CLS PhD student publishes blog on Afro-Puerto Rican Art

On November 19, 2023, the Movimiento Afropuertorriqueño and Familia Orta-Allende gathered in front of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico to protest the institution’s silent removal of the wooden plaque honoring Cecilia Orta Allende. The gallery was named after her, an Afro-Puerto Rican artist, educator, and political activist known as “la pintora del pueblo” for her lifelong pedagogical project with impoverished communities throughout Puerto Rico. Yet, overnight, the museum replaced the wooden plaque and renamed the gallery after Valeria Antonia Carrión Benítez, the daughter of donors to the museum. Her father, José B. Carrión, had previously served as the president of the Financial Oversight Board, commonly referred to as “La Junta de Control Fiscal” locally, which was established under the federal law P.R.O.M.E.S.A. and imposed on Puerto Ricans.

This surreptitious decision made by the board of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, is sadly not the first instance where institutions erase Black cultural production, while making moves that clearly show a lack of commitment to Black communities on the archipelago. Once again, communities directly impacted by these institutions permeated with coloniality, denounced antiblack cycles of erasure of Black Puerto Ricans and our cultural productions. In this occasion, Edwin Velázquez Collazo, a community organizer, curator, and cultural archivist, led these claims and effectively articulated how this action dishonored “la pintora del pueblo” while also highlighting celebratory photos of artists and visitors of the museum learning and appreciating Cecilia Orta Allende’s legacy.

“What does Black imagination do for excavating memory?”, asked my professor and mentor, Dr. Yomaira C. Figueroa Vásquez at the Diaspora Solidarities Lab launch in Summer 2022. I have this quote on my wall, as a reminder that imagination has led us to create alternative realities and futurities. But what happens when those who are committed to producing representations of our experiences don’t make it into the institutions that the state deems representative of national culture?

As Edwin Velázquez Collazo reminds us, the word “negro” made folx feel uncomfortable in the 80’s and 90’s within and beyond Puerto Rico’s art scene. In 1996, after failed attempts to garner financial support from institutions claiming to promote the arts, Velázquez Collazo curated the first exhibition of Black artists “Paréntesis: ocho artistas negros contemporáneos.” The exhibition, first held at the Arsenal de la Puntilla, ICP (San Juan, PR), later traveled to venues such as Museo Casa Roig (Humacao, PR), Museo Fuerte Conde de Mirasol (Vieques, PR), and Centro de Exposiciones (Carolina, PR). Through collaborative efforts, a group of Black artists and writers reinstated their commitment to Puerto Rican art and history by solidifying their discourse and redefining Blackness beyond folkloric or caricaturist representations. This exhibition was a response to two exhibitions that had been shown prior in 1989 and 1992 intended to dismantle the “invisibility” of the Black subject in Puerto Rican art. These were “La presencia africana en el arte del Caribe” (1989) and “La tercera raíz: la presencia africana en Puerto Rico” (1992). These exhibitions, Velázquez Collazo contended, still demonstrated a primitive and folkloric portrayal of Black art, rather than highlighting Black artists who explore the pluralities of Black aesthetics.

However, “Paréntesis” received backlash from critics throughout the archipelago for having the word “negro” as part of its title. Art historians and journalists argued there was no need to include a racial marker, asserting that art transcends color. They interpreted its inclusion as an indication that the artists aimed to draw attention to their Black identity rather than focusing solely on the art they produced. Daniel Lind, one of the artists in “Paréntesis”, responded with a statement that Puerto Ricans still need to contend with: “In our country we are constantly reminded of our Blackness (with all that this implies) but saying publicly that we are Black is not ‘approved.’” Indeed, those of us who are Black, know it.

The removal of Cecilia Orta Allende’s plaque is a reminder of the legacy these institutions hold, a reminder that their intended use is for the creation of a curated Puerto Rican culture. The museum’s executive director, María Cristina Gaztambide, brushed off the community’s rightful outrage by stating the deaccession was a matter of funding, and that the name had to be changed or else they ran the risk of losing the space. While Gaztambide reasoned that the removal wasn’t a matter of eliminating but rather moving Cecilia Orta Allende’s name to another room to function as a workshop space, this movement still led to invisibility. The visiting public longing to encounter art by and for Black Puerto Ricans would no longer see her plaque.

I believe the main issue with this controversy is with Gaztambide’s failure to acknowledge what’s implied in her statement: an institute that should celebrate Puerto Rican art and culture is instead influenced by its donors and, therefore, Afro-Puerto Rican art is under constant risk of being relegated to the margins at the capricious whim of benefactors. Thus, returning to the initial question: “What does Black imagination do for excavating memory?” I think of Mayra Santos Febres’ reflection in the “25th anniversary of ‘Paréntesis’”:

Todavía el arte afroboricua sobrevive relegado a exposiciones extraperiféricas, fuera del Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico o del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo. Sobrevive y crece gracias a la apertura de espacios alternativos, para responder de manera masiva a la exclusión sistémica y-o a las inclusiones selectivas de uno o dos artistas, los que han logrado reconocimiento de instituciones extranjeras o ganado becas de programas de arte y comunidad.

As a response, it brings me joy to witness the creation of alternative spaces such as La Casa de Arte y Cultura de La Playa de Ponce, a project by artist Diógenes Ballester and poet-psychologist Dr. Mary Katherine Bonche, as well as Casa Silvana, founded by Edwin Velázquez Collazo in collaboration with artist and educator Joyce de Jesús Martínez. Located in the Southern and Eastern regions of Puerto Rico, respectively, these spaces are removed from the San Juan metro area–where the traditional art scene insists on existing–and provide a space that truly cares about Afro-Puerto Rican art and artists. Having had the pleasure of visiting both, I am left with the hope that it is through solidarity that we, as Black communities, preserve, and celebrate the pluralities of our experience within the archipelago.

I am thankful to both spaces for welcoming me and my people with warmth. I am grateful to Edwin’s commitment as a community organizer, for creating a space like Casa Silvana, where Black artists can create and share their expressions of what Afro-Puerto Rican art is and can be. Additionally, I admire his effort as a writer, documenting both the achievements and injustices witnessed within art institutions. Lastly, I commend Edwin for his role as an archivist by establishing “La Afroteca”–defined as “the first Afrocentric library in Puerto Rico specialized in the history of the visual arts of the African Diaspora and Afro-Puerto Rican culture.” Continuing the legacy of our dear Arturo Alfonso Schomburg’s lifelong mission to retrieve and document diasporic Blackness against the constant risk of our erasure.

Regarding the topic of erasure, a couple of months ago, Mayra Santos Febres shared an article titled “Dibujo de león de 500 años en cueva pudo haber sido realizado por un africano esclavizado” (“Drawing of 500-year-old Lion in Cave May Have Been Done by Enslaved African”). Upon reading it, I paused. This piece of art, implied to have been created by an enslaved person, as they would be the only ones in the Caribbean context who would have known of lions, dates back to at least 500 years ago. Another pause. As I stare at the drawing of this lion, I am shaken by the feeling of grief. With the feeling of having to contend with not knowing the story behind the artist. Of what this person witnessed before arriving in the Caribbean. Why a lion and for whom? Could it be possible this person left it as evidence of their existence, of where they came from? Was it intended to give assurance to others who could pass through this cave? Part of this collective erasure is coming to terms with the fragments of our history that we will never retrieve and weaving what we do know from the memories lost.

In bearing witness to this art, we can imagine what the artist beheld before being forced to come into this land, making it their home despite all its structured violence. And although our ancestors did not ask to be here, they survived by making this archipelago their home. It has been centuries of proving, uncovering, and redefining our past in this insidiously racist nation, that we have been here, that we also produce culture, that we exist and resist–as communities. Our experiences are complex, we are not a stereotype or caricature to be consumed and exploited. Even as the nation’s discourse insists on the myth of a harmonious cultural heritage, there are many who still target us for naming ourselves Black, Afro-Puerto Rican, Afro-descendant, Negro/a/x.

Despite these experiences and attempts at erasure, we have Black art in the archipelago, and alternative spaces that celebrate the plurality of representations of Blackness. We have Black artists, curators, and archivists committed to preserving our story amidst the constant violence from a state that insists on pushing us to the margins. Black art reminds us that we have been here, that we are also Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and that as diasporic people, we have always found creative ways to survive and imagine different futures. 

I write this reflection for the artist in the cave. I write in honor of our archivist Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. I write for the creative ancestors I’ve yet to meet. I write for those who have dedicated their lives to preserve, recollect, and document our memory, to ensure the state and its institutions do not erase us.