Artists announced for ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21

El Museo del Barrio is pleased to announce the list of more than 40 Latinx artists and collectives from across the United States and Puerto Rico who will be participating in the upcoming exhibition, ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21.  The selection is the culmination of more than one year of studio visits and conversations with artists from across the country by the Curatorial Team composed of El Museo del Barrio’s Chief Curator Rodrigo Moura and Curator Susanna V. Temkin, and New York-based artist Elia Alba as Guest Curator. The show is the museum’s first national large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art. ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21 will debut in Las Galerías from March 13, 2021 to August 22, 2021. 

“El Museo has historically maintained a very productive relationship with the art of the present and it is in this spirit that we are so excited to share a fantastic list of artists and collectives participating in the Trienal. We have deeply focused on the outstanding quality of their works and it is a true honor to offer this platform to enable a visual conversation between them. Presenting a major survey of Latinx art today is not only urgent. It is also a great opportunity to continue proving its relevance nationally and globally,” says El Museo del Barrio’s Chief Curator, Rodrigo Moura. 

ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21 represents a newly reconceived version of the critically acclaimed exhibition series, The (S) Files, held at El Museo between 1999 and 2013, which provided a platform for Latinx and Latin American artists working in the metro-New York area. Expanded to a nation-wide scope, La Trienal foregrounds an intersectional approach to Latinx identity, including artists and collectives from different generations, genders, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. Featuring artworks created after the year 2000, the show includes painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, photography, ceramics, textile, and performance. While the exhibition eschews any overarching thematics, many of the artists address issues related to gentrification and commercialization; family—both chosen and inherited; identity and structural racism; migration and displacement; and climate and ecological justice; among other topics.  

“While ESTAMOS BIEN was already in formation, these concepts have only grown more pressing in light of the global pandemic and its effects on BIPOC communities, as well as this country’s growing recognition of Black Lives Matter and other social justice movements in the wake of the deaths of Breona Taylor, George Floyd and so many others,” notes Curator Susanna V. Temkin. “ESTAMOS BIEN has therefore taken on new meaning, and as the title suggests, reflects both sarcasm and serves as a provocation.”

This first iteration of La Trienal borrows its title, ESTAMOS BIEN, from the work of participating artist Candida Alvarez, a former member of El Museo’s curatorial team in the 1970s and the only artist in the show with a previous exhibition history with the institution. Her painting Estoy Bien (2017) takes its title from the resilient and obliquely sarcastic response to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Now pluralized, the phrase resonates with the present-day moment, replete with political and pop cultural references.

Commenting on the significance of the show at this particular moment, Guest Curator and Artist Elia Alba affirmed, “Latinx art doesn’t rely or depend on a binary. It mixes social histories and spans the color ranges of race. As society pushes against the binaries that have marginalized BIPOC for centuries, now more than ever, these surveys are a must as they lay bare what is possible. Latinx art, call it a movement, call it a space, challenges us to question the inflexibility of language and systems.”

Originally scheduled for Fall 2020, La Trienal transitioned into a year-long initiative, with the exhibition making its debut in summer 2020 with a series of online projects by artists Lizania Cruz, xime izquierdo ugaz, Collective Magpie, Michael Menchaca, and Poncilí Creación launched between July and October.  These and all artists will form part of the physical iteration next spring, occupying all the exhibition spaces of El Museo.

The full list of selected artists for ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21: 
Francis Almendárez (b. 1987, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Houston, TX); Candida Alvarez (b. 1955, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Eddie R. Aparicio (b. 1990, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Fontaine Capel (b. 1990, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Queens, NY);  Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, London, UK, raised in Colombia; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Juan William Chavez (b. 1977, Lima, Peru; lives and works in St. Louis MO); Yanira Collado (b. 1975, Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in Miami, FL), Collective Magpie (Based in San Diego, CA); Lizania Cruz (b. 1983, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY); Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski (b. 1985, Bordeaux, France, raised across the East Coast, Midwest, and Southern U.S.; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY); Dominique Duroseau (b. 1978, Chicago, IL and raised in Haiti; lives and works in Newark, NJ); Justin Favela (b. 1986, Las Vegas, NV; lives and works in Las Vegas, NV); Luis Flores (b. 1985, West Covina, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); ektor garcia (b. 1985, Red Bluff, CA; lives and works nomadically); Maria Gaspar (b. 1980, Chicago, IL; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Victoria Gitman (b. 1972, Buenos Aires, Argentina; lives and works in Hallandale Beach, FL); Antonio Gomez (b. 1965, Mexico; lives and works in Las Vegas, NV); Manuela Gonzalez (b. 1983,  Miami, FL, raised in Medellín, Colombia; lives and works in New York, NY); Lucia Hierro (b. New York, NY; lives and works in New York, NY); xime izquierdo ugaz (b. 1992, Lima, Peru; lives and works in New York, NY, and Lima, Peru); The Museum of Pocket Art (Established 2004 in El Paso, TX; based in Austin, TX); Esteban Jefferson (b. 1989, New York, NY; lives and works in New York, NY); Roberto Lugo (b. 1981, Philadelphia, PA; lives and works in Philadelphia, PA); Carlos Martiel (b. 1989, Havana, Cuba; lives and works in New York, NY); Patrick Martinez (b. 1980, Pasadena, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Yvette Mayorga (b. 1991, Silvis and raised in Moline, IL; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Groana Melendez (b. 1984, raised between New York City and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; lives and works in the Bronx, NY); María Jose (b. 1992, Caguas, Puerto Rico; lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico); Michael Menchaca (b. 1985, San Antonio, TX; lives and works in San Antonio, TX); Dionis Ortiz (b. 1979, Harlem, NY; lives and works in Washington Heights, NY); Poncilí Creación (Based in San Juan, Puerto Rico); Postcommodity (Based in the Southwest); Simonette Quamina (b. 1982, Ontario, Canada; lives and works in New York, NY); Vick Quezada (b. 1979, El Paso, TX; lives and works in Northampton, MA); Sandy Rodriguez (b. 1975, National City, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Yelaine Rodriguez (b. 1990, Bronx, NY; lives and works in the Bronx, NY); Nyugen E. Smith (b. 1976, Jersey City, NJ; lives and works in Jersey City, NJ); Edra Soto (b. 1971, Puerto Rico; lives and works in Chicago, IL); Ada Trillo (b. 1976, El Paso, TX; lives and works in Philadelphia, PA); Joey Terrill (b. 1955, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA); Torn Apart/Separados (Active in the United States); Vincent Valdez (b. 1977, San Antonio, TX; lives and works in Houston, TX); and Raelis Vasquez (b. 1995, Mao Valverde, Dominican Republic; lives and works in New York, NY).

ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21 is made possible by the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation. Leadership support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Generous funding is provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, Tony Bechara, and La Trienal Council.