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February 9, 2016 – Review
4th San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial: Latin America and the Caribbean
Carla Acevedo-Yates
Puerto Rico’s art scene, which extends beyond the borders of San Juan to cities on the US mainland, has yet to be fully apprehended on its own terms. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Puerto Rico’s artistic production cannot be detached from its thorny political status vis-à-vis the United States—an Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) or Free Associated State—which is no more than a linguistic lubricant for colonialism and a chokehold for economic recuperation (the government owes its creditors an unprecedented 70 billion dollars and repayment is not a feasible option). At this historical juncture, the opening of the 4th San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial: Latin America and the Caribbean provides a timely opportunity to examine how art, money, and politics feed off each other in one of the oldest colonies in the world.
Formerly the Bienal del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe (1970–2002), the Poly/Graphic Triennial is organized by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP), the cultural arm of the ELA. This year’s edition, curated by Gerardo Mosquera, Alexia Tala, and Vanessa Hernández Gracia under the title “Displaced Images / Images in Space,” “examines the expanded, instrumental, and decentralized nature of contemporary graphic arts and their development towards ‘post-graphics.’”, …