to PDF (~4.5 mb)

C A U G H T, 1 9 9 3
1
L ATIN AMERICAN VICTIM OF DICTATORS O PPRESSIO N, TO RTURE AND DEATH, 1987
2
HELL
L U IS CR U Z A Z A C E TA
S ELECTED W O R K S
1978-1993
3
A LT E R N AT I V E M U S E UM , NE W Y O R K CI T Y
Ta b le o f C o nt en ts
Foreword
Ge n o Ro d r i g u e z
7
Twi s t e d , To r n a n d Br o ke n
J o h n Ya u
9
A Conversation
El e a n o r He a r t n e y
Ge n o Ro d r i g u e z
Vi c to r Za mu d i o - Ta y l o r
27
Checklist
40
Ex h i b i t io n Hi s t o ry
42
4
A b ov e: C l o ck /H e ad , 1 9 8 7
BANG, BANG YOU ARE DEAD, 1978
5
Hell: Luis Cruz A z a c e t a
Selected Works 1978- 1 9 9 3
Scptcmber 27-November 23, 1994
This exhibition and catalogue was partially funded by he
National Endowment for the A r t s .
Support for the museum’s publication program also comes from
The Weatherhead Foundation.
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 94- 7 2 6 9 2
Copyright Alternative Museum
594 Broadway, #402
New York, NY 1 0 0 1 2
Tel 212-9 6 6 -4 4 4
ax 212- 2 2 6 - 2 1 5 8
ISBN 93075-4 0 -1
First Edition
All rights reserved
Lenders:
Sonia A l o i s e
Richard Brown Baker
Dylan Cruz
Emile Crux
Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New Yo r k
Sharon Jacques
M a r y -Anne Martin/Fine Art, New Yo r k
Jack Neely
New School for Social Research
Cnstina and Stephen Olsen
Editing, Andrew Perchuk
Cover design, Samantha Rodriguez
Design/Production, Janice Rooney
Printing,, Walsworth Publishing Company, Missouri
6
F o re w o r d
It is a great pleasure for the Alternative Museum to present the first major survey of Luis Cruz Azaceta’s
work in the New York area. 1 have known Luis for more than twenty-five years and in that time have seen
his art grow from early student work to his recent work of remarkable power. Luis immigrated to the
United States two years after the Cuban Revolution at the age of 18. He studied art at the School of Visual
Arts from 1966 to 1969, where he painted in a geometric abstract style influenced by Frank Stella and
Victor Vasarely. After a trip to Europe in 1970, Luis underwent a complete change in his art. He developed
as expressionistic style to document the lived experience of his chosen city: New York. In response to the
Vietnam War, his work increasingly came to grapple with the social and politics’ issues of our age. From
his early paintings inspired by the graffiti on the city streets, Luis reached back to his experiences as a
Cuban-American immigrant to create an intensely personal body of work that documents the continual
anxiety and fear of the urban dweller.
Luis has truly become an artist of international reputation and a strong advocate for works of art
that speak of the human condition. Luis is an artist who confronts with great power societal ills and human
injustice. His mature paintings are rendered in a manner that is both personal and provocative using symbols and allegory in an expressionistic style. Luis believes in the ability of art to transform consciousness.
He is also convinced that art has a distinctly educational role in society. In a visual dialogue, Luis confronts
vital issues facing all of us such as AIDS, violent crime, homelessness and other painful issues that have
been relegated to the edges of American culture, Luis is a painter with insight, courage and the ability to
translate his vision into a vocabulary through which others can gain greater understanding of our contemporary society.
In this exhibition, 19 of Luis’ major paintings are arranged chronologically in the Museum’s two
main galleries and there is a selection often drawings in the smaller Gandhi Gallery. Works exhibited represent a survey of Luis’ work over the last fifteen years. We are also very pleased that a number of influential critics have had the opportunity to comment on Luis’ work in this publication: John Yau has written
a major piece setting Luis’ work against the legacy of modernism (and postmodernism), and Eleanor
Heartney and Victor Zamudio-Taylor both have provocative insights into Luis’ work in the conversation
in this catalogue.
We at the Museum would like to thank the National Endowment for the Arts, which provided
major funding for this exhibition. We thank George Adams and the staff of Frumkin/Adams for their help
in all phases of this exhibition. We would also like to thank The Weatherhead Foundation, which made this
publication possible, and Isam Salah, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs for their support of this project.
Geno Rodriguez Director, Alternative Museum
7
G U N ’ S PA R A D E , 1 9 7 9
8
W I N D O W D I S P L AY, 1 9 7 9
12
is in these paintings of the mid 1980s that Azaceta further extended the notion of
s e l f -portraiture into the realm of the imagination, and the relationship between
one’s interior and exterior life.
In an early self-portrait, The City Painter of Heart s (1981), A z a c e t a
depicts himself in the lower right hand corner of a large, horizontal composition.
He is naked and standing before an easel, painting a red heart on a blue canvas.
Before him, and dominating the composition, is a stagelike, expressionistically
painted cityscape from which bright yellow flames rise. Located in the cramped
space between the burning cityscape and the naked painter is a giant cat. Like a
Chinese puzzle, one box inside another, a rat emerges from the cat’s mouth, and
a mouse emerges from the rat’s mouth. In The City Painter of Hearts, Azaceta
defines the artist as a witness; someone who must see what is in front of him,
however disturbing and unpalatable it might be.
In another painting from the early 1980s, Shit My Head Is Burning But
My Heart Is Filled With Love (1981), Azaceta articulated an imaginative, inward
looking self-portrait in which the artist is wearing a crown of flames, suggesting
that his mind is on fire (feverish?) even while he possesses feelings of
vulnerability and tenderness (the bloody knife). By the mid 1980s, Azaceta has
fully transformed the selfportrait into an imaginative creature that is half-flyand
h a l f -man (Homo Fly) or a gaunt legless being (Walk Man). By the late 1980s, in
paintings such as Crematorium (1988), AIDS/Count 111 (1988), and Refugee
Count (1988), Azaceta has turned his gaze back out and is once again a witness
to the world. The gallows humor evident in his earlier cartoony images is gone,
replaced by stark figures and obsessive lists of numbers, all embodied in paint
that is simultaneously ravaged and lush. Azaceta’s desire to see the world can be
measured in the way he makes his compositions, both in terms of image and
paint, which register and absorb his insights into historical and social reality.
By the late 1980s, Azaceta’s expressionism is no longer a style but a resonant metaphor for the body’s vulnerable, embattled state. In this regard, his work
can be seen in relationship to the recent sculptures of Kiki Smith and Robert Gober.
At the same time, Azaceta’s paintings of the 1980s constitute one of the few bodies of work which neither succumbed to, nor offered ironic commentaries on the
materialist illusions of well-being offered to America by President Reagan and his
successor, George Bush. Unlike other artists who were defined as NeoExpressionists and who to some extent utilized aspects of expressionism, Azaceta
13
did not accommodate himself to either the art world’s desire to ignore reality or
America’s willingness to be blind to the suffering of many of its own citizens, as
well as others.
It is not altogether surprising that Azaceta, who experienced extreme displacement while he was a teenager, should return to the subject of exile and voyage repeatedly over the course of his career. At the same time, it is quite evident
from paintings such as Refugee Count, Journey X (1991), Caught (1993), and
Peripatetic Boatman (1993) that Azaceta is not telling his story, is not tooting his
own horn about how much difficulty he has undergone, but is investigating a
l a rg e r, more pervasive phenomenon of the postmodern world, that being uprooted and becoming a refugee is something many people have in common. In
Azaceta’s world there are no heroes, only survivors. The awareness that there is
no sanctuary is, perhaps, modernism’s deepest, least acknowledged legacy. It is
a legacy, both as an artist and as an individual, which Azaceta never ignores in
his work. Thus, he has worked in various styles, as well as combinations of
styles, since the mid- 1 9 7 0 s .
One of the continuing hypocrisies of the art world is its ability to privilege one kind
of art or artist over another. While many individuals and institutions of the art
world pay lip service to such paradigms as all-over painting and the deep entanglement of art and life, these same powers construct hierarchies based on notions of
aesthetics and style. Thus, in the 1950s and 1960s, an abstract artist was seen as
more radical and advanced than a figurative artist. More recently, an artist who
uses photographs and mimetic parody is judged to be both more radical and more
central than a painter who combines imagination and empathy. Each of these hierarchical judgments is based on the belief that one of a critic’s duty is to legislate
behavior, thus deciding who is behaving correctly and who isn’t. And yet these
same critics, many of whom would claim to be socially concerned, overlook the
implicit connection between their need to legislate and the repressive, conformist
aspects of society and government. A critic should not use his power in a way that
echoes the very institutions whose legislation of power he would condemn.
In recognizing that Azaceta’s vision is devoid of heroes, and that at best
the individual is able to survive, one senses that he is an artist who is deeply
attuned to the process of reality and time, rather than to fashionable views of art
14
history and strategic timing. For him, art is not a vehicle by which one achieves
aesthetic satisfaction and an escape from common history and time. Rather, it is
a way of facing the world. Azaceta recognizes that change is inevitable, and that
all of us are implicated by reality and time passing. The world we inhabit is contingent and changing; and chaos is an inherent part of the process. This is the
reality we all share and which we all too often ignore.
In a painting such as Rafter: 24 Hours of Horror on a Beautiful Day (1993),
Azaceta reminds us that while we may all be interconnected in this world, our
experiences of reality are finally unique. The overlays of fragmented grids, as well
as the irregular patterning of white circles and twisting pinkish-red linear bands,
underscore the fact that we do not truly see those around us. The world may be getting smaller, and becoming a global village, but that does not mean the space
between us is any less cloudy. We may recognize someone as a refugee or an exile
but that does not mean we see that person as a human being.
In his paintings of the 1990s, Azaceta juxtaposes figurative and abstract
elements in provocative proximity. While there is a narrative undercurrent to these
paintings, it is more open-ended than in his earlier work. The viewer does not feel
one kind of image or style is privileged over another. Not only do figurative images
have as much weight and importance as the abstract ones, but the irresolvable contention between the two is what generates the narrative. At the same time, aspects
of abstraction and figuration, which can be read as emblems of order and disorder,
are conjoined in a single image. Thus, the lattice-like grids in Fisherman IV(1993)
and Man Fixing The Sky (1993) evoke the rigorous purity of Mondrian, Joaquin
Torres Garcia, and utopian abstraction, as well as dilapidated fences and frustrating mazes. Each of us (both the viewer and the viewed) is caught in a world of natural forces, historical forces, and abstract thought. Nothing, Azaceta seems to be
telling us, is pure; and yet all of us are ultimately isolated and alone.
Azaceta’s vision of what it means to be alive (isolated, vulnerable, and
displaced) places him in the same company as Frida Kahlo, Max Beckmann, and
Philip Guston. For all of them, art is a way to make life endurable. For Azaceta,
the canvas is where he registers the dreams and realities that sear his sight, as
well as burn his nerve endings. The obsessive patterning found in his recent
paintings evoke both the spots one sees on a hot, brilliant day and the cellular
structure inhabiting our life and the lives of those around us.
■
15
B L O O D Y D AY, 1 9 8 1
16
S H I T M Y H E AD I S B U R N I N G , B U T M Y H E A RT I S F I L L ED W I TH L O V E, 19 8 1
17
H O M O F LY, 1 9 8 4
18
WA L K MA N , 1 9 85
19
TOY MAN. 1986
20
C R E M ATO R I U M , 1 9 8 8
21
A I D S PAT I E N T, 1 9 8 9
22
RAPE AND HOMICIDE (HOUSE), 1991
23
R E H E A R S A L ( E L D I C TAT O R ) , 1 9 9 1
24
GUARDIAN OF THE EGGS, 1992
25
P E R I PAT E T I C B O AT M A N , 1 9 9 3
26
-
A C O N V E R S AT I O N
GENO RODRIGUEZ
ELEANOR HEARTNEY
VICTOR ZAMUDIO-TAYLOR
Geno Rodriguez: Let’s start with my initial impression of the work as I see it and
then all of us can enter the discussion. Initially what I see is “victimization”.
Victimization of displaced people, victimization of the individual in society and his
or her suffering and pain, the helplessness of that individual, the lack of power and
ability to control his or her destiny. Those are the things that I see, and victimization
may or may not be the right word. Maybe we are looking at somebody who is up on
a mountain top saying “enough is enough” or “I hurt”.
Eleanor Heartney: I think that the word “victimization” has some different connotations now that you really don’t want to associate with this work because victimization is generally about a kind of blaming and about a certain tunnel vision of the
world, a very schematic relationship between the victims and the oppressor. You
know, if Azaceta is a victim, in a sense, we are all victims. It really is about the condition of being human and the kind of melancholic r ecognition that we are thrust here
alone and bad things do happen. It would actually be interesting to talk about this
work in terms of religion because Azaceta offers a world without God. It feels like a
world in which there is no recourse; there is no one, there is no being, there is no kind
of order that is larger than us that will set things back into place. There is no one to
appeal to, which is very different than the victim world where you have this bad guy
and you can change him and the world will be fine. I am very curious, both of you
know more than I do about him. What is his attitude in terms of religion?
Victor Zamudio-Taylor: I read in one interview that he likes Max Beckmann because
Max Beckmann deals with allegory, with myth and I think that’s why Orosco is a source
and inspiration. Both figures, Beckmann and Orosco, use allegory or religious references
in order, paradoxically, to humanize the human condition. In that respect, I think that
27
there is more than a religious quality, there is a very deep spiritual quality in his work in
which his own self-portrayal becomes almost a martyr-like figure, a saintlike figure, a
C h r i s t-like figure, the leper who was not invited to the banquet table; he has all these
different personas through which he is creating allegories. His work is always referring to something else. I think it is a world without God. In that sense, as you were
saying earlier, there is an essential quality to the victim. The victim is also responsible and the victim has to, the person that has suffered internally, subjectively and also
socially, exiled, being a prisoner, the one that is starving, the one that doesn’t have a
job; responsibility has to be assumed for that condition and something has to be done
about it. It is not a coincidence that a lot of his works have existential references like
for example “No Exit”. The drawing is going to be included in the show. It’s a world
about empowerment. It has to be seen in the terms of the person who suffered. The
terms can’t be set. In that sense it’s about power but it’s about presenting situations
where there are powers against you and how you can negotiate.
G.R. Let me ask you, if we are talking about a world without God, who is he addressing. Who is his work addressed to? I mean, there is a dialogue going on in that work
and if there is no God to make changes, and in fact, the people that buy artworks, the
people that have the kind of money that can afford to buy artworks are being
addressed, I don’t think they will be making changes, since they are probably the
cause of a lot of the problems.
V.Z. O.K. I would even say world without God, yet it is a world where human activity
is the center and in that sense, I think that Azaceta’s work is complex as we were discussing earlier in that there is this inner turmoil, subjective experience, the soul and so
forth, which is characteristic of mere expressionism, but that there is also reference to
the object world, to history, to culture, to the dynamics of being within a cultural situation. So, in this sense, Azaceta’s work can speak to, can have many receptions.
G.R. Here are some ideas, some examples. For example, if someone were creating
these works of art and they were creating them for an exhibit at the United Nations,
one might say he is addressing a world body that could, theoretically at least, effect a
s o c i o -p o l i t ical change to that drama that he enacts on those canvases. On the other hand,
he is not. The work certainly isn’t being shown in Cuba. So what are we seeing here is it
another case of an artist crying in his own soup and then selling it for money.
E . H. Well, I think you can’t really blame the artist for the nature of the art market
today and the fact that the way in which work gets distributed tends to be generally
through wealthy collectors. Clearly, he is not an activist. There are artists who are
activists who set this as their purpose. That doesn’t seem to be what he is about. But
28
on the other hand, I think that, as Victor was saying, the work is available. I mean, if
the system isn’t in place right now to make it available to a wide variety of people, the
work itself is accessible in its visual and formal language. ‘What you are pointing to is
really not so much a problem with his work as it is a problem in the contemporary art
system and the mechanisms that are available for art to be distributed. You really can’t
blame him for that. One of the things you are getting at, I think, is that there are political artists who are somewhat hypocritical, particularly people who specifically target
the commodity thing and then do the commodity thing. There is something about that
which is somewhat reprehensible, but in Azaceta’s case this is not a problem that bothers me. He is expressing these things and they certainly speak to me. I assume they
speak to a lot of people. But it is not his fault that the system is set up the way it is.
V.Z. For example with the “AIDS Epidemic Series,” there is a human condition in
which all of us must assume some sort of responsibility to deal with it and its crossclass, cross-ethnic, cross-gender, cross-sexual preferences and practices. We were
discussing this earlier, Eleanor, that universal dimension or that equalizing dimension
in his work that is very polyphonic, speaks to many voices, to many experiences, and
I think that he is very much a painter, as you said, he knows the smell of paint and the
feel of the brush. I think he is also a great reader of literature and philosophy. As for
social change, I think he does believe in it, but it is grounded in the individual. I think
he is against bureaucracies involved in social change. He does believe in the individual and in experience. And in experience being the source of power or lack of it.
G.R. I’m playing the devil’s advocate here and the thing is that I have always been
not only impressed, but influenced by his work and the work of artists that have that
kind of strength and that kind of voice that has, in the past, not been heard often
enough. And in particular, that he, as what in America might be defined as a minority person, is now having his works presented in what America calls the “real art galleries” and the “real museums” and therefore, speaking on behalf of those minorities
to the audiences who, in the past, had no time and no room for this discourse. I think
this is very important. At the same time having been influenced and having influenced
others in the arena of work that purported to be socio-political in content, I now have
to ask myself how real is it, that is how effective can it be? Is there a purpose to everything in life? Is there a purpose to art? Is there a purpose to this particular art? Is it
just painting to get your emotions out, or is it painting to speak and make change? I
am not sure I have the answer, so I continue to wonder about that.
E.H. I have changed my thinking somewhat on this issue in recent years. I think that
painting is a kind of language and you can do things with it that you cannot do with
other languages. To demand of a painting that it be a political tract or a piece of ver-
29
MAN FIXING THE SKY II, 1993
30
bal rhetoric is a mistake and it is a mistake that has been made a lot lately. Seeing the
results of it has made me begin to be much more aware and much more grateful for
what it is that painting can do that is unique to itself. I think that the issue of beauty, an
issue that is beginning to come up a lot now, is quite apparent in Azaceta’s work. Part
of why his work is so appealing is that it does speak to us on this other level that we
can’t put into words. And I think that to deny that to painting is the same as to say that
it has to be solely a tool in the political struggle which is to lose sight of what it is.
V.Z. I agree with you. I think that painting has a specificity that only painting has in
its language. It’s a form of knowledge and pleasure in painting’s own terms. I think
that in that respect, there is a very complex pictorial language in Azaceta. Just like
one can speak of being bicultural, bilingual, there are different languages that function simultaneously in his work. When we were looking at the slides earlier, Geno,
you said that many others could have painted similar scenes of suffering, of dictatorship, of numbers of victims and so forth, but I think there is a quality in his work
that you can tell that this is a person who has grown up in different cultures and
speaks different languages. There’s a putting together of things that you can only do
if you crisscross borders or cultures.
G.R. I think that the crisscross is definitely there. We see Azaceta, the young Cuban
arriving in America; Azaceta becoming an American art student; Azaceta painting at
one time as a geometric abstractionist, and then you see him moving and changing,
as he is very proud to point out, to be able to break into the mainstream, and to do
that not necessarily as a Hispanic but as an artist, as a painter. He is in one of the galleries that represents very well-known artists, and I think that he’s only there because
the quality of his work is good. I don’t think this gallery would handle him for any
other reason. I think that he has broken ground through this multiplicity, having all
these facets.
E.H. The downside of this rage with multiculturalism is that people get pigeonholed. They are allowed to be seen but a lot of times they are allowed to be seen in a
very particular light, while as we’ve been saying Azaceta’s work transcends any particular kind of ethnic concerns. It grows out of his sense of exile, but it speaks much
more broadly. Multiculturalism can be very limiting.
G.R. I think its his sheer sense of determination not to be pigeon-holed because he
went to school with a number of artists that I know who did not move out of the littie cubicles they put themselves into and I think that that is one of his strengths that
he always refused to be pigeon-holed as an artist.
31
V.Z. He’s like Luis Jimenez. Like Jimenez and like Amaras were in the art scene trying to make it...
G.R. And Raphael Montanez Ortiz.
V.Z. Exactly, it’s a great example of combining a cultural specificity and difference
with an open dialogue with the currents. And you can see Azaceta flirting with Guston,
with Pop, with Stella, and with different currents. In that sense, his work is very layered and going through the images of his work, seeing the images chronologically as
we were doing, it is really interesting how in ‘91 he picked back up the geometric grid
that he was working with in the 80’s. He is very, how can I say, self-referential. And
he sort of gives and takes from different sources when it’s central to the project.
G.R. This is harder, the reality of his life, that he is not living in one little community. He is very broad. His wife is an A n g l o -American. He lives in New Orleans.
He is very broad in all his lifestyles and his friends so that he takes from everyone
and then gives back to everyone in a way that they can relate to what he is giving
back. So what about his formal abilities? How do we see that. I mean, we talked earlier about having decorative elements, having influences that might be conceived as
Peter Saul.
E.H. It is extremely sophisticated work on a formal level. It is the kind of work that
the more you know about contemporary art, the more you will be able to read into it.
Certainly there are references to expressionism, while the numbers to me are a funny
little inversion of conceptualism, and the grids refer to geometric abstraction. It is
very sophisticated work. He has absorbed a lot of different things; but on the other
hand, it’s not like appropriation. He’s not doing it for its own sake, but because these
particular things become useful to him. You know, a number of them have those
white, layered backgrounds and those come in, I think, when he really wants to
emphasize a sense of isolation. Something is being masked or left out, and it seems
to be an important part of the overall image; at the same time you can certainly relate
it to modern currents like monochrome.
V.Z. The very important Cuban anthropologist, Fernando Ortiz, came up with the
concept not of multi-culturalism but of transculturalism. In other words, how a
c u lture is an action and changes by coming in contact with other cultures, within power relations. Azaceta’s work has that formally speaking. He’s not an artist who is
making art references to art history, there’s not direct sources, his work is not an
appropriation, as you said, but there’s a kind of multi-layered language where he makes
references,he quotes and, you know, you see a little bit of Goya once in a while or even
32
in the first works of his that we saw, there is a presence there of Pop Art and also the
Cuban poster which was also important for Rupert Garcia at that time. These solid
color shapes.
But I think that one aspect to me that is very important to his work, and relates to his
aesthetic and also to the forms themselves is his self-portraying and how he constructs
himself.
G.R. Or deconstructs himself.
V.Z He is much more, he calls attention to himself, he puts himself on the spot. He
does things to himself. He really transfigures himself. And it is interesting that nowadays the reference is to Julio Galan, but there is also a source in Kahlo. To put together that self-portrait, that initiation, when he looks like a martyr, the cockroach, the fly,
is a very provocative, very ironic self-f a s h i o n i n g .
G.R. You have to be able to do that. To be able to do that and do it in a way that is not
unpleasing to the eye. It’s not like... you look at it and say “Ah!”. But it’s also not like
an image of a holocaust somewhere, where you look at it and you say “Oh, I don’t
want to look at that!”. You look at his images and you continue to look at them even
though it may be him with his throat cut, or eaten away by animals, or his body covered in nails, or whatever, somehow it remains a painting. You know, I don’t cry for
Azaceta. I don’t feel sorry because I am too engrossed from looking at the painting.
E.H. Well, that’s one thing, the difference certainly between his work and Kahlo’s
and even, I think, Julio Galan’s, is that there is an identification, he becomes everyman. You enter into the painting through those figures even if they are distorted or
turned into some other kind of creature. You are not looking at someone else’s life as
you are with Kahlo’s work, there is a sense of distance. And I think that is the key
because there is a lack of specificity and also because it seems to be allegorical.
V.Z. His work is allegorical and very involved in myth-making. So in that sense he
becomes the personification of all these other references and myths, and in that sense
one can constantly identify aspects of his work. Another formal aspect of his work
which I think is very important is ceremony. The canvas many times is not on a
stretcher, or a frame, but literally pushpinned or tacked up on a wall, giving it a kind
of ritual character. And something I find fascinating is how he works with common
symbols; he loads them up with meaning. Like the numbers, words, the Cuban flag,
the American flag and its not in a way... it’s not like a Jasper John flag, its a flag that
is loaded with experience, with memory.
33
E . H. In that sense, it is anti-modernist. It uses modernist references but instead of
emptying them, he has them filled up.
G.R. You just brought up another thing that I think is very important. His work,
unlike a lot of modernist work which is so self-referential in so many ways, is so personal and so not about art or formal issues, but the symbols that he creates himself. I
see in his work a lot of pain and a lot of anger and it makes that work that much more
interesting for me almost because the work, the painting is more about his life or what
he has experienced than about art. It’s hard for me to put it into words, but I just mean
that I am so tired of looking at art that is about art.
With his work it’s like looking at a Van Gogh. It’s got this very personal, “Damn it,
I’m hurting; damn it!”. It’s got this incredible sense of your looking at this tortured
person and yet, it doesn’t turn me away as we were saying earlier about some of the
artists who are creating work about victimization where you just say “Oh, please
I’ve heard this already. Give it up already! I’m tired of this already.” With his work I
like to look at the painting no matter how gruesome the image might be because he
is such a good painter.
I can look at the image and say “Boy, there he is standing with two little flags all emaciated, holding the Cuban flag and American flag, he looks so sad” and yet I don’t
feel sorry and don’t feel bad, I just understand what he is talking about. But I can continue to look at the painting as a painting.
E.H. Yeah. Well that’s what we have been talking about, the notion of painting as a
language of its own. He is very fluent with that language.
V.Z. For example in this one here, which is a very large still work, there’s no exit.
There is this modernist play with the checkerboards and this kind of large field of just
blanks. There is this whole emphasis on gesture, but it’s not the kind of gesture that
we saw Geno express in this German painting, it has a lot of social significance, allegorical significance. And it is pleasurable, the working of the lights in there. His work
is very paradoxical, there is this little red corner here that says: No.
G.R. You’re talking about the painting “No Exit,”1988.
E.H. It’s a very human work. The way in which the paint is applied is very much
about human touch.
G.R. It’s got a decorative quality. Maybe that is why you continue to look at it what
ever the subject matter may be, but its got all the formal qualities that you look for in
painting. This guy knows paint, he knows the feel of paint, I would image that at a
34
d i fferent time he would be making his own paint, he would find his own colors.
V.Z. It’s also a painting as you were saying earlier, and this goes back to the question
we are talking about, his audience or the reception of his work, it’s a painting of the
result of lived experience. It’s not appropriation.
G.R. Or a talked thing.
V.Z. Or a talked thing, or narcissistic, showing your experience over and over again,
but it’s horizons expand, it’s being put in a painterly language that is very seductive,
that arouses.
G.R. You know, maybe you are hitting on something that is called truth. Truth in art.
Maybe it’s truth in art. You know, when you look at Luis’ work, you are looking at
something that you feel is about truth. Unlike so many works that are the result of
what is happening now, that are au courant. And that is their existence, because they
are au courant, because they can be shown at this time. But with Luis’ work I don’t
care what style he chooses, whether it is the bright color period or whether it is the
white background period. It doesn’t really matter because the work is always about
the same truth, the same issue, the same pain, the same complaint. It is always the
same presented in a different format so that it is like telling the truth over and over
again. I mean the last thing you would want to do is get bored with Luis’ work.
Sometimes it gets a little hammy, it gets a little cheesy, but I think that this is what
gives the other pieces a particular strength, that he is not afraid to do a painting like
a monument to the power of love where he has got a hillside and it just has the word
“love” written all over it. And it is a little corny, I think, for me. But at the same time,
the bravery it takes to create that painting allows him to create a painting like “Hell
Act” which is totally different. It frees him to speak the way he wants to speak in
whatever language he may want to speak.
V.Z. We are looking at part of a series called “Abrigando Esperanza”, caressing hope,
the whole idea is that it is very utopian, talking about truth, beauty, and painting. All
those words which were not ok to utter, you know, ten years ago. And that is that there
is a tempting character in this work, something very positive, a belief in some way
that there is still hope because it is a series of work that is about suffering extreme
conditions, isolation, dislocation, exile, alienation, and it has a power that is communicated and uplifts you.
E.H. It is because he believes in the individual, in our basic humanity. You could
imagine work that deals with these same issues that was so cynical and so despairing
35
that it gave you an image of a world in which there was no hope. But Luis’ work
acknowledges all the pain and the suffering, but it is almost due to pain and suffering
that you become more human. It is not saying that these things will be alleviated, but
the true thing is that you should come to is a deepening of your soul or your spirit and
there is a value in that.
G.R. Actually, that is the one thing that I probably won’t agree with you guys for a
while and that is the aspect of hope. I don’t see that in his work. I don’t see hope. I
just see someone on the mountaintop saying “basta ya,” it’s enough. Maybe that can
be perceived as the beginning of hope in that in order to get that toothache fixed you
have to admit that you’ve got a bad tooth. And say: “That is enough with that tooth”,
and then the next step is doing something about it. But looking at the work itself and
the subjectm a t t e r, it is just for me all too pessimistic about what is either happening
or what he feels is happening. But nowhere do I see a glimmer of hope in any of the
work.
E.H. You know maybe the hope is the beauty.
V.Z. Yeah, complain, Eleanor.
E . H. That is the thing, otherwise if they were as bleak as you say, you wouldn’t want
to look at them.
V.Z. Like for example, it’s when you look at Goya’s Disasters of War or these judgment day medieval paintings, you know, or also those series on the Mexican revolution, those very gruesome realities, very extreme realities being portrayed, but the
way in which it is done and that dimension which you call beauty or truth or I don’t
know what it is the painting has, it is a mastering, it is an individual coming to terms
with arrogance, with pain, on canvas, portraying these extreme experiences, but yet
not indulging in the gruesomeness of it, but in the spirituality of it. And I think that
is for me where the hope lies.
■
36
SELF PORTRAIT WITH KNIFE
SELF
PORTRAIT WITH GUN,
, 1979
1979
37
T H E J O U R N E Y, 1 9 8 6
MECHANIZED
MAN TRIPTYCH,
1984
38
NO
E X I T,
1988
AIDS, DEATH, TIME
, 1989
39
LIST 0F W0RKS
Measurements are in inches.
Height precedes width.
Exhibition Checklist
Page 20
Toy-Man, 1986
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 123
Collection of Dylan Cruz, New Orleans
Paintings:
Page 5
Bang Bang You Are Dead, 1978
Tempera on canvas
49 5/8 x 49 1/3
Private collection, New York
Page 48
AIDS/Count III, 1988
Acrylic on canvas
77 x 117
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New
Page 8
Gun’s Parade, 1979
Acrylic on canvas
66x66
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 21
Crematorium, 1988
Acrylic on canvas
120x96
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 12
Window Display, 1979
Acrylic on canvas
66x66
Collection of Sharon Jacques, New Orleans
Page 22
AIDS Patient, 1989
Acrylic on canvas
48x36
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 16
Bloody Day, 1981
Acrylic on canvas
72X60
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 23
Rape and Homicide (House), 1991
Acrylic on canvas
56x48
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 17
Shit My Head Is Burning But My
Heart Is Filled With Love, 1981
Acrylic on canvas
66 x 66
Collection of the artist
Page 24
Rehearsal (El Dictador), 1991
Acrylic on canvas
72 x 60
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 18
Homo Fly, 1984
Acrylic on canvas
66x66
Collection of Richard Brown Baker, New York
Page 25
Guardian Of The Eggs, 1992
Acrylic on canvas with photo
72x541/4
Collection of Jack Neely, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Page 19
Walk-Man, 1985
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 84
Collection of Emile Cruz, New Orleans
Page 26
Peripatetic Boatman, 1993
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 120
Courtesy Frumkin Adams/Gallery, New York
40
Page 30
Man Fixing The Sky, 1993
Acrylic on canvas
72x72
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Page 1
Caught, 1993
Acrylic on canvas
66x66
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
Back cover
Rafter Hell/Act I, 1993
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 96
Courtesy Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art,
New York
Drawings:
Page 4
Clock/Head, 1987
Oil pastel
40x26
Collection of the artist
Page 2
Latin American Victims of Dictators’
Oppression, Torture And Death, 1987
Oil pastel
26x40
Collection of Sonia Aloise, New York
Page 37
Self- Portrait With Knife, 1979
Colored inks and pencil on paper
38 1/4x25 1/4
Collection of the artist
Page 37
Self- Portrait With Gun, 1979
Colored inks and pencil on paper
25 1/4 x 38 1/4
Collection of Sonia Aloise, New York
Page 38
Mechanized Man Triptych, 1984
Black crayon
Fish-Man
102x44 1/2
Split-Man
102x45
Needle-Man
102 x 44 1/2
Courtesy Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New
Page 38
The journey, 1986
Oil pastel on paper
36x45
Collection of Cristina and Stephen Olsen,
New York
Page 39
No Exit, 1988
Acrylic and oil pastel on paper
40 x 52
Courtesy Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art, New York
Page 39
AIDS, Death, Time, 1989
Pen and acrylic on paper
41 1/2 x 29 1/2
Collection of New School for Social
Research, New York
Other Works Illustrated
Page 43
Tough Ride Around The City, 1981
Acrylic on canvas
66 x 72
Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Carlos de la Cruz,
Miami, Florida
Page 44
Oppression, 1984
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 66
Collection of the Delaware Museum, Wilmington
Page 45
Self-Portrait As Mechanized Doggie, 1984
Acrylic on canvas
72 x 120
Collection of the Art Museum, Rhode
Island School of Design, Providence
Page 46
Charge It, 1985
Acrylic on canvas
120x168
Private collection, Monterrey, Mexico
41
EXHIBITION HISTORY
LUIS CRUZ AZACETA
Born: Havana, Cuba, 1942
U.S. Citizenship, 1967
Education:
School of Visual Arts,
Minnesota, The Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY
The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida
Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Broken Realities Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York *
Eugene Binder Galerie, Cologne, Germany
Georgia Stare University, Atlanta, Georgia
New York, 1969
Lives in New Orleans,
Louisiana
1989
Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York *
Opus Art Studios, Inc., Coral Gables, Florida *
Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
1988
Kunst Station, Sankt Peter, Cologne, West Germany
Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
1994
HELL: Luis Cruz Azaceta Selected Works from 1978-93
The Alternative Museum, New York *
New Paintings from the New Orleans Series Miami Art
Fair and Galeria Ramis Barquet, Monterrey, Mexico *
New Paintings from the New Orleans Series Frumkin/Adams
Gallery, New York
Crossing Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida*
1993
Biting the Edge Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, Louisiana*
Luis Cruz Azaceta: In the Big Easy Sylvia Schmidt Gallery,
New Orleans, Louisiana
Luis Cruz Azaceta: Identity & Chaos Daniel Saxon Gallery,
Los Angeles, California
1992
Luis Cruz Azaceta Works on Paper J. Maddux Parker Gallery,
Sacramento, California
Selected Works Sylvia Schmidt Gallery, New Orleans,
Louisiana
Selected Works Fred Snitzer Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida
Day Without Art Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Rhode
Island
Fragile Crossing Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Picturing The World Turned Upside Down: Paintings by
Luis Cruz Azaceta Galeria Ramis Barquer, Monterrey, Mexico*
New Paintings Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
1991
New Drawings FrumkinlAdams Gallery, New York
Trayectoria Museo De Arte De Ponce, Puerto Rico
Selected Paintings & Drawings Opus Gallery, Coral Gables,
Florida
Obras Selectas:Trayectoria Galeria Botello, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico*
1990
Luis Cruz Azaceta: The Aids Epidemic Series’
Cleveland Center For Contemporary Art, Cleveland,Ohio
University of Minnesota: Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth,
1987
Le Musee Francais, South Miami, Florida
Fondo del Sol, Washington, D.C. *
Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, California
1986
Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York *
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1985
The Candy Store, Folsom, California
Chicago International Art Exposition
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1984
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York *
The Candy Store, Folsom, California
1982
Louisiana State University Gallery, Baton Rouge
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1981
The Candy Store, Folsom, California
Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis,
California
1979
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1978
New World Gallery, Miami-Dade Community College, Florida
South Campus Gallery, Miami-Dade Community College, Florida
Cayman Gallery, New York
Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago
42
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
1994
Around the House FrumkinlAdams Gallery, New York
X-Sightings Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Masters of Satire William King Regional Arts Center, Abingdon,
Virginia *
Old Glory: The American Flag in Contemporary Art The
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio *
In Common: Azaceta, Bedia, Winters Frederic Snitzer Gallery,
Coral Gables, Florida *
1993
43rd Biennial of Contemporary American Painting The Corcoran
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 1993-94*
25 Years: A Retrospective Exhibition Cleveland Center for
Contemporary Art, Ohio *
Activism, Involvement, Demographics, Safe Sex Old Dominion
University, Norfolk, Virginia *
Cuban Artist of the 20th Century Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art,
Florida *
Home Away From Home: Latino American Artists Selected Works
from the Collection of El Museo del Barrio
The Museum at Stony Brook, New York
M’aidez/May Day Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Azaceta, Bedia & Roche Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York City
Contemporary Latin American Works on Paper Cavin Morris
Gallery, New York
Psychological Impact The Gallery at Northampton Community
College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Self-Portrait: The Changing Self New Jersey Center for Visual
Arts Summit *
Rutgers Center for lnnovative Printmaking: Fellowship Recipients
Mason Gross School of theArts, Rutgers, New Jersey State
University, New Brunswick
Building a Collection: The Department of Contemporary Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Darkness—Light: Twentieth Century Works from Texas
Collections Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Texas
1992
A Decade of Print Publishing: Sette & Segura Newberger
Museum of Art, Purchase, New York 1992-93
Floored Art Steinbaum/Krass Gallery, New York 1992-93
Travelling Exhibition*
Latin American Artists of the 20th Century Curated by Museum of
Modern Art, New York City; Muse De Arte Contemporaneo,
Sevilla, Spain; Pampidou Museum, Paris; Ludwig Museum,
Kohn, Germany 1992-93*
Remerica! Amerika 1492-1992 Hunter College, New York City *
City Views Stoller Gallery, Stony Brook State University of New
York *
Centered Margins Bowling Green State University, Ohio
40th Anniversary Exhibitions Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York*
Ante America Biblioteca Luis Angel, Bogota, travelling exhibition
to Caracas, Venezuela and U.S.A. 1992-93*
Marking Time Marking Place 1 4 9 2-1992: First Invasion Galeria De
La Raza Studio/24, San Francisco, CA*
Ten From Queens Paine Webber Art Gallery New York City *
Migrations Art Museum of Rhode Island School of Design,
Providence, Rhode Island *
Beyond Glory: Re- P resenting Te rrorism Maryland Institute, College
of Art, Baltimore, Maryland *
Selected Recent Acquisitions The Richard L. Nelson Gallery &
Fine Arts Collection, University of California at Davis
1991
5 Artistas Cubanos Galeria Ninart, Mexico City*
Artist of Conscience: 16 Years of Social & Political Commitment
Alternative Museum, New York *
Una Seleccion De Artistas Hispano Americanos en los Estados
Unidos U.S. representation at the 3rd International Painting
Biennial, Cuenca, Ecuador. Travelling to The Museum of the
Central Bank of Ecuador galleries inGuayaquil and Quito,
1991-92*
Cruciforms Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio *
They Would Rather Die Opus Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida
Mito Y Magia en America: Los Ochenta Museo De Arte
T O U G H R I D E A R O U N D T H E C I T Y, 1 9 8 1
Contemporaneo De Monterrey, Mexico 1991 *
“Responsive Witnesses” Palo Alto Cultural Center, California *
Ex posicion De Grabados Y Monotpos Galeria Botello, Hato Rey,
Puerto Rico *
Cuba/USA.’ The First Generation Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago, Illinois 1991* Fondo Del Sol, Washington, D.C.
1991 Minnesota Museum of Art 1992 Contemporary Art
Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 1992*
The Rage of Children Frances Wolfson Art Gallery, Miami-Dade
Community College, Miami, Florida *
1990
Subterranean Subjects Henry Street Settlement, New York, NY
1990-91
The New School Collects: Recent Acquisitions Parson School of
Design, New York
The Awakening/El Despertar The Discovery Museum, Bridgeport,
Conn. *
Azaceta, Cardillo & Frigerio Opus Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida
VII Bienal Iberoamericana De Arte—Caracteres De Idencidad En
Pueblos Ibero-Americanos Museo De Arte Moderno, Mexico *
43
China: June 4, 1989 PS 1 & Asian American Arts Center, New
York
Figuring The Body Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Dia De Los Muertos III The Alternative Museum, New York, NY *
California AZ and Return The Butler Institute of American Art,
Youngstown, Ohio *
Artists for Amnesty Blum Helman & Germans van Eck Gallery,
New York, NY
The Decade Show The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The
Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art & The Studio
Museum in Harlem, New York *
Earth, Latin America’s Visions Museo De Bellas Artes, Caracas,
Venezuela *
American Art Today: The City Florida International University,
Miami, Florida *
Affirmative Actions The School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
Illinois
Abstraccion-Figuracion/Figurative-Abstract Archer Huntington
Art Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, Texas *
New Acquisitions The Museum of Modern Art, New York
41st Annual Academy Institute Purchase Exhibition American
Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters, New York
China Blum Helman Warehouse, New York
The Face: American & European Drawings, Paintings & Sculpture
The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas *
Dia De Los Muertos II: Los Angelitos Alternative Museum, New
York
Sounding the Depths: 150 Years ofAmerican Seascape The
American Federation of Arts * Milwaukee Art Museum, Art
Museum of South Texas, The Orlando Museum of Art,
Museum of Art, Science & Industry, CT, Butler Institute,
Ohio, Honolulu Academy of Art.
1988
New York City Works One Penn Plaza, New York
Spectrum: New Developments in Three Dimensions
Frumkin/Adams Gallery, New York
1990 to Now: Modern Art from Rhode Island Collections
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence *
Self as Subject Katonah Art Gallery, Katonah, New York
Committed to Print The Museum of Modern Art, New York,
travelling exhibition, *
Fifty Second National Midyear Exhibition The Butler Institute of
American Art, Youngstown, Ohio *
10 Latino Artists Jack Tilton Gallery, New York
Paper Vision II Housatonic Community College, Bridgeport,
Connecticut
O P P R E S S IO N , 1 9 8 4
Life Before Art: Images From The Age ofAids Carlo Lamagna
Gallery, New York
New Acquisitions The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Texas
National Drawing Invitational The Arkansas Arts Center, Little
Rock *
Signs of the Self : Changing Perceptions Woodstock Artists Assoc.,
Woodstock, New York *
1989
Collector’s Annual Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock
Collector’s Exhibition Contemporary Art Center, Vero Beach,
Florida
The Best of the Annual Juried Exhibitions Queens Museum, New
York *
Promises of Progress Aljira Gallery, Neward
Whose Wars Bronx River Gallery, New York
Act Up’s Auction For Action 890 Broadway, New York
Art About Aids Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Pennsylvania
Art Against Aids II Body Positive Resource Center, Miami, Florida
Personae: Contemporary Portraiture & Self-Portraiture Islip Art
Museum, East Islip, New York
1987
The House in Contemporary Art University Art Gallery, CSU,
Turlock, California *
Collector’s Annual Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock
The Artful Traveller BMW Gallery, New York
Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920-1987
Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Queens Museum,
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, Centro Cultural/Arte
Contemporaneo, Mexico City 198788*
Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary
Painters and Sculptors The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
The Corcoran Museum of Art, The Lowe Museum, Miami,
The Museum of New Mexico at Santa Fe, Los Angeles County
Museum, Brooklyn Museum 1987-89
Crime and Punishment Schreiber/Cutler, Inc., New York
Outside Cuba/Fuera de Cuba Rutgers State University of New
Jersey, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, NY, Miami
University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio, Museo de Arte de
Ponce, Puerto Rico, Center for the Fine Arts, Miami 1987-88*
The Mind’s I Asian Arts Institute, New York 1987*
American Dreams Memorial Union Art Gallery, UC, Davis,
California 1987
Repulsions: Aesthetics of the Grotesque Alternative Museum, New
York 1987*
Self-Portraits: The Message, the Material Schick Art Gallery,
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, Hofstra University
Museum, New York *
Contemporary Symbolist Sensibilities The Bronx Museum of Art,
New York
44
The First America: Selections from the Nancy Sayles Day
Collection of Latin American Art Rhode Island School of
Design, circulated by the New England Foundation for
the Arts
Private Expressions: Personal Experiences Stamford Museum,
Connecticut *
Monotypes II Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York City
Charged Image I Beaver College Gallery, Glenside, Pennsylvania
1986
Carribean Art/African Currents Museum of Contemporary
Hispanic Art, New York *
New Narrative Painting travelling exhibition organized by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Artists forArtists New York Artists Housing Benefit, Charles
Cowles Annex, New York *
Thirteen Americans CDS Gallery, New York
Into the Mainstream: Ten Latin American Artists Working in
New York Jersey City Museum, New Jersey *
Since 1980: New Narrative Paintings The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York *
New York City: New Work Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington,
Delaware *
Seven in the Eighties Metropolitan Museum and Art Center,
Miami, Florida *
Fetishes, Figues and Fantasies Kenkeleba House, Inc., New York*
Life in the Big City Rhode Island School of Design, Providence,
Rhode Island *
1985
Nude, Naked, Stripped Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Hayden Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts *
Annual Juried Exhibition Queens Museum, Queens, New York *
American Artists of Cuban Origins Miami-Dade Community
College, South Campus *
CutOut/Outline/Silhouette Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
Painters in the Anchorage Creative Time, Inc., Brooklyn, New
York
Inaugural Exhibitions Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art,
New York
Azaceta, Brown, DeForest, Dugan, Saul CSCS Art Gallery
Turlock, California *
1984
Notes from the Underground Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
The Canadian Club Hispanic Art Tour 1984 travelling exhibition
organized by Hiram Walker, Inc. *
New Forms of Figuration Center for InterAmerican Relations,
New York
Anniversary Exhibition Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
New Figure Drawing: Twelve Latin American Artists
Wolfson Gallery, Florida *
The Studio Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
Aqui: 21 Latin American Artists Living and Working in the
United States travelling exhibition organized by the Fisher
Gallery, University of Southern California *
1983
Constructed Paintings Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
Sacramento Collects Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
Contemporary Self-Portraits Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York *
Bodies and Souls Benefit exhibition for the Artists’ Choice
Museum, New York *
Victims and Violence Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans,
Louisiana
Paradise Lost Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York
Inside Self Someone Else The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio *
Apocalypse and Utopia Payne Gallery, Moravian College,
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania *
Current Expression Florida International University, Miami,
Florida
1982
CAPS Painting Recipients Lehman College Gallery, New York
1981
Inside Out Newport Harbor Art Museum, California; Portland Art
Museum, Oregon; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
1981-82*
For Love and Money: Dealers Choose Pratt Manhattan Center
Gallery, Pratt Institute Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
4th Bienal de Arte Medellin Colombia, South America
Emerging Artists Alternative Museum, New York *
Still Life AlbrightKnox Gallery, New York
Crimes of Compassion Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia *
SELF-PORTRAIT AS MECHANIZED DOGGIE ,
1984
1980
Contemporary American Self-Portraits Harold
Reed Gallery, New York *
Uncommon Visions Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester,
New York *
1979
The Cuban Exhibition De Armas Gallery, Miami, Florida *
1978
Resurgimento El Museo del Barrio, New York
1976
Iman: New York A Selection of works of Art by Latin American
Artists Living in New York, The Center for InterAmerican
Relations, New York *
Bicentennial Exhibition Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1975
New Talent Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
1974
Festival of the Cuban Cultural Center New York
45
1973
Festival of the Cuban Cultural Center New York
International Art Exhibition Loeb Student Center, New York
1972
Four Latin American Artists Llerena Studio, New York
International Art Exhibition Loeb Student Center, New York
University
Mira: Canadian Club Hispanic Award, 1984
Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS) New York, 1981-82
National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1980-81
Cintas Foundation, Institute of International Education, New
York, 1975-76, 1972-73
1971
International Art Exhibition Loeb Student Center, New York
University
*Catalog
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Rene and Veronica DiRosa Foundation, Napa, California
Richard Brown Baker Art Collection, Yale University, Connecticut
The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Rutgers State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
Museo De Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela
Fine Arts Collection, University of California, Davis
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Texas
Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona
The New School of Social Research, New York
Phillip Morris Collection, New York
Rhode Island School of Design, Museum Collection, Rhode Island
Sidney and Frances Lewis Collection, Virgina Museum of Fine
Arts, Richhmond
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Huntington Gallery Museum, University of Texas, Austin
Tucson University Art Collection, Arizona
Alternative Museum, New York
Fulton Montgomery Community College, State University of New
York, Johnstown
Chemical Bank Collection, New York
El Museo Del Barrio, New York
Harlem Art Collection, State Office Building, New York
South Campus Art Collection Miami-Dade Community
College, Florida
Miami Public Library Art Collection, Florida ]
The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock
C H A R G E I T,
1985
GRANTS AWARDED:
National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1991-92
Penny McCall Foundation, 1991-92
Mid-Atlantic Grant for Special Projects, 1989
National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1985
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant, New York, 1985
New York foundation for the Arts, 1985
46
THE ALTERNATIVE MUSEUM founded in 1975 is a
nonprofit, artist administered museum of contemporary art
dedicated to the presentation of exhibitions of
humanitarian and cultural significance.
Its mission is to facilitate a forum in which artists and the public
can together challenge traditions and explore new meaning for art.
The museum also seeks to exhibit the work of emerging
and midcareer artists who have been underrecognized or
disenfranchised because of ideology, race, gender, or
economic inequality.
It is the museum’s goal to redefine the notion of art by
recognizing the contributions a diverse community can make
given the true enfranchisement of all artists as equals.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Hope Alswang
Houston Conwill
Jane Farver
Petar Jevremov
Isabel Nazario
Kathryn Pon
Geno Rodriguez
Janice Rooney
Isam Salah
Jos Sances
Stuart Schonberger
STAFF
Kenseth Armstead, Exhibitions
David Freilach, Administration/Development
Verna Gillis, Music
Geno Rodriguez, Director
Janice Rooney, Promotion/Publications
Elisa White, Administration
The Alternative Museum is supported in part by public funds from:
The National Endowment for the Arts
The New York State Council on the Arts
The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
Support for its programs also comes from the:
Jerome Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation
Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust
Joyce MertzGilmore Foundation
Phaedrus Foundation
Con Edison
The Weatherhead Foundation
The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc.
and the friends of the Alternative Museum
47
AIDS COUNT
III, 1988
48