Name: Opening Reception: New Devotions
Start: 2023-03-10T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2023-03-10T20:00:00-05:00
Location: 107 Suffolk St

Opening Reception: New Devotions

The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center Inc. (The Clemente) is a Puerto Rican/Latino cultural institution that has demonstrated a broad-minded cultural vision and a collaborative philosophy. While The Clemente’s mission is focused on the cultivation, presentation, and preservation of Puerto Rican and Latino culture, it is equally determined to operate in a multi-cultural and inclusive manner, housing and promoting artists and performance events that fully reflect the cultural diversity of the Lower East Side and the city as a whole.

The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural &Education Center

New Devotions seeks to examine the aesthetic and political value of Caribbean syncretism in a contemporary context.

107 Suffolk St

Curator: Laura RiveraArtists: José Luis Vargas, Natalia Lasalle-Morillo, Kiván Quiñones-Beltrán, Laura Sofía Pérez, Miguel Otero-Fuentes, Alberto Zayas -Montilla, and Sarah ConarroDates: March 10th - April 15th, 2023Opening Reception: March 10th: 6 - 8pmGallery: Abrazo Gallery at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center New Devotions seeks to examine the aesthetic and political value of Caribbean syncretism in a contemporary context. Through the work of six artists from Puerto Rico and its diaspora, the exhibition explores the role played by different traditions, including Christianity, African diaspora religions, indigenous practices, and Spiritism, in the consolidation of a cultural autonomy that opposes the epistemological violence inherent in colonialism and secularization. The syncretic experience in the Caribbean reveals the racial complexities, slave routes and later paradigmatic migratory flows of the region. In turn, it proposes new expressive qualities that syncretic images provide to visual production and its interpretation. Often condemned or practiced in secrecy, these practices testify to the existence of an intrinsic Antillean cosmogony in the midst of political marginalization. That is, the potential to alter the world while dispossessed of institutionalized representation of power.—New Devotions busca examinar el valor estético y político del sincretismo caribeño en un contexto contemporáneo. A través de la obra de seis artistas de Puerto Rico y su diáspora, la exhibición indaga en el rol que han jugado diferentes tradiciones, entre las que se incluyen el cristianismo, las religiones de la diáspora africana, las prácticas indígenas y el espiritismo, en la consolidación de una autonomía cultural que se opone a la violencia epistemológica inherente al colonialismo y la secularización. La experiencia sincrética en el Caribe revela las complejidades raciales, rutas esclavistas y posteriores flujos migratorios paradigmáticos de la región. A su vez, propone nuevas cualidades expresivas que las imágenes sincréticas brindan a la producción visual y su interpretación. A menudo condenadas o practicadas en secreto, estas prácticas atestiguan la existencia de una cosmogonía propiamente antillana en medio de la marginalización política. Esto es, el potencial de este cúmulo de saberes de alterar el mundo, aún cuando se es despojado de representación institucionalizada del poder. Estas ideas prevalecen en el trabajo de Kiván Quiñones-Beltrán, quien experimenta con elementos de las prácticas chamánicas del Congo y otras áreas de África occidental. José Luis Vargas nos brinda un lenguaje personal que trata sobre la autodefinición. Natalia Lasalle-Morillo, cuyo trabajo se ha centrado en la migración entre el Caribe y los Estados Unidos, realiza investigaciones sobre artefactos de las culturas precolombinas para profundizar nuestra comprensión de la historia de la cosmología espiritual caribeña. Laura Sofía Pérez explora prácticas de brujería, referencia también presente en las esculturas de Miguel Otero-Fuentes.—

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Opening Reception: New Devotions

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Opening Reception: New Devotions

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