Bronx Latin American Art Biennial @ Loisaida Center

ARTISTS:
Antonio Tovar, Darío Fresco,
Ed Álvarez, Edwin Torres, Evelin Velásquez, Frank Guiller, Hillie Galarza, Ignacio Soltero, Jonás Hidalgo, Luis Carle, Ray Llanos, Rafael Carabano, Yelaine Rodríguez.

SPECIAL PERFORMANCE BY:
Carlos Rivera

Bronx Latin American Art Biennial’s Curators:
Alexis Mendoza & Luis Stephenberg

OVERVIEW
I am one of those peoples that…

The 2016 edition of the Bronx Latin American Art Biennial under the title, “I am one of those people that…” will examine artworks referring to personal aspects of the creation process, what is in the mind of the artists sometimes is not what is reflecting on the work or the personal opinion; the personal philosophy. The curators and organizers of the 5th Bronx Latin American Art Biennial will focus the selection of the artworks more in the way artists think and what are the specifics behind the creating process. We encourage the artists to be very vocal about their work. Also, our intention is to have the opportunity to explore some of today’s local, national and international social issues such as: migration, women’s rights, political conflicts, different types of discrimination, and more important issues that reflect on the autonomy of the opinion. We are not seeking for every artwork to be a portrait or self-portraits, rather to be a self-representation of the artist’s way of thinking.

Sometimes art’s autonomy is proposed not as a genuine theoretical claim but as strategic one, where the suggestion is that only by claiming that art is indemnified by its very nature against moral culture can we prevent the forms of censorship that art is regularly subject to. But this strategic appeal to autonomy may purchase art’s freedom only at the cost of denying art’s power. I believe that a society that supports the arts supports the cultivation of minds that are able to pay attention, to think and notice what’s on artists’ minds become a habitual experience. Only then are there opportunities to reinforce the national culture. That will be the ultimate autonomy. Here we have drawn unlikely under current conditions, opinion, proposing instead a problematization of the same to the extent that we would no longer or with a referential field or with the discursive strategies capable of taking charge of the experience under the dissolutive operations that ideology, while constituting each of the moments of the object, has practiced on the disciplines and techniques that seek to address it.

2016 Community Screenprinting Workshops

 HSC logo                                                      The Loisaida Center logo


Hester Street Collaborative                 &                          The Loisaida Center

   proudly presents:


 Water-Base Screen Printing Workshop 2016


8 sessions – YOU CHOOSE EITHER: Tuesday classes or Thursday classes;

Monday, 7:00pm – 9:30pm 

Thursday, 7:00pm – 9:30pm

FREE!

Ages 16+


Overview:

For a 2nd year, Hester Street Collaborative happy to announce that we are partnering with the Loisaida center to offer FREE Screen-printing workshops for immigrant, Asian and Latino communities on the Lower East Side. All skill levels are welcome, ages 16 and up.

The workshop series will reflect the neighborhood tradition of art activism and cultural preservation. Art will be the vehicle that unites members of Asian and Latino immigrant communities to discuss, create and build the artistic capacity necessary for socio-cultural change. Our goal is to create opportunities to develop important artistic skills while sharing across differences that would not otherwise be possible. 

Workshops will be focused on current social justice issues – from immigrant rights to climate change to cultural identity. We will work with participants to increase their understanding of the built environment, expose them to art/design careers, develop age-specific art/design skills, and actively improve their neighborhood’s quality of life.


Register here:Eventbrite - Community Screen Printing Workshop 2016


The New Rican Spirit

photo by: Jose Carrero
New Rican Village Alumni Reunion, Round-Table and Reception
(celebrating the Young Lords cultural legacy to the Lower East Side)

The purpose of this activity is to:

1. Recognize the Lower East Side neighborhood legacy of the Young Lords Party.

2. Honor the 25th anniversary of the passing of Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village Cultural Arts center, whose battle with cancer ended in 1990.

3. Offer an opportunity for peer organizations to celebrate a community instrumental in creating an innovative Latin@ arts spirit and institution within New York City.
The New Rican Spirit-A Celebration of the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center, Eddie Figueroa, and ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York

Starting with the Young Lords Party’s (YLP) official announcement at Tompkins Square Park in 1969, the ¡Presente! exhibition highlights the important activism spearheaded by the YLP as it operated within the context of the Lower East Side.

One of the institutions that came out of this era was the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center (NRV) established by Lower East Young Lord member, Eddie Figueroa. The NRV, is an overlooked and under-appreciated Loisaida cultural arts institution that was as an aesthetic laboratory for a working-class, Puerto Rican/Latin@ avant-garde arts community since it opened in 1976 through its closing in 1979 (it continued to exist in other locations throughout New York City).

This art collective’s goals fostered a social surrealism that sought to transform both aesthetic forms and neighborhoods. The inter-arts community of musicians, poets, painters, actors, dancers, sculptors, and visual artists at the New Rican Village envisioned the importance of building community art spaces and political sovereignty by establishing and building an independent, community-based arts institution and also contributing to a Latin@ cultural arts scene within New York City, helping establish a Latin@ Cultural Left that was emerging among various Puerto Rican/Latino cultural arts centers at the time. Finally, the NRV helped to foster a New Rican Renaissance that celebrated a marginalized identity, and also translate the zeitgest of resistance and aesthetic and intellectual exploration into various art forms.

This event would not be possible without the co-sponsorship support of: Lower Eastside Girls Club, AllCare Provider Services, Inc.Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Education Center,Latino Studies Department at Fordham UniversityCarlos Aponte, Lisa Baltazar, Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé,Pepe Flores, Libertad Guerra, Ana Ramos,Wilson Valentín-Escobar.

Collective Group Show

en casa afuera

June 12- 19

Opening Reception and Performances June 12 at 6:00 pm.

A live exhibit which will bring together new young artists— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota.


 

Curatorial Statement 

en casa afuera

Think gentrification is completely erasing the hirstory and identities of native New York residents? Think again. Amidst new developments, increasing rents, empty storefronts, newcomers in LES, Crown Heights, Washington Heights, Harlem, & Bushwick, artists are finding ways to claim their stake in the areas, tethering the old soul of these communities. A group of such artists are coming to Loisaida, Inc.’s Center, one of the remaining physical spaces serving the LES and NYC Latino and independent community, to present a series of interactive works paying tribute to the Home(s).

en casa afuera, a live exhibit which will run from June 12th to June 19th, brings together new young artists from the metropolitan New York and New Jersey region spanning the ages of mid 20’s-30’s.— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota. They came together to investigate the intersections of home and displacement, as well as the potential for art making to reflect and revision these relations. Loisaida Inc., as the performance hub, may then be the home or shelter that localizes this web of creative results.

The process of what initially began as a series of conversations on the shifting dynamics of New York City, the forces that will it, and what is authentic in these urban amalgamations, developed into a need to generate around these lofty queries – what is home? and what remains as the physical departs from what we know it to be? (whether by a stripping of possession or decay.) Lastly, what does this process of transition look like, feel like, for us?

Visitors and members of the community, old and new, are encouraged to the engage in and think about the daily rituals of Home(s). The series of installations range from the symbolic to the banal. One of the works, a collage in the main hallways shows a Nuyorican’s response to gentrification while another shares with audiences the everyday objects our communities use to pamper themselves. Together, all works zoom in and out of the experience of a changing neighborhood.

en casa afuera represents and shines light onto the complex process of change and gentrification in NYC, and celebrates the histories that are passed on from generation to generation and carried everywhere. Above all, they encourage artists and guests to preserving our stories and our communities will follow.

When asked what Loisaida means for them the group responded:
“Loisaida has been an iconic place-maker for both its residents and the world at large. It architecturally houses the pride and cultural breadth of a community, while transcending the energetic embodiment of LES – a location/identity in flux. These dynamics are at the heart of our creative interests and explorations en casa afuera.”


 

La TRIFECTA – Loisaida Trimester Benefit Party

La T R I F E C T A

6:00pm

(M)others’ Politics Performances: A documentation of Jeca Rodríguez-Colón’s maternal characters captured by Ricardo Alcaraz, Ben Lundberg, Marlène Ramirez- Cancio, Linda Duvall, Mariángel Gonzales and Deborah Dudley. Curated by Alejandro Epifanio.

8:00pm

ZOETROPE: Excerpts of Part 1 and 2 by: Caborca Theatre Co. A glimpse of Caborca’s most recent work -developed here at Loisaida Center during our Theater Company. residency program.

9:00pm

Buscabulla (Spanish slang for troublemaker) is the music project of Puerto Rican designer and Brooklyn resident, Raquel Berrios and Luis Alfredo Del Valle.Heavily influenced by vintage Latin music like salsa gorda, Cuban psych and ’80s Argentinian rock, the project combines both electronic and live instrumentation.

DJ sets by: Gabo Lugo


Turning-Life-backFFFF


Exhibition will open at 5:30pm. Entrance is FREE before 7:30pm. 

Admission is $12 after 9:00pm. Keep your receipt for the after-party…