Untitled item 6
Frank Espada
An item at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
In 1979, photographer Frank Espada began a federally funded, multiyear project to document the Puerto Rican diaspora. For the aptly named Puerto Rican Diaspora Project, Espada traveled across the United States and Puerto Rico, taking thousands of photographs of over thirty Puerto Rican communities and collecting numerous oral histories. In 1982, Espada spent time in Chicago capturing portraits of many Puerto Rican Chicagoans, including Tommy Jiménez, president of the predominantly Puerto Rican gang the Latin Eagles; his mother Marta Jiménez; and Samuel Betances, an educator and founding editor of The Rican: A Journal of Contemporary Puerto Rican Thought, a copy of which is on display in this exhibition.
entre horizontes: ART AND ACTIVISM BETWEEN CHICAGO AND PUERTO RICO
An exhibit at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico examines the artistic and social justice histories that connect Puerto Rico with Chicago. Featuring works by an intergenerational group of artists with ties to Chicago, the exhibition highlights Puerto Rican artists who address social and political issues through their work, including painters who use printmaking techniques and approaches. The exhibition also centers Chicago as a city that for decades. has championed conversations on Puerto Rican self-determination. Accompanying the artwork on view is a selection of archival materials documenting social movements and community organizations that have advocated for the rights of underrepresented Latine communities. Through historic photographs and ephemera, the exhibition documents stories of anticolonial resistance and transcultural solidarities in Puerto Rican Chicago. The title of the exhibition, entre horizontes (between horizons), draws on another point of connection between these two places. While geographically distinct, the horizon lines over the waters of Lake Michigan and the Caribbean appear as sites of memory and longing to many Puerto Rican Chicagoans. By bridging these two horizons, the exhibition traces correspondences across not only visual art and social justice but also place and identity. entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico is curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator, with Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate. The exhibition is designed by SKETCH | Johann Wolfschoon, Panamá.