New York, NY, January 20, 2001--- El Museo del Barrio is pleased to premier Here & There/Aquí y Allá: Six Artists from San Juan, a touring exhibition. Here & There/Aquí y Allá will be on view at El Museo del Barrio from February 8 to May 20, 2001. It will travel to The Blaffer Gallery at The Art Museum of the University of Houston, Texas, from June 22 to September 30, 2001, and the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico, in mid-to-late 2002. Additional national venues will be announced at a later date.

Here & There/Aquí y Allá refers to the rich and complex cultural relationship that contemporary Puerto Rican artists from San Juan have developed with the United States and, especially, New York. The exhibition showcases exciting new work by six artists based in San Juan: Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Charles Juh×ász-Alvarado, Ana Rosa Rivera Marrero, Freddie Mercado, Carlos Rivera Villafañe, and Aaron Salabarríías Valle. Each artist is represented by a one-room installation using such wide-ranging media as video projection, sculpture, found objects, color photographs, drawings, and plastic ready-mades.

Deborah Cullen, Curator at El Museo del Barrio and organizer of the exhibition and tour describes these artists as, "the best of the upcoming generation on the island working in non-traditional and experimental media, including site-specific installation, video projection, and performance documented through photography. While their approaches stem from an earlier generation of pioneering artists, such as Antonio Martorell and Pepón Osorio, their content moves away from interrogations of identity prevalent in the 1980s. Instead, they concern themselves with formal and conceptual issues, engaging in the discourse of international contemporary art, while retaining subtle references particular to the island on which they live and work."

Since its founding in 1969 by Puerto Rican artists, educators, and activists, the mission of El Museo del Barrio has been to present and preserve the art and culture of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United States. From its inception, El Museo has offered a creative nexus between Puerto Rican artists on the island and those on the United States mainland. For more than 30 years, El Museo has explored the continual dialogue between these two centers - New York and San Juan - which are so important to Puerto Rican artists.

Here & There / Aquí y Allá examines that dynamic connection, bringing it to the latest juncture by presenting some of the most provocative contemporary art currently being produced in Puerto Rico to a New York audience. With Here & There / Aquí y Allá, El Museo del Barrio continues its commitment to promote the work of a generation not yet exposed to the mainland public and to champion challenging, cutting-edge and non-stereotypical Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American art.

An illustrated brochure in conjunction with the exhibition will include an interview with Ricardo Viera describing the inception and evolution of this important Latin American photography collection.

This exhibition has been generously funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The New York Times, Philip Morris Companies Inc., Diana and Moiséés Berezdivin, and Doral Bank.

The mission of El Museo del Barrio is to establish a forum that will preserve and project the cultural heritage of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United States.

Museum hours: Wed. through Sun. 11 to 5 p.m. Suggested contribution: $4 adults; $2 students and seniors; children under twelve accompanied by adults and members enter free.

El Museo del Barrio may be reached by subway: #6 to 103rd Street station; or by bus: M1, M3, M4 on Madison and Fifth Avenues to 104th Street; local cross-town service between Yorkville or East Harlem and the Upper West Side in Manhattan M96 and M106 or M2.