Rogelio Baéz Vega, ID. Escuela Tomás Carrión Maduro, Santurce, Puerto Rico - New on the Market, 2021. oil, beeswax and gold pigment on canvas; 60 x 84 in. Courtesy of the artist
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)
Rogelio Báez Vega
Rogelio Báez Vega's large-scale painting ID. Escuela Tomás Carrión Maduro, Santurce, Puerto Rico - New on the Market, is part of a new series tentatively titled “De memoria” (From Memory). His richly textured canvases often portray iconic modernist buildings dating from Puerto Rico's post war modernization boom. Sometimes shown overgrown by the archipelago's lush vegetation, his images create a narrative that implies a dystopian, failed future. However, with the private sale of the Escuela Tomás Carrión Maduro, a public school, Báez Vega also announces that that future is here. The painting's layers of oil, beeswax, and gold pigment endow the weathered building with a tactile glow, offset by a general air of neglect in addition to the image’s deadpan presentation as real estate. One of many neighborhood public schools closed since Maria, the privatization of the Escuela Tomás Carrión represents the loss of the neighborhood institutions the artist cherishes, while providing a sign of the dystopian future he fears.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rogelio Báez Vega (Santurce, Puerto Rico, 1974)
Lives and works in Santurce and New York.
Rogelio Báez Vega is a painter, sculptor, and installation artist. Themes of architecture and special habitats are the focus of his practice. He was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Emergency Grant, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Emergency Grant, and the Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Grant. His work has been shown at KM 0.2 (Santurce, PR); the Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar (San Juan, PR); the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL); and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (San Juan, PR). His work is represented in the collections of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; Oriental Bank & Trust (PR); and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (San Luis Potosi, Mexico).
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.
