy, has been structured as an Artists’ Salon: a celebration and affirmation of art making as experimentation, investigation, and freedom of method. The exhibition is a celebration of formal exploration in art as a dynamic, open language without preestablished rules that at the same time functions as a political and strategic body.

Nip-Nis. La Fleur de l’Age (2007) by Marta Pérez GarcíaMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Nip-Nis. La Fleur de l’Age, Marta Pérez García takes the medium of printmaking to the extreme; through her refined use of the reduction technique, Pérez García generates a baroque composition that denounces gender violence to foreground her own circumstance as a Caribbean woman.

The Evolution of Thought (1988) by Haydée LandingMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Evolución del pensamiento [Evolution of Thought], printmaker Haydée Landing affirms her masterful technique and voice while evoking the beautiful relationship between body, spirit, and reason. The piece, which features a figure evolving, is a metaphor for both the evolution of thought and the body, and of our own sensitive subjectivity.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

From a critical and intersectional gaze, Anarchy aims to foreground ruptures and connections about art making as a marginal practice. In its short but determined history, the MAC has served as a fundamental space for the exhibition, visibilization, and discussion of the creative work of marginal or non-conforming identities, as well as a place for the development of communities within an art scene that has disputed and resisted their presence due to gender, race, and/or social class.

Comfort Zone [NOT OK] (2019) by Sebastián GutiérrezMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Comfort Zone [NOT OK], Sebastián Gutiérrez reaffirms the post-gender stage in which artistic endeavor finds itself in contemporary Puerto Rico. By placing fabric over wood, it becomes a ludic skin over an anatomic representation; the artist contrasts the term "comfort zone" with new possibilities of form and representation that transcend essential identity as it has been learned and socialized.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

This Salon is conceived from the context of Puerto Rico’s marginal and critical situation—from its past to its current moment—not with the intention of inserting these works into hegemonic art history, but to question its authority, its discourses, and erasures.

Laborer 1 (2017) by Ada del PilarMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Obrero 1 [Laborer 1], Ada del Pilar Ortiz generates a sculpture as a second skin. A portrait traced from the conditions of a home that contains in its materiality, texture, and color the narratives of history and the lives of generations of laborers that were and still are—in spite constant erasures—a fundamental part of Puerto Rico’s economic, cultural, social, and historical development.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Unexpectedly framed within a global health emergency, and in the midst of the brutal deterioration of our ecosystem, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire: Genders and Marginalities in Puerto Rico has become an even more necessary space today.

Soft Spots (2016) by Christopher M. KorberMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Soft Spots, a piece that represents the beginnings of his creative exploration, trans-masculine, non-binary performance artist Christopher M. Korber uses the image to transgress the representation of the body and gender, and from there present fractures that allude to both pain and denouncement. In his more recent work as performer and Drag King, the artist, who no longer works in two-dimensional form, generates new instances and stages for political and aesthetic activism toward equity and identity freedom within a rigid cis-tem that insists on persisting.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Faced with the fragility of an uncertain future, looking back and recognizing our own struggles, affirms the fundamental contribution of the arts to our cultural and social well-being.

Cycles of Fire (2004) by Cecile MolinaMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Ciclos de fuego, Cecile Molina constructs metaphorical possibilities through an abstract three-dimensional approach that relates color, and organic forms to the female bone structure as possibility.

Infrasonic Embrace (2016-2019) by Rebecca AdornoMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In Abrazo infrasónico [Infrasonic Embrace], Rebecca Adorno establishes metaphoric connections between art as an infinite space of multisensorial experimentation that translates and proposes affects to open perceptible frequencies, but expandible in the imaginable.

Infrasonic Embrace (detail) (2016-2019) by Rebecca AdornoMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

We must now ask ourselves: Where are we going? How much time do we have left? How will we make and show art in this future that is already beginning to determine us? What will those new (de)materialities be?

instrument(o)01 (2020) by Carola Cintrón MoscosoMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In the sound installation instrument(o), Carola Cintrón Moscoso posits the spectator’s body and actions as the fundamental element that makes the artist’s exploration possible. The invitation to touch and interact with the cables in the exhibition space generates unique, ephemeral, and diverse multisensory experiences.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Anarchy reaffirms the creators that are included as transcendental figures in the history of Puerto Rican art, in both the archipelago and the diaspora.

Frozen Limbo #2 (2020) by Ivelisse JiménezMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Ivelisse Jiménez continues building on a body of work that for 15 years has consistently invited us to reflect on the painting and its relationship to space, form, materiality, and color.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Immersed in this uncertain juncture, Anarchy invites the study of the artists on display from the awareness of its limited scope, recognizing that there are still many artists that must be recognized and visibilized.

Puerta de Tierra Housing Project (2014) by José Luis CortésMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

For decades, multidisciplinary artist José Luis Cortés has built a body of experimental work in which he relates poverty and the ephemerality of materials with performance and corporeal action. In Residencial Puerta de Tierra, Cortés pays homage to the urban memory of a marginal space that was swept aside to satisfy a questionable desire for progress.

Dark Fair, Köln (AKA LAVA CARAMEL) (2009) by Candida AlvarezMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

The work of Candida Alvarez employs a formal exploration where the materials emerge from her memories and her day-to-day experiences. In Dark Fair, Koln (AKA LAVA CARAMEL), her exploration using materials and light transcends the canvas and its two-dimensionality to move toward the space of the installation.

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Although “not all are here, and not all the ones that are should be,” today Anarchy celebrates artistic endeavor in Puerto Rico.

Palingenesis (2014-2016) by Dhara RiveraMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

In 2014, Dhara Rivera was invited along with other artists to build a piece commemorating what was at the time architect Henry Klumb’s home. The resulting piece evokes storm shelters. In this dystopian present, this installation-shelter compels us to reflect on our ephemeral reality, rethink our ecological footprint, and understand that we are but one living being within a larger ecosystem.

Palingenesis (detail) (2014-2016) by Dhara RiveraMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

Exhibition view, Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire Pt 2Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico

We celebrate its dynamism and its open and transgressive resolve to foster the broadness of our community, so that it serves as a platform for the development of creative strategies of solidarity and new voices that enrich our individual and collective lives.

Credits: Story

Participating artists in this second iteration of Anarchy and Dialectic in Desire include:

MUSEO DE ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO DE PUERTO RICO


BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Rubén Méndez Benabe, President
Rafael Flores Pérez, Vice President
José Negrón, Treasurer
María Awilda Quintana-Román, Secretary
Salvador Alemañy
Antonio García
Pedro Muñoz Marín
Enid Picó
Letty Rivero Iturregui
Rachid Molinari
Luis Fernando Rodríguez
María Elba Torres



MUSEUM STAFF
Marianne Ramírez Aponte, Executive Director and Chief Curator

Evita Busa, Deputy Director

Wanda Michelle Dilán, Administrator

Marina Reyes Franco, Curator

Mariela Collazo Heredia, Registrar

Joudy Santaliz, Education Coordinators

Karin Cardona, Head Archivist

Windy Cosme, Projects manager, MAC en el Barrio

Welmo Romero and Donald Escudero, Coordinators, MAC en el Barrio

Brenna Quigley, Development Coordinator

Dalila Rodríguez Saavedra, Communications Coordinator

Melinda Llompart and Alexnel Suárez, Administrative Assistants


EXHIBITION

Raquel Torres Arzola, Guest Curator

Evita Busa and Marina Reyes Franco, General Coordination

Mariela Collazo Heredia, Registrar

Raquel Torres Arzola, Exhibition Design

Sergio Hernández, Julián Collazo López and
Sebastián Gutiérrez, Exhibition Installation

Raquel Torres Arzola, Glorimar Marrero Sánchez and Joudy Santaliz, Educational Program

Carolina Cortés, Fundraising

Dalila Rodríguez Saavedra, Communications Coordination

Paloma Rodríguez Ramírez, Project Logo Design

EXHIBITION LENDERS
Museo de Arte de Ponce
José Hernández Castrodad
Otto Reyes


Artwork photography by Carlos Ruiz Valarino

Exhibition installation photography by Antonio Ramírez Aponte

Online exhibitions are organized by Marina Reyes Franco, MAC Curator


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our special thanks to the sponsors of this project:
Banco Popular de Puerto Rico
Comisión Especial Conjunta de Fondos Legislativos para Impacto Comunitario Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
National Endowment for the Arts
Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades
National Endowment for the Humanities
Fondo Flamboyán para las Artes



MAC SPONSORS
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Fondo Flamboyán para las Artes
Gobierno de Puerto Rico
Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
Comisión Especial Conjunta de Fondos Legislativos para Impacto Comunitario
Ford Foundation
Filantropía PR
Fundación Ángel Ramos
Banco Popular de Puerto Rico
The National Endowment for the Arts
The Boston Foundation
Hispanic Federation
Miranda Foundation
Liberty Business

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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