Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora
September 24 – December 4, 2021
USF Contemporary Art Museum + Online
HOURS: Monday-Friday 10am – 5pm; Thursday 10am–8pm; Saturday 1-4pm; Closed Sundays and USF Holidays (November 11, 25, 26, 27). Visitors to the museum are expected to wear masks and practice social distancing.
Constant Storm: Art From Puerto Rico and the Diaspora will gather, display, record, and conceptualize artistic responses to Hurricane Maria by artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora. Through artworks and their narratives and socially engaged initiatives, voices from the island and Puerto Rican communities in New York and Florida will materialize a synoptic view of Puerto Rico’s fragile recovery as part of an evolving, 121-year-old historical crisis.
Participating artists include: Rogelio Báez Vega, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Jorge González Santos, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Ivelisse Jiménez, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Miguel Luciano, SkittLeZ-Ortiz, Angel Otero, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Gabriel Ramos, Jezabeth Roca González, Gamaliel Rodríguez, Yiyo Tirado Rivera.
Curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator at Large, and Noel Smith, Former Deputy Director and Curator of Latin American and Caribbean Art: organized by USF Contemporary Art Museum
ONLINE EXHIBITION
Exhibition Home // Curatorial Essay | Ensayo Curatorial // Acknowledgements and Foreword | Agradecimientos y Prólogo // Rogelio Báez Vega (EN) | Rogelio Báez Vega (ES) // Jorge González Santos (EN) | Jorge González Santos (ES) // Karlo Andrei Ibarra (EN) | Karlo Andrei Ibarra (ES) // Ivelisse Jiménez (EN) | Ivelisse Jiménez (ES) // Miguel Luciano (EN) | Miguel Luciano (ES) // Natalia Lassalle-Morillo & Sofía Gallisá Muriente (EN) | Natalia Lassalle-Morillo & Sofía Gallisá Muriente (ES) // Angel Otero (EN) | Angel Otero (ES) // Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (EN) | Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (ES) // Gabriel Ramos (EN) | Gabriel Ramos (ES) // Jezabeth Roca González (EN) | Jezabeth Roca González (ES) // Gamaliel Rodríguez (EN) | Gamaliel Rodríguez (ES) // Yiyo Tirado Rivera (EN) | Yiyo Tirado Rivera (ES)
Gabriel Ramos
In a practice generally concerned with ephemerality and the potential of line and shape, Gabriel Ramos’s untitled installation of wire sculptures carries a heft far beyond its apparent fragility. Inspired by childhood memories, he creates works that recall the decorative and utilitarian ironwork that is a distinct feature of Puerto Rican architecture. The colonial-era buildings of Old San Juan are festooned with lacy balustrades and railings; its humbler residential streets are lined with more abstract designs. As if snatching strains of bomba and plena from the atmosphere, Ramos blends in references to music and to Afro-Caribbean artisanal traditions in the bends and balances of his forms. The sinuous lines of his sculptures are also followed by shadows, like memories after an event, doubling and blurring the meanings of the sculptures.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gabriel Ramos (Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, 1987)
Lives and works in Tarpon Springs, FL.
Gabriel Ramos is a sculptor and installation artist whose work includes video and photography. He is a recipient of the Educational Foundation of America Creative Equity Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT); the Cornell Council for the Arts Grant (Ithaca, NY); and was nominated for The Dedalus Foundation Master of Fine Arts Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture (NYC). His work has been featured in many local and international publications and has been exhibited nationally and internationally in locations such as the National Gallery of the Bahamas (Nassau); The National Gallery of Jamaica (Kingston); The Fotofest Biennial (Houston, TX); and The Gasparilla International Film Festival (Tampa, FL).
Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and supported by the Tampa Bay Rays and the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The symposium Bregando with Disasters: Post Hurricane Maria Realities and Resiliencies is supported by a Humanities Centers Grant from Florida Humanities. The USF Contemporary Art Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
