Boricua Artists in Cooper Square

It’s January 31 of this year, 6:15 p.m., and I’m attending an exhibition not just because I was invited, but because several Puerto Rican artists were being presented. And while my attendance at opening nights is unusual—especially rainy ones—I was there.

I found myself at 20 Cooper Square in New York about 15 minutes after the opening, a bit wet from the weather, but it didn’t matter when I saw pressed against the window the sign for RICANVISIONS: Global Ancestralities and Embodied Futures, an exhibition whose purpose was to highlight 19 artists across two categories: Diasporicans and Nuyoricans.

The exhibition, organized by The Latinx Project and its curatorial team—Andrea Sofía Matos, Ana Hilda Figueroa de Jesús, and Xavier Robles Armas—marked an important milestone for the organization. More than a simple exhibition, it was a celebration of Puerto Rican artistic legacy, perfectly aligned with the launch of the book Nuyorican & Diasporican Visual Art: A Critical Anthology. Edited by Arlene Dávila and Yasmín Ramírez, the book gathers texts from researchers and historians, further cementing the importance of the Puerto Rican art movement in New York.

I entered the exhibition, where a small but growing crowd was observing the works. I took a first walk through and viewed the art, which was divided into two spaces: one on the ground floor facing the street and another on the third floor of the building. I visited both before returning to the ground floor to speak with two of the curators, Ana and Andrea, who had invited me. I found them quickly, greeted them, hugged them, and congratulated them on the show. After exchanging a few words, it was undeniable that the modest crowd had grown to completely fill the space. By the end of the night, over 500 people had enjoyed the art, a vibrant mix of bomba, plena, salsa, merengue, and reggaeton, and delicious empanadas from Puerto Rican restaurant Cocotazo, making the two-hour opening a true celebration.

On a second walk through the exhibition, I confirmed that the congratulations were well deserved. The show was split into two parts, with titles corresponding to the two floors. The ground floor was dedicated to Global Ancestralities. Here, two pieces particularly caught my attention. The first was Jet Blu by Keysha Rivera, a soft oval sculpture measuring 15” x 13” made of polyester and fiber, in which a photograph is torn in two by the wing of a plane, exploring memory and the separation of families caused by migration. The second was ¿Y Tu Abuela, Dónde Está? by Lee Jiménez, an installation impossible to ignore at the center of the space. It consists of a rug, a chair, a side table, and a rotary phone featuring an interactive audio between the artist and her mother, accompanied by the soundscapes of New York and Puerto Rico, reinforcing the migratory culture of Puerto Ricans in the United States and their constant call home.

The second space, on the third floor, focused on Embodied Futures. Here I found myself contemplating Picturing Lifescape Sweeter (after EK) by Isaac Vázquez, a work composed of three 5 ½” x 24″ planks covered in sugar bichromate. Two have a green chromatic layer and are placed on top, and the third a cream-yellow tone, evoking Puerto Rican beach landscapes, connecting to the artist’s personal history and collective memory. The last piece I want to highlight is No by Tamara Torres, a painted collage on canvas measuring 15″ x 28″ that reflects on the #MeToo movement and the Puerto Rican #NiUnaMenos struggle, advocating for women’s rights, justice, and equality, and shedding light on the darkness many must face in order to survive—darkness that shouldn’t exist.

From my perspective, the exhibition stood apart from the constant metatextual shows about politics or the worn-out narrative post-Hurricane María, which has dominated the last decade of Puerto Rican art. It’s not that there weren’t politically charged works, but that wasn’t the focus. The aim was to present 19 artists from the diaspora and of Puerto Rican descent in New York. This mix resulted in a refreshing encounter of thematic variety, covering life away from the island, migration, heritage, cultural connection, and personal narratives, as well as juxtapositions between traditional media, new media, figurative, abstraction, size, and composition.

This is something we rarely see nowadays, and it raises important questions: Will we be able to have Puerto Rican exhibitions that exist simply for their artistic value? Will the time come when curatorial and gallery decisions are based solely on artistic criteria, without relying so heavily on external factors like grants? Will we be able to exhibit what’s being created now, regardless of theme? I only know this: exhibitions like this one give me hope.