News & Press

Handbook of Latinx Art

About the Book

A curated selection of key texts and artists’ voices exploring US Latinx art and art history from the 1960s to the present.
 
A Handbook of Latinx Art is the first anthology to explore the rich, deep, and often overlooked contributions that Latinx artists have made to art in the United States. Drawn from wide-ranging sources, this volume includes texts by artists, critics, and scholars from the 1960s to the present that reflect the diversity of the Latinx experience across the nation, from the West Coast and the Mexican border to New York, Miami, and the Midwest.
 
The anthology features essential writings by Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, Dominican American, and Central American artists to highlight how visionaries of diverse immigrant groups negotiate issues of participation and belonging, material, style, and community in their own voices. These intersectional essays cut across region, gender, race, and class to lay out a complex emerging field that reckons with different histories, geographies, and political engagements and, ultimately, underscores the importance of Latinx artists to the history of American art.

About the Book

A curated selection of key texts and artists’ voices exploring US Latinx art and art history from the 1960s to the present.
 
A Handbook of Latinx Art is the first anthology to explore the rich, deep, and often overlooked contributions that Latinx artists have made to art in the United States. Drawn from wide-ranging sources, this volume includes texts by artists, critics, and scholars from the 1960s to the present that reflect the diversity of the Latinx experience across the nation, from the West Coast and the Mexican border to New York, Miami, and the Midwest.
 
The anthology features essential writings by Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, Dominican American, and Central American artists to highlight how visionaries of diverse immigrant groups negotiate issues of participation and belonging, material, style, and community in their own voices. These intersectional essays cut across region, gender, race, and class to lay out a complex emerging field that reckons with different histories, geographies, and political engagements and, ultimately, underscores the importance of Latinx artists to the history of American art.

About the Author

Rocío Aranda-Alvarado is an art historian and curator focused on contemporary US Latinx and modern and contemporary Latin American, Caribbean, and African American art. She is Senior Program Officer for arts and culture at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice.
 
Deborah Cullen-Morales is an art historian and curator focused on modern and contemporary Latinx, Caribbean, and African American art. She is Program Officer for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder in the arts, culture, and humanities.

Read More
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz

�🇷 Borikua artists have long shown us how to make something beautiful out of the myriad of circumstances we find ourselves in while straddling all the places we call home - from the coasts and the mountains of our Puerto Rican archipelago to the urban and suburban communities of the Diaspora.

🗓️ Friday, June 6 at 7PM we will have an open conversation in New York City with a multitude of artists about how their work connects to place as it reminds us of home and celebrates our creativity and culture beginning with women who have used textiles to tell stories of resilience.

✨ We are grateful to host all of these dynamic artists including the Hip hop Vanguard @larokafella who has left an indelible mark on the history of Breakin’ from decades of work that has advocated for the recognition and inclusion of women in the culture including her documentary “All the Ladies Say” to serving on The NYC Bessie's Dance Awards Committee to taking her experience from street dance battles to professorship at the New School University and having her Adidas jacket (worn in this photo) displayed at the Smithsonian.

✨ Joining us in conversation is interdisciplinary artist @wanda_raimundi whose work is celebrated for how it interrogates female archetypes and highlights ancestral connections; has been displayed in multiple national and international cultural spaces (like the Gyeongnam Art Museum in South Korea); has led a celebrated academic career leading to full professorship at George Mason University; and many beloved projects including the compelling public performance Exodus | Pilgrimage (as seen in this photo) which explored themes of migration after Hurricane María and our collective enduring cultural resilience.

✨ This conversation will be moderated by PROPA founder, public historian, genealogist and artist Melanie Maldonado Díaz whose own Bomba skirt (seen in this photo) is now on display at the Smithsonian.

📍Join us at El Museo del Barrio for this community conversation followed by an open batey for Bomba. Bring your drums, your maracas and your skirts or shawls to join us in this celebration of Borikua Remembrance!

Read More
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz at Staniar Gallery Fall 2024

Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz: Quiero Ir pa’l monte (I want to go to the mountains)

Lecture and Reception

Oct 29, 2024, 5:30-6:30 (Wilson Hall's Concert Hall)

October 28-December 13, 2024

About The Exhibition

Quiero Ir pa'l monte means "I want to go to the mountains," which describes Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz's recent journey to her ancestral homeland. As a stateside-raised Diaspo-Rican, the trip revealed a desire to know the island more intimately. Inspired by winding countryside road trips with her sister as her tour guide, Raimundi-Ortiz creates large-scale charcoal and pastel studies of plants and trees adapted from photos she took during the trip. Through the physicality of marking and erasing, her work involves a process of actively learning the curves and textures of Puerto Rico. The work threads together the narratives of joy, sanctuary, returning home, and learning about the land of her mother to pass on that knowledge and heritage to her son. Ultimately, her pieces strive to bridge the gap, both tangible and generational, between mother and son. Quiero Ir pa'l monte (I want to go to the mountains) is co-curated by Andrea Lepage, Pamela H. Simpson Professor of Art History, and Kevin McNamee-Tweed.

Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work pulls from 17th and 18th-century European portraiture, comic books, sketch comedy, folkloric dance, and installation to address race, bias, trauma, and healing. Her work has been featured in venues such as The Momentary, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Arts and Design, Garage Museum Moscow, Orlando Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Gyeongnam Art Museum, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; and at the Manifesta and Performa biennials.

Read More