Yiyo Tirado Rivera, Caribe Hostil, 2020. neon. 12 x 24 in. Edition 1/3. 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)
Yiyo Tirado Rivera
Yiyo Tirado Rivera scrutinizes the tourist industry in Puerto Rico in two remarkably effective works. The Caribe Hilton Hotel, opened in 1949, is today one of the premier luxury resorts in Puerto Rico; it was promoted, financed, and built by the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO), itself created in 1942 to create an inexpensive base for U.S. industry. The neon sculpture Caribe Hostil mirrors and mocks the hotel's original sign, substituting Hostil (hostile) for Hotel in cool blue lettering. Castillo de arena I (Normandie) refers to another iconic hotel, inspired by the transatlantic passenger ship the SS Normandie. A cast-sand mold of the building sits atop another mound of sand that will deteriorate over the course of the exhibition. In a broader sense, the works speak of unwise and short-sighted policies and decisions: creating a service-based economy at the expense of a strong-island based one, and building on the shifting sands of an island in the era of climate change.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yiyo Tirado Rivera (Puerto Rico, 1990)
Lives and works in San Juan.
Yiyo Tirado Rivera is a visual artist and graphic designer. He is the co-founder and co-director of the contemporary art space KM 0.2, in Santurce, PR. He participated in the La Práctica Program at Beta-Local (San Juan) and has exhibited in many international venues including in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile, United States, Spain, and the Dominican Republic.
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.
