New Devotions
Miguel Otero-Fuentes, “Rose of the Messiah / Rosa del Mesías”. Concrete; Pigment; Paper; Red candle. 2.5”ø x 14”. 2019. Dedicated to Saint Michael Archangel.
New Devotions
Curator: Laura Rivera
Artists: José Luis Vargas, Natalia Lasalle-Morillo, Kiván Quiñones-Beltrán, Laura Sofía Pérez, Miguel Otero-Fuentes, Alberto Zayas -Montilla, Sarah Conarro
Dates: March 10th - April 15th, 2023
Opening Reception: March 10th: 6 - 8pm
Gallery: Abrazo Gallery at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center
New Devotions examines the aesthetic and political value of Caribbean religious syncretism in a contemporary context. Bringing together six artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora, the exhibition explores elements from different traditions, including folk Catholicism, African diaspora religions, Indigenous rituals, and Spiritism. The featured artists demonstrate epistemic autonomy in light of the violence inherent in colonialism and secularization. The syncretic experience in Puerto Rico reflects the complex racial legacies of slave trade routes. This experience also attends to the past and ongoing migratory flows to and from the archipelago. The imagery intrinsic in the syncretic experience attests to an idiosyncratic Antillean cosmogony. The exhibition opens up the range of formal approaches to materials, subject matter, and representation in ways that have been overlooked by art historical narratives. New Devotions presents a compelling body of work by artists building on a rich tradition of resistance and worldmaking that questions the interpretative hegemony imposed on Caribbean visual cultures.
Texto en español:
New Devotions busca examinar el valor estético y político del sincretismo religioso en el Caribe en un contexto contemporáneo. A través de la obra de seis artistas de Puerto Rico y su diáspora, la exhibición explora elementos de diferentes tradiciones, incluyendo el catolicismo popular, las religiones de la diáspora africana,
las prácticas indígenas y el espiritismo. Los artistas seleccionados demuestran la existencia de una autonomía epistemológica que existe frente a la violencia inherente en el colonialismo y la secularización. La experiencia sincrética en Puerto Rico revela las complejidades raciales resultado de las rutas esclavistas. Esta experiencia también atiende los flujos migratorios, pasados y presentes, hacia y desde el archipiélago. La imaginería del sincretismo atestigua una cosmogonía intrínsecamente antillana. Esta exhibición quiere considerar acercamientos formales, temáticos y de representación de maneras que han pasado desapercibidas por la historia del arte occidental. New Devotions presenta la obra provocadora de un grupo de artistas que continúan una rica tradición de resistencia y creación del mundo que cuestiona la hegemonía interpretativa que se ha le ha impuesto a la cultura visual caribeña.
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The Clemente is a generative space to showcase these works and sustain a provocative discussion about Caribbean spirituality in the diaspora. The exhibition will also include programming, such as guided tours, a panel, and other related events. The exhibition catalogue is made possible by the Puerto Rican Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Artist Bios
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo (b. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico) is a theater & film director, filmmaker, performer, visual artist and educator, whose work melds experimental ethnography and embodied performance in order to decentralize canonical narratives and reimagine our individual & collective histories. Natalia’s practice centers on excavating imagined & archived history, collective memory and personal mythology through collaborative research, rehearsal and filmmaking processes. Her methodologies seek to challenge modes of creating live performance and film, examining how the event of spectating embodied narratives addresses the geopolitical, social and cosmological context where the work is presented. She usually collaborates with non-trained performers and artists in her films, installations and theatrical works. She earned an MFA in Directing from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA in Drama from the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As a Smithsonian Artist Research fellow, Lassalle-Morillo studied ceremonial objects of Haitian Voudoun and Arawak Taíno origin at the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History. By examining ceremonial objects specific to the Caribbean, Lassalle-Morillo will deepen an understanding of Puerto Rican history and spiritual cosmology.
Miguel Otero-Fuentes
Miguel Otero-Fuentes is an architect and sculptor born in the summer of 1986 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
In 2011, he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree of Environmental Design from the School of Architecture of the
University of Puerto Rico. In 2014, he acquired a Masters Degree in Architecture from the Georgia
Institute of Technology - School of Architecture. At Georgia Tech, he was awarded the T.Gordon Little
Fellowship and was the recipient of the 2013 Portman Prize of Architecture. Otero Fuentes currently
works as a façade designer on a number of local and international projects and is continuously creating
and developing his artform in his Brooklyn studio. His work is strongly influenced by and conceptually
based in architecture. Through his sculpture, he creates concepts that experiment with material,
dimension, number,light, space, and form.
Laura Sofía Pérez
Laura Sofía Pérez is an interdisciplinary artist who works in video, film, sound, and installation. She
received her MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts. Her work draws from feminist and
avant-garde cinema, phenomenological philosophy, Caribbean Postcolonial theory, and ancestral
knowledge. She often works in collaborative settings of experimentation and improvisation with artists of
varying disciplines and backgrounds to voice common perspectives on political, cultural, and social
issues. Recent artist residencies and programs include La Práctica at Beta-Local, San Juan, Puerto Rico
(2019), BAiR Emerging at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Canada (2020), and the AfA
Masterclass: Radical Care with Terike Haapoja (2020).
Kiván Quiñones-Beltrán
Kiván Quiñones-Beltrán was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. His practice is based on the fusion between
the recognizable, the unrecognizable and the cross between meditation and ancestral memory. His artistic
language shows a willingness to explore the role of memory tied to feelings of wonder and uncertainty as
it contrasts with the story and its content. In Quiñones-Beltrán’s work, light and color possess aesthetic
qualities of high energetic frequency, referring to Nganga healing practices. The ritual begins with
observing the sea through the gestural stains and drips in his work, and seeing how it is a mirror of our
society, one that acts with a greater force that manifests itself through chaos and calm. How we act and
form part of it through connecting and understanding the environment allows viewers to enter a state of
pure reflection that takes us beyond the artwork.
José Luis Vargas
Painter, performance artist, teacher, community coordinator, radio producer. Vargas began his studies at
the Liga de Arte de San Juan (1982–84). He earned a BFA at the Pratt Institute in New York in 1988 and
went on to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (1991). He obtained his
master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art in London in 1994. He also studied art
education at Kensington and Chelsea College in London. He has given courses and workshops in art in
Puerto Rico, New York, and England since 1988 and coordinated countless educational and cultural
events that combine the visual arts with other modes of expression. Since 2000 he has become interested
in radio production, which he has integrated into his community-action work. He works with other artists
in a studio for artistic experimentation in Santurce, where he creates his character “The Saint of
Santurce,” who takes part in a variety of public art events. His painting is distinguished by its heroic
urban figures, it's supernatural beings, and its sense of humor, as Vargas makes use of the language of
comic strips a great deal in his work.
Alberto Zayas Montilla
Alberto Zayas Montilla (b. Santurce, Puerto Rico) holds a BA in Philosophy and Film Studies
from The George Washington University, and an MA in Cultural Management from the University of
Puerto Rico. He is a co-founder of the community project space and gallery in Santurce, Puerto Rico -
Hidrante. His work draws inspiration from the overlooked landscape where resistance takes place in order
to build a holistic narrative of Caribbean transcendence through painting. He participated in La Práctica
residency at Beta-Local, San Juan Puerto Rico (2019), and the Micro-residencia of the Puerto Rican Arts
Initiative (2021). His first solo show “Causa Común” took place in KM0.2 in San Juan, Puerto Rico
(2021). He has collaborated with Embajada as a writer, as well as with Pioneer Works.
Sarah Conarro
Sarah Conarro (b.1984) is an interdisciplinary artist working in visual, social, performative, and experiential collage. Through curating projects – community murals, living room lecture series, dinner parties with strangers – Conarro has outlined a social engagement philosophy she calls Link:Link. This philosophy encourages low-risk interpersonal exchanges as the foundation for transforming how we talk to, see, and understand each other. Her visual work, community projects, and performative work have received support and exhibitions from Brooklyn Bridge Park Public Art Initiative, Dashboard+Brutal Studios (Atlanta), KTOO Public Radio & Juneau Humanities Council, and Alaska State Council on the Arts, among others. Since 2017, she serves as the director of The Painted Cloud art studio in Brooklyn, developing curriculum and training teaching artists in community-minded experimentation education practices. In tandem with Dreamers Welcome (BK), Conarro devised a workshop series wherein artists test new ideas to present through affordable community events. Conarro drafted the first arts curriculum for the Lower Kuskokwim School District, taught undergraduate and graduate courses in arts education at University of Alaska, and currently teaches at Parsons. Conarro holds a BFA in Drawing & Painting from the University of Georgia and a MAT in Arts Education from the University of Alaska.
