Diasporican Abstraction: Identities Beyond Representation

"Diasporican Abstraction: Identities Beyond Representation" is a large-scale group exhibition curated by Abdiel D. Segarra Ríos that brings together the work of more than 50 artists and collectives from different generations and geographic contexts. The exhibition examines abstraction through the experiences of the Puerto Rican diaspora, migration, and the cultural exchanges created through movement between Puerto Rico and other territories. The exhibition expands conventional narratives of Puerto Rican abstraction by including artists whose practices have developed both on the island and in cities across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Caribbean. It also places Puerto Rican artists in dialogue with Caribbean, Central American, and South American artists whose practices address related themes of territory, migration, memory, the body, and identity. The exhibition includes works across multiple mediums, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and other forms of artistic practice. The museum describes the exhibition as an opportunity to reconsider Puerto Rican abstraction beyond political and geographic borders and to understand the diaspora as a space of cultural production. A significant component of the exhibition is the presentation, for the first time in Puerto Rico, of selected works from El Museo del Barrio's collection in New York alongside works from private collections and the Permanent Collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico. The exhibition also incorporates research projects by Paulina Pagán, through Fibra Común, and Rossana Martínez, through Geometrías del Cuerpo, which explore the body and abstraction in relation to territory, movement, and memory. Participating artists include Awilda Sterling Duprey, Candida Álvarez Marcos Dimas, Lee Quiñones, Renny Molenaar, Edra Soto, Jorge Soto, David Santamaría, Freddy Rodríguez, G. Rosa-Rey and many more.