Graft | Whitney Museum
Graft
2022
12’ x 65’ x 4’
Whitney Museum of American Art
no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria
whitney.org/exhibitions/no-existe
This exhibition is organized by Marcela Guerrero, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator, with Angelica Arbelaez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow and Sofía Silva, former Curatorial & Education Fellow in US Latinx Art.
Nov 23, 2022–Apr 23, 2023
Edra Soto’s ongoing Graft seeks to acknowledge the history of vernacularly design in Puerto Rico and diasporic architecture throughout the motifs if rejas (wrought-iron bars and gates) and quietrasoles (concrete fences). Rejas are normally used as a security measure, creating a barrier and demarcating a boundary. Quiebrasoles function similarly, but also provides shade and allow air to flow into the house. Soto is attuned to how these architectural features mediate the way we related to the world around us. They delineate what belongs inside and outside the home which in turn informs notions of private and public life. Whether one is standing “inside” or “outside” of Soto’s work, is complicated by the slide viewers embedded in the structure, through which visitors can see “out” into the landscape via images captured by Soto and other photographers of a Puerto Rico ravaged by Huracanes Irma and Maria. Such images are frequently encountered through digital screens that GRAFT offers. They become sited that encourages empathy rather than passives spectatorship. A QR code dives access to the names of the photographers who contributed to this installation and their location and to a series of complementary essays that expands on the concepts and facets of Graft from the writers respective perspectives:
English version:
img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/59663/assets…
Version en Español:
img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/59663/assets…