Photography Without Borders

June 14 - July 20, 2013

*Opening Reception: Friday June 14, 5:30 - 8PM

Closing Reception: Saturday, July 20, 2-5PM

Taller Puertorriqueño is pleased to present photographer/educator Tony Rocco and his students from North Philadelphia, PA, and La Florida, Colombia, to conclude their three-year-long cultural exchange program in photography, education, and youth leadership in a multimedia exhibition in the Lorenzo Homar Gallery. 

This unique exhibition publicly acknowledges the powerful perspective of youths from inner-city America and rural Colombia who face the daily challenges of living in marginalized communities.  Rocco’s photographs bridge these two communities and respond in tandem with the students' work as they utilize photography as a medium to explore and compare their worlds.

*A group of students and chaperones from La Florida, Colombia will attend the opening reception on June 14th. The cross-cultural exhibition then travels to Colombia as the Philadelphia delegation embarks on a 10-day tour this summer of Medellín, Cali, and Bogotá, sponsored by the US Embassy and concludes with another group exhibition in Bogota in August, 2013.

Photography Without Borders is a photography outreach program that builds bridges between youth in marginalized communities around the world. For more info. please go to www.photography-without-borders.com. 

Dino Vazquez - Futuro Metálico

Lorenzo Homar Gallery

Dates: April 19th to May 25th, 2013

Reception: April 19th, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Taller Puertorriqueño, as part of the Claiming Places cycle, is pleased to present Dino Vazquez’s first show at the Lorenzo Homar Gallery. Vazquez is a self-taught Philadelphia-based artist and vernacular architect who works with found materials to create robotic assemblages. His home is a destination point in his community of North Philadelphia and an example of his singular vision. For his exhibition, he recreates his home to bring together his passions for working with found materials and design to create areas that disrupt patterns of behavior in order to comment on the repeated sequences of seeing and acting that he views as problematic in society. His work, he feels, is also a statement for the preservation and protection of the environment.

Dino Vazquez

About the artist

Born in Bayamon Puerto Rico in 1957, Vazquez recalls starting making art at age 9 with wood carvings and drawings. Then life led him away from art, and he dedicated 10 years of his life to surfing. During those ten years he developed a newfound respect for nature. Looking to settle down, he moved to the United States in 1987 where he married and raised two children. Tragic events in his life again changed his path, where he rediscovered his interest in art as form of emotional release.

Esperanza Cortés: In Entre Sombras - Site of Memories

Lorenzo Homar Gallery

February 8th to March 30th, 2013

Reception:

Friday, February 8th, 5:30 to 8:00 p.m

Esperanza Cortés’ installations and paintings in Entre Sombras - Site of Memories, are tokens of human frailty, fears, and injustices that as a woman, mother, Colombian and Latina shape the world she sees. The Lorenzo Homar Gallery was fully resurfaced and smoothed as an essential part of the installation. Working with glass beads, clay, pigments and household objects such as chairs, sewing machine tables, metal chains and a basket she transformed into a bassinet, Cortés seeks to connect with individuals on a primal level, jolting the viewer with the familiarity of these objects against the otherwise stark presentation. She sees the female form and femininity as a center that is encircled and encompassed by compassion, violence, life, death, place and belonging.

The works presented here touch on the consequences of violence on women through war and abuse, exploitation of resources, financial insecurity, birth and death, and racial profiling.

Cortés, born in Bogotá, Colombia, emigrated to New York City at the age of four. Her interest in art began as a child and was shaped by her experiences in the Catholic Church through its ceremonies, altars, architecture and stained glass windows. She was also drawn into the arts by her family, her father’s work with metal, her mother’s knitting, beadwork and crocheting, and her grandmother’s cooking and stories of her native Colombia. As an artist, she sees a duality between personal and community roles. Within the gallery walls, her work feeds on her personal visions and experiences. Out in the streets, her methodology changes. Her work reacts to the environment, and, as she describes, is “in dialogue with its surroundings.”

Cortés lives and works in New York and has exhibited widely throughout the United States in places such as the Neuberger Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, the Cleveland Art Museum, and the Mexic-Arte Museum in Texas.

Her website is here.

A Video Snapshot of the Triangulations Exhibition

Video Snapshot of Triangulations from Taller Puertorriqueño on Vimeo.

A video sample of Merián Soto's exhibition, TRIANGULATIONS: Revisiting OYWPP at Taller Puertorriqueño's Lorenzo Homar Gallery. On view from December 7th 2012 to January 19th, 2013. More information on the show is here.

TRIANGULATIONS: Revisiting OYWPP, Merián Soto

Poster for the show.

Jumatatu Poe self documents. Photo: Pepón Osorio (2007)

Merián Soto

December 7th to January 19th, 2013
at the Lorenzo Homar Gallery

Reception:
December 7th, 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.

Triangulations, Soto’s first one-person exhibition features two, three-channel video works created from a number of performance-documents from the award–winning One Year Wissahickon Park Project   (OYWPP). The videos were generated through a process wherein the performer documents her/his own performance. Triangulations recaptures the intersection of movement, sound, place and time in OYWPP.

OYWPP was a series of branch dance performances in Wissahickon Park throughout 07-08, featuring dancers Shavon Norris, Olive Prince, Jumatatu Poe, Noemí Segarra, Merián Soto, and percussionist and composer Toshi Makihara. It was designed around the concept of working with the four seasons, in four sites, for four performances in each site for a total of 16 performances. Performances lasted 45 minutes and were held Sunday mornings at 10:30 AM, to take advantage of the crisp morning air and angled sunlight. The 16 performances were completed in all sorts of conditions including temperatures ranging from 20 to 98 degrees, rain, snow, sleet, and high winds. OYWPP was awarded a ROCKY (Greater Philadelphia Dance & Physical Theater Award) in 2008.

Installation view.  Front Gallery

A brief video of the exhibition is presented here.

Triangulations: Revisiting OYWPP continues Soto’s Branch Dance Series that began in 2005. The series has included dozens of solo “guerilla” performances in Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Park (2005–06), the award-winning year-long seasonal project One Year Wissahickon Park Project or OYWPP (2007–08), critically acclaimed staged works, the performance/installation Postcards From the Woods (2009 Live Arts Festival), two year-long “sister” projects of four seasonal performances: Wissahickon Reunion in Philadelphia, and Branch Dances at Wave Hill in New York City, and most recently the monumental and critically acclaimed SoMoS that concluded Taller Puertorriqueño’s Café Under the Stars Performance Series. 

The branch dances are simple, yet powerfully communicative, works centered on consciousness in performance and in practice. They are grounded in a meditative dance practice involving the detailed sequencing of movements through the investigation of gravity through a dynamic shifting of balance and alignment. The placement of the body in nature, either real or simulated, triggers recognition of ourselves as nature. 

More information on her Branch Dances can be found at: http://branchdances.blogspot.com

Merián Soto began working with video in the mid-1970’s, collaborating with video artist Edín Vélez on early experiments with interactive video. In the early 1980’s, Soto studied and performed with Elaine Summers, an original Judson Dance Theater artist, co-founder of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation and pioneer of dances in projected environments. Soto has collaborated extensively with award-winning visual artist Pepón Osorio on large-scale performance works incorporating videos such as No Regrets (1987), Historias (1992) and Familias (1995), as well as with filmmaker Irene Sosa— Así se Baila un Son (1999), Prequel(a): Deconstruction of a Passion for Salsa (2002), and La Máquina del Tiempo (2004). In her recent Branch Dance Series, she has expanded her work with video using nature footage to create immersive performance environments in critically acclaimed works such as States of Gravity & Light (2007), Postcards From the Woods (2009) and SoMoS (2012). Soto is a PennPAT roster artist and an Associate Professor of Dance at the Esther Boyer College of Music & Dance at Temple University.

Reception for Triangulations

Videos in the exhibition: 

Triangulations: Revisiting OYWPP

Concept- Direction- Editing: Merián Soto

Music: Toshi Makihara

Projection Consultant: Lauren Mandilian

Sound editing: Cicada Brokaw Dennis

Assistant to Merián Soto: Melisa Putz

Photos: Pepón Osorio

VIDEOS: 

10/7/07, Livezy Dam,   8:42 min.

Dancers:  Noemí Segarra, Olive Prince, Danielle Kinne, Shavon Norris, Merián Soto

Camera: Noemí Segarra, Shavon Norris, Merián Soto

2/24/08,  Bluebell Meadow  4:57 min.

Dancer & Camera: Jumatatu Poe

3/09/08,  Mt Airy Avenue 7:16 min.

Dancers: Merián Soto & Jumatatu Poe

Musician: Toshi Makihara

Camera: Merián Soto & Jumatatu Poe

6/8/08,  Livezy Dam 8:42 min.

Dancer & Camera: Jumatatu Poe

3/9/08,   Cathedral 6:40 min.

Dancer and Camera: Shavon Norris

2/20/10, Lake Erie 6:52 min.

Dancers: Beau Hancock, Caitlin Quinn, Merián Soto

Camera:  Merián Soto

One Year Wissahickon Park Project: Summer, 2008 22:00 min.

Directed by Merián Soto

Camera and Editing:  Laura Zimmerman

Dancers: Olive Prince, Noemí Segarra, Shavon Norris, Jumatatu Poe, Merián Soto

Musician: Toshi Makihar

Video Interview with Cesar Viveros on his show

César Viveros Herrera from Taller Puertorriqueño on Vimeo.

Here is an interview conducted with Viveros before the opening of his show, No Me Conformo, at Taller Puertorriqueño.  He discusses the reasoning behind the name of his show and what it takes for him, as an immigrant, to be fully integrated into America society. 

Monarca and the Communal Mural Wall

Monarca kids at work on the mural

Friday, November 9th, the kids of Casa Monarca came to Taller to see the exhibitions and work on Viveros's communal mural wall.   Viveros started the mural in white with a necklace made out of the symbols of the months taken from the Mayan calendar sprouting from the back of his stone Kulkan's head.

Detail of child at work

The kids enjoyed working on the mural and learning about Mayan and Aztec history.

The kids enjoyed painting on the wall

The exhibition ends on November 10th.

Group Shot

The finished wall.

Visit from Memories in the Making to No Me Conformo

This morning Dora Viacava and Alicia Mino brought a group from Memories in the Making (Memories) to work on the communal mural that is part of César Viveros' No Me Conformo exhibition.  Memories is a program of Taller's that brings each week specially trained artist to work with the elderly who have been afflicted with memory loss or dementia to work on art.   The art making for the elderly  helps to ground them and maintain connection to their surroundings.

Memories in the Making

Bringing them together to work on Viveros's communal wall was a blending of experiences.  Viveros's exhibition is a Teocalli,  a temple or God house where all who come can contribute.

A member of Memories points the section she worked on

Created from Viveros memories, our impressions through touch, all the work can be handled by the public, by participating in either the Day of the Dead altar or on the mural, be left.  Direct interactions become a dialogue with what he begun.  The people become in active in the experience.  Their thoughts, their feelings in that moment of painting on the wall gets recorded in the work.

No Me Conformo for Viveros is a statement of not giving up what make him who he is. For this group of citizens, it something that they are familiar with.

Taller's Day of the Dead Celebration

Day of the Dead Altar.
The back drop is skull rack, his Tzompantli that he created in 2008

On Friday, November 2nd, at 5:30PM  Cesar Viveros as part his exhibition, No Me Conformo, brought the Mexican national holiday and tradition, the celebration of the Day of the Dead to Taller Puertorriqueño.  The celebration of the holiday falls on November 1 and 2nd, which coincides with the Christian Holidays, All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  This is example of syncretism of distinct traditions.

Viveros preparing his altar

“The belief is that for two days, there is a path to the other world that allows the souls to return and taste some of the things they used to enjoy,” Viveros said.

Taller's Executive Director, Carmen Febo San Miguel in front of the altar

In his exhibition, Viveros shares a private custom with the public.  This is in continuation with his theme of his exhibition,  of creating contexts where the audience conforms to his expectations and views as a Mexican immigrant. In this case it the following of the celebration of the Day of the Dead.  A tradition the predated the European colonization of the Americas.

Day of the Dead in Mexico is a family event, that is celebrated with altars and visits to the tombs of love ones.  It is comprised of sugar skulls, portraits of the loved ones, momentos, candys and foods as ofrendas (offerings).  The colors are usually festive, and death is made fun of.  Viveros has described this day not only as a time to remember your loved ones but also as a celebration of life.

The altar will be up until the end of the exhibition on November 10th.

César Viveros Herrera: No Me Conformo

Poster for No Me Conformo

September 28th to November 10th, 2012

Lorenzo Homar Gallery

West wing view of the gallery

For this exhibition, César Viveros Herrera asked for the Lorenzo Homar Gallery to be painted a deep red so he could recreate a temple or “teocalli” of out of the memories of his youth. Born in Tejería, Veracruz, Viveros, working from the recollections of his childhood where he would come across ancient artifacts from past civilizations in his father’s cornfields, recreates precious iconographic pieces to construct an ancient place that is still alive and real. It is a world populated with relics of Coatlicue, the Aztec Mother God, to Kukulkan, the feathered serpent, and ancient ruins. To many of the people of his town, these relics did not seem valuable, but to him, the artifacts awoke an intense interest in learning about pre-Columbian civilization and his personal connections to them. Viveros perceives that connection with civilizations from the Olmecs to the Mayans, the Aztecs and Mexico, and with him here, a connection to Philadelphia. 

Kukulkan

As a muralist, Viveros applies his keen sense for seeing these connections to each community he makes a mural for. He is able to listen to the people, opening himself to them so to comprehend their needs and desires. In this show, he is listening to his own voices, his present context, and his cultural and ancestral influences. Over the coming weeks, he will use the walls of the gallery to create a personal mural. On November 2nd, he will conduct a ceremony for the Day of Dead. During the reception, guests can go to a computer station, provide their name, and, by using the Mayan calendar, decipher their Mayan name. 

Reception for No Me Conformo.  Participants working on the mural. 

César Viveros Herrera has been painting murals in Philadelphia for the past 10 years in a wide range of communities. His photorealistic murals offer fantastical collages, often covering entire sides of buildings to create a reflective sense of place for the particular community it depicts and with whom he deeply engages. One of his murals is New Fire (Fuego Nuevo), on Girard near 3rd street, and Cops and Kids at S. 20th St. and Point Breeze Ave. He is also the president of the Mexican Cultural Center.

Other post on Viveros is here.

Interview with Viveros is here.