Since its inception in 1969, El Museo del Barrio has offered a creative nexus between Puerto Rican artists on the island and those in the United States. El Museo has been particularly attentive to that most porous of membranes between two far-flung but significant centers-New York and San Juan-whose artists have been in steady dialogue. El Museo's thirty-year commitment to these two groups of artists and institutions continues with Here & There/Aquí y Allá: Six Artists from San Juan, an exhibition of six, closely related artists. All born between 1964 and 1968, these artists are from the generation dubbed "Los Novísimos," by critic Manuel Álvarez Lezama. Lezama defined Los Novísimos-or, "The Newest Ones"-as Puerto Rican artists born after 1960, coming of age in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Here & There showcases strong new works by these six artists, who have generated some of the most provocative contemporary art in Puerto Rico over the last ten years. They are working in experimental, site-specific and nontraditional modes begun in earlier generations, by artists such as Rafael Ferrer and Rafael Montañez Ortiz, and Antonio Martorell, José Morales, and Pepón Osorio.

Their work addresses broad international and formal issues, while retaining subtle references specific to Puerto Rico. They all work, on some level, with ideas of "home:" dreams, desires and memory motivate several of the pieces. Collazo-Llorens, Juhász-Alvarado, and Salabarrías Valle employ water as an omnipresent metaphor for buried emotion, transgressive possibility, or nostalgic retrospection. Others draw on Caribbean icons as metaphors, but their meanings expand beyond the borders of the island's specificities. For example, Rivera Marrero's play with the shell criss-crosses sexual and political issues. Mercado's riff on colonial Spanish and African dress forefronts the accumulation of class and gender roles in any transcultural territory. And Rivera Villafañe's exploration of extreme violence, as witnessed in Old San Juan, brings a personal focus to an international phenomenon.

The artists in Here & There/Aquí y Allá frequently work with others to complete their complex projects. They all prefer layered methods of "editing"-or, assembling-their works. A preference for employing diverse media allows these artists to present multilayered signification, the formal structure of which reflects and comments on the fluctuations in urban culture. The language of the work is mobile, streetwise, hybrid, experimental, and technologically savvy. While their work is serious and well-conceived, an irreverent sense of humor or irony frequently surfaces. The work is saturated by popular cultural forms, materials and colors. And even though they confront serious issues, ranging from politics, class, sexuality and gender issues, social commentary, art history, and formal concerns, they often use carnivalesque means of presentation to seduce their audiences.

The expression, "here and there/aquí y allá" (or, "acá"), has been frequently adopted when discussing the San Juan/New York connection. This link has been figured through the metaphor of "La Guagua Aéra" ("The Airbus"), which Puerto Ricans ride fluidly between the two cities. Another saying, "El Charco", ("The Puddle"), poetically and ideologically contracts the ocean between San Juan and New York, eliminating distance. It is our pleasure to present this exhibition of contemporary art from there, here. By extending the viewership of these fine young artists’ work–and by expanding the perception of the contemporary Puerto Rican art scene–we are proud to continue acting as a bridge.

Deborah Cullen

Curator

*Video clips courtesy of Bernice González and Ozzie Forbes of Ten Digital Fingers. When in Puerto Rico please watch "Frente Sonicó" at 11pm on Channel 7 or visit www.frentesonico.com

*Visit http://cuarto.quenepon.org for more information on contemporary Caribbean art.