Puerto Rico Graphic: Latin America and the Caribbean

ICP announces the start of the Puerto Rico Poly/Graphic: America and the Caribbean from April 19

During a conference held today, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) announced the celebration of the international artistic event Poly/graphic of Puerto Rico: Latin America and the Caribbean. Starting on Friday, April 19, under the title Bajo pressure / under pressure, this edition will feature more than 100 Puerto Rican and international artists. The event will take place until September 15 at the Old Arsenal of the Spanish Navy and the ICP Headquarters Gallery, both in Old San Juan and around different cultural institutions around the Island.

The executive director of the ICP, Carlos Ruiz Cortes, said during the press conference: “We are honored to officially present the Poli/grafica de Puerto Rico Latin America and the Caribbean, a varied art exhibition that highlights the imprint of graphics and its experimentations. . This is the most important event in Puerto Rico and one of the most anticipated in Latin America and the Caribbean, in which we will have over a hundred participating artists... we welcome all the representatives of the countries participating in this important artistic meeting through the inclusion of a diversity of artistic media and languages.” During his speech, Ruiz Cortes highlighted that this celebration is due in part to the allocation made by the Governor of Puerto Rico of ARPA Funds.
The Poli/Grafica de Puerto Rico: Latin America and the Caribbean is heir to the most important exhibition of the visual arts on the Island: the San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Engraving, established by the ICP in 1970, and became the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial: Latin America and the Caribbean, in 2004. This edition proposes a plurivocal and multivalent vision of the artistic practices expanded in the engraving and graphics of Latin America, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and its diasporas, in the last decade.

For her part, María Del Mar Caragol, Director of the ICP Plastic Arts Program, said “This edition commemorates 54 years since the first celebration of the San Juan Biennial of Latin American Engraving, a meeting that brings to the fore the voices and perspectives of the plastic artists from Puerto Rico, Latin America and the Caribbean, who make up the curatorial selection. In total, 103 individual and collective artists through the Bajo Presión Under Pressure proposal, with the purpose of connecting with visitors and stimulating new currents of thoughts... New opportunities are also opened for participating artists and for all professionals in our ecosystem for more than four months of the Poly/graphic”. Caragol added that the exhibitions at the ICP will be free of charge and, in addition, educational and accessible workshops are offered as part of the calendar.
The project includes funding for seven other exhibits at museums, nonprofit organizations, and community-based art projects. More than 300 local and international works will be highlighted at the event. In addition to Puerto Rico, representatives from Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas participate.

As explained, this year's edition has Elvis Fuentes, art historian and director of the Coral Gables Museum in Miami, as chief curator, and Lisa Ladner as curator for Puerto Rico. Fuentes and Ladner have collaborated for more than a year to ensure a balanced and meaningful representation of the diverse perspectives and realities present in contemporary art in Puerto Rico.
Although Elvis Fuentes, who joined as curator in 2017, was not at today's conference, he left a written message in which he expressed: “I am extremely pleased that Poli / graphic will be a reality after seven years of waiting. I want to thank the ICP, especially its executive director Carlos Ruiz Cortes and the director of the Plastic Arts Program, María Del Mar Caragol, for their tenacity and determination to carry out this crucial event for the plastic arts in the region. I would like to highlight two very dear people in this event: Antonio Martorell and Humberto Figueroa, who took me to Puerto Rico to see the edition of the biennial held in 2004.”

For her part, curator Lisa Ladner expressed: “I was not born on the Island, but the Island was born in me. My mother is Puerto Rican from Santurce, my father is Swiss... 20 years ago I studied and did my thesis on the Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico... I did not know that 20 years later I would be here in front of you as curator of the polygraphic... it has been a honor and surprise.”

Carlos Ruiz Cortes concluded by inviting Puerto Ricans and visitors to enjoy these four months full of arts, with the purpose “that they live the experience of what happens in Puerto Rico with the plastic arts…. If you have never come, then this is the time to do so.”

For more information and to know the event schedule, you can visit the pages poligraficapr.com and culturalpr.com or follow the ICP social networks.