Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Cessa and Chuleta Talk Gringo Lingo, 2019
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)
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz's Exodus / Pilgrimage (2019) addresses the violence of Hurricane Maria and the resilience of Puerto Ricans as they fled their homes for safe harbor in Central Florida. Her performance is documented in a video and photographs, and by the spectacular dress she created from blue FEMA tarps collected in Puerto Rico. Her outfit includes a regal headdress, trailed by a debris-studded train patterned after traditional Afro-Puertorican costumes. In the video Cessa and Chuleta Talk Gringo Lingo, Cessa (played by the artist SkittLeZ-Ortiz) and Chuleta (Raimundi-Ortiz) sit in a Bronx diner anticipating the arrival of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (herself a Puerto Rican). Cessa and Chuleta engage in code-switching. Chuleta's standard American English collides with SkittLeZ's Nuyorican, producing a hilarious and revelatory take on both languages.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (The Bronx, NY, 1973)
Lives and works in Orlando, FL.
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is an interdisciplinary visual and performance artist. She is interested in pop, hip-hop, and comic culture, portraying their intersections in murals, performance, and video-based works. She is the recipient of an Artists-in-Action Award from the Art & History Museums (Maitland, FL); a University of Central Florida (UCF) Women of Distinction Award; and a Franklin Furnace Grant for performance (Brooklyn, NY). She is also a United States Artist Fellow nominee; a UCF’s Woman Making History honoree; and a Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition semifinalist. Raimundi-Ortiz is an associate professor at the University of Central Florida (Orlando).
SkittLeZ-Ortiz
Lives and works in Orlando, FL.
SkittLeZ-Ortiz is a Latinx singer, actor, and content creator from the Bronx. With over 23K subscribers and over 12 million views, SkittLeZ produces an array of content that ranges from daily video blogs, sketch comedy, to musical covers and parodies at SkittLeZMusicTV on Youtube. SkittLeZ produced and starred in the Telemundo Premios Tu Mundo nominated hit "Shit Spanish Girls Say." SkittLeZ has been nominated for a TECLA award for Best Fictional Character Content Creator at Hispanicize. SkittLeZ appeared in season 2 and 3 of HBO’s “High Maintenance.” SkittLeZ is also the co-host of “Ladies Who Bronche” an Afro-Latinx podcast.
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.
