‘Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora,” will present artists’ individual and collaborative expressions, illustrate the challenges faced by artists after the storm, and reveal the largely unpublished record of artists’ reflections on post-Maria Puerto Rico.
TAMPA — The USF Contemporary Art Museum, part of the Institute for Research in Art in the USF College of The Arts, presents “Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora,” which will gather, display, record, and conceptualize artistic responses to Hurricane Maria by artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora.
The exhibition will present artists’ individual and collaborative expressions, illustrate the challenges faced by artists after the storm, and reveal the largely unpublished record of artists’ reflections on post-Maria Puerto Rico. 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.
Exhibition artist Miguel Luciano will be in residence at USF Sept. 16-19. He will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Tampa Bay Rays home celebration of Roberto Clemente on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
The virtual symposium “Bregando with Disasters: Post Hurricane Maria Realities and Resiliencies” will be held on Oct. 2 from 11-3:30p.m. The bilingual event brings together artists and leading academicians from Florida universities who will present recent research in a discussion of the Puerto Rican diaspora in Florida. Access is free through the USF Contemporary Art Museum website.
Artists in the “Constant Storm” exhibition include:
- Rogelio Baéz Vega (New York)
- Sofía Gallisá Muriente (San Juan)
- Jorge González Santos (San Juan)
- Karlo Andrei Ibarra (San Juan)
- Ivelisse Jiménez (New York)
- Miguel Luciano (New York)
- Natalia Lassalle-Morillo (Los Angeles-San Juan)
- Angel Otero (New York)
- Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (Orlando)
- SkittLeZ-Ortiz (New York)
- Gabriel Ramos (Tarpon Springs)
- Jezabeth Roca González (San Diego-Añasco)
- Gamaliel Rodríguez (San Juan)
- Yiyo Tirado Rivera (San Juan)
Media will include painting, sculpture, drawing, video and installation. Sofîa Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle-Morillo have been commissioned to produce a video installation titled I-4 that will explore the experience of Puerto Ricans who have been displaced to Florida cities such as Orlando and Kissimmee.
Among many works to be exhibited will be Angel Otero’s meditational, draped paintings; Miguel Luciano’s Pimp My Piragua, a customized shaved ice pushcart with sound system, video and LEDs; Wanda Ramimundi-Ortiz’s sculptural dress fashioned from FEMA tarps and other storm detritus; Yiyo Tirado’s Caribe Hostil, a neon sculpture referencing Puerto Rico’s tourist industry; and Gamaliel Rodríguez’s ghostly drawings of airport control towers all over Puerto Rico that were closed after Hurricane Maria.
“Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora” is curated by Noel Smith, former CAM Deputy Director and Curator of Latin American and Caribbean Art, and Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator-at-Large, and is organized by the USF Contemporary Art Museum. The exhibition will be on view Sept. 24 through Dec. 4 and will include free educational programs.
“Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora” is made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florida Division of Arts and Culture, and support from the Tampa Bay Rays. The symposium “Bregando with Disasters: Post Hurricane Maria Realities and Resiliencies” is supported by a Humanities Centers Grant from Florida Humanities.
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