Featuring work by Cristina Córdova
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
A metaphorical bridge, El Puente, exists between Puerto Rico and the US, which share a complex and often misunderstood political and cultural relationship. How do we express El Puente through the lens of Puerto Rican artists?
This exhibition centers on legacy and culture, focusing on multi-generational artists in dialogue with the US through their education, residencies, and career opportunities. Co-curator Cristina Córdova characterizes this phenomenon as a continuous loop of communal encounters and mutual influence, followed by a momentary respite in which the encounters are assimilated and transformed within the artistic community. This pattern has taken place over many years and generations, moving back and forth between two territories inextricably connected yet distinctly separate, sometimes with intention and at times unconsciously. What are the influences of this bridge on the insular art community in Puerto Rico and how do the experiences evolve in the vacuum of an underresourced arts community?
Through the lens of Puerto Rican artists who have cultivated long- and short-term connections with the US throughout their formative and professional trajectories, El Puente offers insights into how these connections shape and inform the artistic practices, perspectives, and creative trajectories of Puerto Rican artists and consequently feed into the broader landscape of contemporary American craft in an evolving and continuous dynamic.
Participating artists: Cristina Córdova, Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Luis Gabriel Sanabria, and Jaime Suárez
PROGRAMMING
OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, October 4th | 4:30 – 6:30
John & Robyn Horn Gallery
Penland School of Craft
Penland NC
Puerto Rican, b. 1976, Boston, MA
lives and works in Penland, NC
Native to Puerto Rico, Cristina Córdova creates figurative compositions that explore the boundary between the materiality of an object and our involuntary dialogues with the self-referential. Images captured through the lens of a Latin American upbringing question socio-cultural notions of gender, race, beauty, and power. Córdova has received numerous grants including the North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship Grant, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant, several International Association of Art Critics of Puerto Rico awards, and a prestigious United States Artist Fellowship award in 2015.
Córdova has had solo exhibitions at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, (Alfred, NY), and her work is included in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, (Washington, DC), Colección Acosta de San Juan Puerto Rico, (San Juan, PR), the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, (Charlotte, NC), and Museum of Contemporary Art, (San Juan, PR). In 1998, Córdova completed her BA at the University of Puerto Rico, and she received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2002. Córdova is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.