MOCA GA’s Fourth Installment Of ‘Celebrating Georgia Artists of Hispanic/LatinX Origin’
Paula Reynaldi’s “Taping Nature/Colonies” is one of the works featured in the exhibit.
Paula Reynaldi/MOCA GA
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta, MOCA GA, is celebrating local artists of Hispanic or LatinX origin with a series of works on view through March 20. Cuban-born, Atlanta-based artist, Alexi Torres was one of the jurors who worked with the museum director to choose the artists in the show. He joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes to talk about his experience helping to curate the collection of 37 Georgia artists.
Interview highlights:
On how differing memories of home shape artists’ work:
“When [featured artist Anna Guzman] left Cuba, she was very young, so it still was a very beautiful land – buildings, a magnificent city, and got completely destroyed with the socialist system over there. By the time that I left, my work with Cuba is more on the topic of criticizing the system there. But her work is a beautiful memory of what she left behind … this beautiful story of the 1950s, 1960s and early 70s in Cuba.”
On themes of separation, origins, roots and family:
“I think it was good that the jury was all Latin artists because I could understand what’s making us create art, because of our background… I don’t know much about Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, but I guess, in a way, we are all marked with the same feeling of leaving a land behind and starting a new life, and I focus on that.”
“I wanted to focus on the family issue and separation, the connection with the ‘one left behind.’ A lot of immigrants don’t really use their art to criticize the system here in the U.S. or to give their voice to social ideas, but something that can join us together is mostly the separation from the family, land left behind, and the start of a new life, so I guess that’s why I decided [to include Yehimi Cambrón Alvarez’s] faces, her portraits.”
You can either take a 360-degree tour of the exhibit online or visit in person with a timed ticket. Each of the artists in the show also included a video presentation of their work.
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