Para leer este artículo en español, por favor vaya aquí. To read this article in Spanish, please go here.
Author’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles from a recent trip to New York. Read the first article here.
It seems the stars have aligned this year with a multitude of international, national, and regional regularly recurring large-scale exhibitions all on the calendar, including the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial, the Delta Triennial, the Southern Survey, the 2024 Border Biennial, and the Texas Biennial. Being accepted or invited to participate in these types of exhibitions can often be a turning point in an artist’s career, but curating a biennial or triennial can be tricky. How does one select an artist or group of artists to represent a region or a moment in time?
Last year, I marveled at how Rigoberto Luna chiseled away at his list of 200 potential artists to include in Soy de Tejas: A Statewide Survey of Latinx Art. Ultimately he selected 40 Latinx artists with Texas ties to be in the show. With that in mind, I imagine that selecting only 33 artists from around the world to speak to contemporary Caribbean and Latin American art and culture was a daunting task for the three curators of El Museo del Barrio’s La Trienal 2024, Flow States.
For two years, El Museo’s Chief Curator, Rodrigo Moura, and Curator, Susanna V. Temkin, along with guest curator María Elena Ortiz worked on the exhibition. More than 150 artists were considered, and the curators conducted over 80 studio visits (some virtual and some in person) with artists located in the U.S., the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe. What has emerged is a beautifully complex show that embodies artistic practices and themes that serve as throughlines across works by artists connected to the Caribbean and Latin America, while showcasing the diverse and nuanced experiences and perspectives of the participants.
Flow States — La Trienal 2024 at El Museo del Barrio
Stepping into the first room of the exhibition, I immediately noticed the visceral quality of the work. While rasquachismo is a term specifically related to Chicanx art, Latino artists in the U.S. and artists working across Latin America often have a physicality to their work that makes use of everyday objects and speaks to traditional art practices, like ceramics, textiles, and woodwork. Illustrating this, the first room held an assemblage work, mixed-media paintings on multifaceted surfaces, a series of rough ceramics paired with drawings, and a sculpture made from palm fronds. New York-based Kathia St. Hilaire’s paintings were perhaps the most intriguing to me. The textured surface and torn edges of her two pieces reminded me of my grandmother’s vinyl tablecloths spread out on her kitchen table.
Kathia St. Hilaire, “Melaïse” and “Marise”, 2023
The wall label reveals a dizzying array of materials that make up the work: canvas collage with skin-lightening cream packaging, steel, aluminum, banknotes, banana stickers, silkscreen, paper, and tires with paraloid. Even looking closely at the work, it’s hard to identify the elements and understand how they come together to create a cohesive piece. Beyond the familiarity of the surface, I was struck by the surreal floating figures that occupy the space. At the edge of each work, red letters spell out the names of the artist’s grandmothers: Melaïse and Marise. The work is layered, literally and metaphorically, and speaks to her family’s history and the larger narrative of the Banana Wars, conflicts (at the turn of the 20th century) that included military occupation by the U.S. in the Caribbean.
Carmen Argote, “Exile I” and “Exile II,” 2023
These first galleries are connected by the inclusion of sculptures by Carmen Argote. Pieces from her series Mother are scattered across this section of the show. In the two Exile pieces, the main material used is palm fronds. The dried leaves are gathered and assembled with jute and zip ties and stand like guards protecting a sacred space. The other works, which are hung on walls, incorporate natural materials like palm or banana, but also include human-made materials and objects like fabric, beads, and supermarket bags. Among the objects are personal items from the artist’s parents as well as items found during walks in Boyle Heights, a historic Chicanx/Mexican neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Norberto Roldán, “100 Altars for Roberto Chabet/NO. 23,” 2014 – 2020
Norberto Roldán, a Filipino artist, presents three beautiful assemblage sculptures from a series of 100 altars made in honor of Roberto Chabet, an artist known as the father of Philippine conceptual art. The series began a year after Chabet died and signifies the artist’s importance while also reflecting the gentrification of Quezon City, the most populous city and the former capital of the Philippines. The altars are made from found objects gathered following the destruction of the city’s mid-century buildings, which are being replaced by contemporary structures. The collection of old photographs and antique objects serves as a collective memory of a time and place that is quickly disappearing.
Verónica Gaona, “Spanning Worlds,” 2022 – 2024
Brownsville-born, Houston-based artist Verónica Gaona’s work addresses many of these larger themes of the personal, representing the political and the use of objects that carry heavy connotations. Spanning Worlds is a set of 8 tall reinforcing bars (rebar), each holding an array of black baseball caps covered in shards of glass. Much like the works by Agote and St. Hilaire, Gaona’s choice of materiality is tied to labor issues such as exploitation, both in the sense of the use of one’s body and often in relation to wages and compensation. Inherently, the piece also speaks to a broader theme in the exhibition — migration. Specifically, Gaona’s work highlights the experiences of migrant workers, who come to the U.S. to be able to send money to support family and friends back home.
Mark Menjívar, “La Misma Canción (The Same Song),” 2024
Mark Menjívar, an artist currently living and working in San Antonio, also explores ideas related to immigration. At first glance, I assumed the work, installed on thin shelves on the wall opposite the entryway, might have been pieces by local students as part of an educational program through the museum. It was only after walking through the show searching specifically for Texas artists that I realized the installation was a product of Menjívar’s social practice work which involved the facilitation of a series of community workshops held in San Antonio and New York City this summer. The artifacts on view are an assortment of double-sided signs painted by workshop participants to welcome and bid farewell to migrating birds. La Misma Canción (The Same Song) was inspired by the artist’s realization that the birds he heard in San Antonio migrated each year to El Salvador, where his family would hear them. The friendly imagery and words on the hand-painted signs are a reminder that migration is a natural part of the lived experiences of many, and that borders are simply fabrications.
Tony Cruz Pabón, “Distance Drawing, attempt to draw the distance between San Juan and New York (aprox. 1,610 miles). Realized only 0.32 percent (5.1523 miles),” 2024
Another work in this section of the exhibition that focuses on migration is Tony Cruz Pabón’s Distance Drawing, attempt to draw the distance between San Juan and New York (aprox. 1,610 miles). Realized only 0.32 percent (5.1523 miles). The wall drawing is part of a series that Pabón has carried out since 2003. For over two decades, the artist has presented installations that depict the distance between his hometown of San Juan and the exhibition location. Many of these are merely attempts that fall short because the distance is simply too great (imagine San Juan to London or Berlin). This piece is particularly significant as it highlights the history of migration between Puerto Rico and New York across generations of Boricuas and Nuyoricans.
Sarita Westrup, “nonlinear route II” and “Primas III,” 2024 and “Bucket” and “Authoritative,” 2021
Sarita Westrup, who was born in the Rio Grande Valley town of Edinburg and currently lives between Dallas and Penland, North Carolina, creates woven sculptures that speak to the experience of migration while drawing inspiration from traditional crafts. The hanging structure evokes a sense of travel across a path that is continuous and unbroken. Bucket and Authoritative, which rest on a platform, speak more directly to the act of migration. A simple traffic cone shape signals barriers while the bucket form reminds one of the scarcity of necessities such as water for those traveling great distances.
Works by Sarah Rosalena
In a final room, Sarah Rosalena’s textile and 3D printed works also reference traditional practices. The textile works incorporate Wixárika traditions, which have been passed down across generations in the artist’s family, with imagery that pulls from technology in various ways. While one piece references a satellite image of the Milky Way, others use the visual language of pixelation to subvert the idea of boundaries. Similarly, Rosalena’s sculpture works use a 3D printer but speak to traditional forms of ceramics such as coil pots techniques that slowly build layers of clay.
Across the exhibition, artists draw on deeply personal experiences that connect to larger narratives in Caribbean and Latinx cultures and histories. The works explore themes of distance, migration, community, connection and disruption, labor, remembrance, tradition, and new ways of creating meaning.
Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 is on view at El Museo del Barrio in New York through February 9, 2025.
