The Loisaida Center is proud to announce

2017 Fine Art Residency Recipient:

Juan Bautista-Climent

July, 2017-October, 2017

Objective

The objective was to create a body of artistic work in various mediums including drawing, painting, and sculpture within the facilities of the Loisaida Center. To explore, together with the Latino community of Loisaida, and open a dialog surrounding the idealistic thought of “Pan-American Culture” as proposed by the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres García in his Constructivist School. This dialogue and exploration will be facilitated via workshops and open-studios hosted at the center.

Overview

Juan Bautista-Climent was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1989, and was raised in Mexico City. He began his studies in animated cinema in Mexico City and later decided to move to his mother’s homeland, Puerto Rico, where he studied painting at the School of Fine Arts of Puerto Rico (EAP). His work, although covering various media, always projects drawing reflections, and he has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Italy.

In early 2013, he created the Free and Public Drawing School Project, an educational and dialogue space around the drawing with everyone, whatever their profession. He has collaborated and co-directed the Area gallery in Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Juan Bautista lives in the South Bronx where he mainly works out of his art studio and teaches Visual Arts in different community centers throughout the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He has collaborated on numerous occasions with Loisaida Center, including being commissioned to create a poster for the Loisaida Festival for its 30th Anniversary and the organization of the Community Mural “La Lucha Continúa” in the First Street Green Art Park.

Completed Project

Drawing from the vision of constructivist art and pan-American culture championed by the Latin American modernist, Joaquín Torres-Garcia, the spontaneous reuse, recycling of the materials that surround our neighborhood as “discarded” or “trash”, open discussions, and the sharing of Juan’s artistic process with the community, Bautista-Climent put together a community art and recycling project for Loisaida’s 2017 Summer Program – Garbagia Island. The project took place at the Loisaida Center from August to September. Additionally, Juan had a solo exhibition showcasing all the artistic work that was developed throughout the residency and invited dialogue with academics who enrich the issues concerning the conception of art and constructivist culture.

The Constructivist View: Torres García’s conception of Culture is extremely relevant and pertinent in our contemporaneity and even more so in the complex multicultural phenomenon that Latino populations live on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The relevance of this definition is that it considers that the cultures of the continent of America must forge their identity not just in a historical-social, but also a cosmic-universal way.

A more detailed outline of Bautista’s time at Loisaida is below:

July: CONSTRUCTIVIST MONTH – In Commemoration of Joaquín Torres García

Series of workshops and conferences on Joaquín Torres García Constructivism in Spanish and English language.
Artist open-studio (Every Thursday, Friday & Saturday from 1pm to 6pm)

1. Introductory Workshops on Constructivist Aesthetics By María Eugenia Méndez-Marconi

BIO: María Eugenia studied drawing and painting with Maestro Anhelo Hernández (direct disciple of Maestro Joaquín Torres-García) and with Gabriel Bruzzone and Marcelo Larrosa at the Instituto Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, Universidad de la República. Graduate of the University Technician in Museology, Faculty of Humanities (UdelaR). Teaches Visual Education and Fine Arts, in private secondary school; is Assistant Professor at the National School of Fine Arts Institute at the Bruzzone Workshop. She is currently carrying out an investigation about the written work of Maestro Torres-García, with emphasis on his aspects as a teacher, according to the guidance of Don Marcos Torres-Andrada (grandson of Torres-García).

Friday, July 14th: Initial theoretical instance, J.T.G biographical presentation (7:00 pm-9:00pm)

Saturday, July 15th: Introductory Workshops on Constructivist Aesthetics. (For youngsters from 12 to 16 years old from 9:00 am-1:00 pm, and for those over 17 years old, from 3:00 pm-6:00 pm)

2. Exposition of the Constructivist Doctrine By Marcos Torres Andrada

BIO: Marcos Torres Andrada, son of the painter Augusto Torres, who received by direct oral tradition, the philosophy proposed by his grandfather, Maestro Joaquín Torres García, in his Constructivist School.

Friday, July 21st: Conference: “Relevancy and Urgency of the Constructivist Proposal” (7:00 pm-9:00 pm) This conference brought to light fundamental concepts of the Constructivist Proposal highly relevant in the Contemporaneity of the American Continent and global challenges.

Friday, July 28th: Tribute to Maestro Torres García’s Legacy. Introduction to Constructivist Thinking (7:00 pm-9:00 pm)

This commemorative event has been held for fifty consecutive years, thanks to the Uruguayan Embassy, Consulate and Uruguayan Diaspora of NYC. Torres-Garcia’s grandson, Marcos Torres, was present to give a brief scope of the hemispheric influence of his grandfather’s influential Escuela Constructivista in Uruguay and the rest of the world from its beginning to the present day.

Saturday, July 29th: Comments on the text “The Tradition of the Abstract Man” (9:00 am-5:00pm, with recess between 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm)

Original intensive workshop that deepened the constructivist concepts of visionary Torres García, making a thorough reading and revision of his text “The Tradition of the Abstract Man”.

August: ART PRODUCTION

Artist open-studio (Every Thursday, Friday, & Saturday, 1:00 pm-6:00 pm)
Garbagia Island – “Garbagia Universe”
Art Production

September: SOLO EXHIBITION

Thursday, September 7th: Solo Exhibition Opening

Friday, September 22nd: Conference: “Relevancy and Urgency of the Constructivist Proposal”(7:00 pm -9:00 pm)

Theoretical lecture on concepts dealing with the exhibition