no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria

Nov 23, 2022–Apr 23, 2023

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Hurricane Maria was as much a man-made disaster as a natural one. Years of governmental neglect and a financial crisis exacerbated the storm’s physical impact on the landscape, and hindered Puerto Rico’s response to the hurricane. The nation’s debt had been growing since the mid-2000s and reached historic levels in 2015. To address it, in 2016 the United States Congress passed into law the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA or, ironically in Spanish, “promise”), which has since imposed austerity measures. These actions have resulted in funds being directed toward debt repayment rather than to public services and maintaining livable wages in Puerto Rico, further impeding recovery.

These artworks interrogate the ways that the hurricane also laid bare Puerto Rico’s dated infrastructures, which failed residents when they were at their most vulnerable. The fragile electrical grid, for instance, left thousands without power for months after the storm and remains unreliable today. In early 2020, Puerto Rico experienced earthquakes and aftershocks that compounded the effects of disinvestment and the earlier damage from Maria, causing significant harm to schools and homes, particularly in the southern region of the main island. It was to these precarious homes, often still needing repair, to which many had to return a few months later to quarantine from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gamaliel Rodríguez, Figure 1832 PSE, 2018. Acrylic and ink on paper, 50 × 38 in. (127 × 96.5 cm). Private collection; courtesy Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York
Gamaliel Rodríguez, Figure 1828 LMM, 2018. Acrylic and ink on paper, 50 × 38 in. (127 × 96.5 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York
Gamaliel Rodríguez, Collapsed Soul, 2020–21. Ink and acrylic on canvas, 84 × 112 in. (213.3 × 284.5 cm). © 2021 Gamaliel Rodríguez. Courtesy the artist and Nathalie Karg Gallery NYC. Photograph by Gamaliel Rodríguez
Rogelio Báez Vega, ID. Escuela Tomás Carrión Maduro, Santurce, Puerto Rico—New on the Market, 2021. Oil, beeswax, and gold pigment on canvas, 60 × 84 in. (152.4 × 213.4 cm). Courtesy the artist
Rogelio Báez Vega, Paradox of the New Landscape IV, 2018. Oil on canvas, 48 × 96 (121.9 × 243.8 cm). Private collection
Rogelio Báez Vega, Paraíso Móvil, 2019. Oil on canvas, 55 × 70 in. (139.7 × 177.8 cm). Courtesy Francis J. Greenburger Collection, New York
Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, Untitled (Valora tu mentira americana) (detail), 2018. Hurricane ravaged wooden electric post with statehood propaganda, 116 × 118 × 122 in. (294.6 × 299.7 × 309.9 cm). Private collection; courtesy the artist and Embajada, San Juan
Sofía Córdova, still from dawn_chorus ii: el niagara en bicicleta, 2018. Two-channel video, color, sound, on unistrut mount; 105 min. Courtesy the artist and Kate Werble Gallery, New York
Sofía Córdova, still from dawn_chorus ii: el niagara en bicicleta, 2018. Two-channel video, color, sound, on unistrut mount; 105 min. Courtesy the artist and Kate Werble Gallery, New York
Sofía Córdova, still from dawn_chorus ii: el niagara en bicicleta, 2018. Two-channel video, color, sound, on unistrut mount; 105 min. Courtesy the artist and Kate Werble Gallery, New York
Installation view of no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art In The Wake Of Hurricane Maria (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 23, 2022-April 23, 2023). Edra Soto, GRAFT, 2022. Photograph by Ron Amstutz