i am satos™ Journal is the official media for Wallpeople San Juan 2013!

We are happy to announce that i am satos™ Journal will be the official media for WALLPeople San Juan 2013! Visit us next week for a special edition about WALLPeople, and join our team on June 1st at the event!

More details coming soon... 

What is WALLPeople?

" Wallpeople is a collaborative art project born in Barcelona with the objective of fostering creativity in people. Its proposal is based on organizing collective exhibitions in urban spaces, where anyone can exhibit their own works. 

One of the reasons to participate in Wallpeople is to take art back to the streets and claim public space as a medium for expression and interactions between city dwellers.  

Its events pose an opportunity for all of those that have something to show to the world and could hardly do it in a gallery or museum. To summon the attendants the organization uses the tools available through the Internet for creating experiences in the real world. 

Wallpeople is an experiment born in 2009 that has been growing year after year, and now reaches over forty cities around the world."

¿Qué es WALLPeople?

" Wallpeople es un proyecto de arte colaborativo nacido en Barcelona que tiene como objetivo fomentar la creatividad de las personas. Su propuesta se basa en organizar exposiciones colectivas en espacios urbanos, donde cualquiera puede exhibir sus propias obras.

Una de las razones de ser de Wallpeople es devolver el arte a las calles y reivindicar el espacio público como medio de expresión y de interacción ciudadana.

Sus eventos suponen una oportunidad para todos aquellos que tienen algo que mostrar al mundo y que difícilmente podrán hacerlo en una galería o un museo. Para convocar a los asistentes la organización utiliza todas las herramientas que ofrece Internet para terminar creando siempre experiencias en el mundo real.

Wallpeople es un experimento nacido en 2009 que ha ido creciendo año tras año, hasta llegar a más de cuarenta ciudades de todo el mundo."

Ángel Otero: Material Discovery @ SCAD MOA

FEATURED THIS WEEK! Check out this exhibition by Puerto Rican visual artist residing in Brooklyn, NY Ángel Otero, at the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art in Savannah, GA. Hurry!, it will be up until May 5, 2013. 

This Sunday I revisited this exhibition. The pieces are visually stunning, yet they present the artists' very personal approach to painting through unconventional methods. Here is SCAD MOA's description: 

"Material Discovery" by Angel Otero features new paintings and original sculpture alongside a selection of recent works. A rising star in the contemporary art world, Otero is known for his process-based approach to painting, specifically his practice of creating “oil skins” that are made from paint poured onto glass and peeled off in dry sheets. These skins are then grafted onto the artist’s canvas to create assemblage works composed of additional materials such as resin, spray paint and silicone. The resulting works are simultaneously collage and décollage and present a dynamic, fresh approach to contemporary painting.  http://bit.ly/11jdIwA

Enjoy! 

Untitled

​Oil paint skins collaged on canvas

Untitled (SK-EU)

​Oil paint skins collaged on canvas 2012

Untitled (SK-FI)

​Oil paint and oil paint skins collaged on canvas 2012

Tasso's (After Sir Anthony Van Dyck)

​Oil paint and oil paint skins collaged on canvas 2012

Roulette

​Oil paint skins collaged on canvas 2011

SK-EB

​Oil paint skins collaged on canvas 2012

Interview with Martín Albarrán

Meet Martín Albarrán! Martín Albarrán is an artist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His preparation in the art and design worlds ranges from sculpture, restoration and architecture. Martín has been educated in art since high school at the Escuela Central de Artes Visuales in San Juan, PR and later received a bachelor in fine arts with concentration in sculpture from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de San Juan. He became a sculpture professor at a the same school, and later spent four years at a restoration workshop working with crafts and antique furniture. Alongside artist Filipo Tirado he had a workshop at Santurce for the production of sculptures. From 2007 to 2010 he started coursework in architecture at the graduate program of the School of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico.  

It was during an academic exchange at Barcelona, where he became involved in digital design and contemporary architecture history, that his vision about spaces transformed from space for exhibition to places for creation. From this vision, La Productora, his latest endeavor into art entrepreneurship emerges. La Productora is not only a space for producing art, it is as Martín describes it: “a space for producing culture; a space to revitalize and echo the constant movement in the Cerra street at Santurce”.

Our collaborator and artist Fortunato-Velázquez, sat down with Martín at La Productora to chat about his experiences and undertaking as an art entrepreneur.

You describe La Productora as an “alternative space where art and design converge”. Where did the idea of creating an alternative space for contemporary art emerge?

The idea comes from Cart Watch, a previous production and exhibition space which is the inspiration for developing this second project. The space had a good reception by the artists, which were motivated to produce for the space. There were times when the artists wanted to show work and they presented the idea of an exhibition to my partner and me. Initially we came to the space with the idea of a studio for fabrication of any kind of objects. With time, alongside sculptor Jaime Rodríguez, we realized its possibilities for developing a space for artistic production and exhibition. We explored what to do with the space, what message we wanted to express and what type of audience to bring.

After that project I was left wanting a space that would more closely approach the professional side of art. With this new space, we want to bring artists with some kind of experience or those who are working with an established perspective, but who don’t have a space or support from a particular space. My goal is to give the space an ample promotion, not only to create a hangout place like it occurred in my previous project, but also change the perception of the interior space so that art stands out.

At La Productora we want to have resident artists that will work on their pieces, whether it be for an exhibition in the space or another gallery. The space provides the artist with individual space without having the problem of having to stop production because of an exhibition that is up, as well as the necessary equipment for every type of job. Another thing I wanted to address in this space is the idea of including as part of the production other professionals that would take advantage of the opportunity of collaborating. In that case, have a multidisciplinary studio so that space would open and be malleable in terms of uses and users.

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How do you identify yourself with autonomous management? What is the role for starting this enterprise?

I coordinate everything that is going on in the space, and Roberto is more concerned with his work as a designer. I look for contacts and establish the networks. I look for the artists and the curators, so I don’t always have the role of curator and instead the vision of the space varies and expands with exhibitions that have not made it to museums or galleries. We want to provoke that the artists that already have a trajectory bring in proposals for exhibits. I want the artist to bring in ideas and to market those ideas, with a concept that holds the work sample as a whole. I want the artist to bring me the undertone of his/her process, for me to be able to understand it and be able to emphasize the importance of the work beyond the aesthetics.

What is the differentiation of this space in comparison with other spaces that are emerging in the contemporary art scene?

Other spaces are more formal; they have scholarships and monetary support. We are based in autonomous management, and whatever money we receive is invested back to the space. In this aspect, La Productora is less formal; we don’t interview the artist to be able to produce here. We do have criteria for selection, but at the same time we are very flexible so that the artist who is looking for an alternative space for creation can actually develop. We would like to achieve a point were we could bring lectures and international artists. I hope we can do it at some point so that the space can transcend. I would like to start seeing here what is being created outside the Island.

Do you think there has been a transformation of the mentality about art? In that case, does the space emerge as a response to it or critique about the absence of it?

I think the situation in the Island is difficult. In Cart Watch the audience was fairly diverse. Visitors ranged from professors, students, artists, curators and others. We have somewhat changed the dynamics of the traditional galleries that established very specific parameters in terms of uses and opportunities. Something interesting that occurred in Cart Watch was the opportunity the space had for taking art out of the Island to an exhibition at New York. The idea is also to take art out of La Productora, with a selection of artists to visit other countries. I think we have changed the collector's way of thinking. All these spaces have gotten together to rethink new paradigms and spaces for art in the Island.

What is your vision for the development of the project in short term and long term? What situations in the future would enable the project to go forward?

I want more artists to come to the studio spaces and that those artists stay as residents in the space. Maybe create some type of critique cycles were we could bring people from the exterior and include them in the creative process, which at the same time would enrich the studio experience with other perspectives. I want to establish an itinerary and keep bringing to the space quality work; maybe create a lecture cycle. It is not about creating exhibitions just because; it's about maintaining a sequence from an artistic logic. I want the space to become a residency for artists. At the same time I want to have the opportunity to take the work and artists to the exterior.  

Artist Introduction: Naimar Ramírez

FEATURED ON OUR HOME PAGE! 

We introduce new collaborator, artist Naimar Ramírez! Read more about her work below.  

A mask is an intermediary between its wearer and the outside world: a filter, screen or shield.

Photographs of textures from my (current) environment are sculpted, free-form, into heads with unclear identities. In order to transform the object into subject, they are documented, translated back into an image, which is presented on a paper similar to that of which they are made.

In the simplest terms, it is a covering. It can be created in solitude, as an individual expression; it can also be part of a ritual, a cultural action, a response (in agreement or opposition) to society. It can be and do many things at once: it can provide protection or disguise, it can transform and decorate, it can cast a likeness or provide as well as remove an identity, and it can establish a social/cultural connection. It can be deliberate, unintentional or forced upon.

Naimar Ramírez is an artist who concentrates in photography and sculpture. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 2011 with a degree in Environmental Design and Photography, and is currently enrolled in the Photography M.F.A. at Savannah College of Art and Design. A deep interest in cultural encounters and language as well as the inevitable effects of translation on communication, fuel a search for similar mutations in her visual work. The transformations from abstract thought to concrete words are reflected in the photographic explorations, where often images are transformed into empty threedimensional pieces that are presented with an air of 'objectness.'

Artist Profile: Anabel Vázquez

FEATURED THIS WEEK! 

Meet Anabel Vázquez! Anabel is an artist and curator based in Boston, MA. It was an unexpected but great surprise to have met her in Milledgeville, GA at the Georgia College Museum where her art and co-curatorial work Carry-On: Puerto Rico Inspected is being exhibited. The day before the opening and with the exhibition set-up in the background, I had the chance to sit with Anabel to talk about her trajectory.

Boston is Anabel’s home since 1998, when she transferred from the University of Puerto Rico to Mass Art (Massachusetts College of Art and Design). The creative atmosphere she encountered at Mass Art, alleviated the cultural shock she felt in her transition from Puerto Rico. At Mass Art she majored in photography with a minor in film, skills she masters in her practice by mixing photography with painting and film.

Anabel’s move to Boston coincided with major political and social clashes in Puerto Rico such as a general strike provoked by people’s unrest about the privatization of the telephone company, and the struggle against the U.S. Navy’s military presence in the island-municipality of Vieques. Looking at these situations from a distance and immersed in another culture, made Anabel realize and value the unique combatant nature of her people back in Puerto Rico.

The social atmosphere after September 11 also had great impact on how she saw people feel and act in her surroundings. In 2002, for the commemoration of the anniversary of 911 she was invited by legendary avant-garde filmmaker Saul Levine to participate in a one year anniversary 911 show that he curated at his weekly show Massart Film Society. Soon after she was inspired by the other artists and their work in the 911 show, and invited some of  them to be part of her first series of monthly multimedia shows at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge, From the first show, Kill The Body And The Head Will Die, the core of Esprit de Corps Art collective was conceived.

Focused on political art and in mixed media, Esprit De Corps Art Collective traveled to many cities to share the message. The collective was an international mix of people reaching 15 artists at a time, being Anabel the only Latin American. At this point it became very important for Anabel to continue her work in Boston. for spreading the word about what is going on in Puerto Rico and make the connections with the activism in the U.S.

Since then she has done many curatorial work focused on exchanging cultural values through art. For this she has brought international artists to Puerto Rico, as well as Puerto Rican art to other international cities. Discordia Films, is one of the curatorial projects in which Anabel collaborates with Argentinian and Chilean colleagues for showing international films through tours around South America, North America and Europe.

Anabel currently works in different contexts: as digital archivist of antique collections at the Boston Public Library; manager for a film professor; and also frames exhibitions. Living at one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. requires great sacrifice, reason for which Anabel considered moving back home to continue graduate studies. This plan was abruptly stopped when a curator position at La Galería at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, a program of Boricuas Inquilinos en Acción.

Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción is a non-profit organization that serves low-income communities in Boston, mainly Puerto Rican communities. This organization’s history goes back to 1968 when a group of Puerto Rican activists came together to take control over the displacement of their neighborhood. With this organized effort by the community, Villa Victoria was approved and the government of Boston granted the land.

Uploaded by Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion IBA ETC on 2012-01-31.

Anabel has been the curator since 2010 of La Galería. Through this position she has been able to bring Puerto Rican artists to Boston, and more recently invite Beto Torrens to co-curate Carry-On: Puerto Rico Inspected. 

More at: 

Carry-On: Puerto Rico Inspected @ Georgia College [A Review]