For its third year, the Studios at MASS MoCA announces its 2020 Puerto Rico Artist Fellows. Over the next six months, we will welcome eight artists in dance, film, music and the visual arts for residencies at the museum. The Studios at MASS MoCA’s Puerto Rico Artist Fellowship has selected its third cohort of Puerto Rico-based artists to receive funded residencies of up to four weeks, including housing, studio space, daily meals, museum access, plus travel and living costs, for artists of all disciplines. The first two rounds of the program served 6 artists each year, but in 2020 the Studios will offer support to 8 artists thanks to critical, additional support. The program began under the initiative and fundraising efforts of Mari Rodriguez Binnie and William Burton Binnie in 2018, in response to Hurricane Maria. Today, our work continues to support artists on the island during what remains a tumultuous time.
Get to know our newest artists below. And visit the museum this spring and summer to see 2018 Puerto Rico Fellow Gamaliel Rodriguez’s 60-foot installation in the MASS MoCA Hunter Hallway, La travesía / Le voyage.
With a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and matching funds from the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, MASS MoCA was able to offer three shorter residencies to artist-parents, with additional funding for childcare while the artist is away. The 2020 Puerto Rico Fellowship program is supported by the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, John & Janie Strachan, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Benjamin family and several anonymous donors.
Andrea Cruz
In residence: September 9 - October 6, 2020
Andrea Cruz is a singer-songwriter whose descriptive sound is a reflection of her musical experiences, which officially began in 2014 under the pseudonym of “Amapola.” She combines genres such as indie-folk with Latin American sounds. Her music has been celebrated in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and in the continental U.S. on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. Having recently completed her second album, Andrea will spend her residency reflecting on her recent work and developing material for future endeavors.
Karlo Andrei Ibarra
In residence: June 3 - June 16, 2020
Karlo Andrei Ibarra’s video, performance and visual work is strongly rooted in the geopolitical context in which he lives. As an artist born in Puerto Rico to Chilean and Uruguayan parents, he is interested in the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. He reflects on topics of memory, the weight of the colonial past, and the resistance processes that occur to combat cultural assimilation. Through personal research, his work attempts to establish correlations between individual and national identity, and then extend awareness to the global community.
Roberto Marquez
In residence: July 1 - July 14, 2020
In his ceramics and paintings, Roberto Marquez uses humor to explore colonized behaviors. He has an MFA in Studio Art from University of South Florida, and has participated in exhibitions in Chicago, New York and Tampa. Recently, he was the recipient of Tanne Foundation Award 2019.
Jason Mena
In residence: May 20 - June 16, 2020
Jason Mena is a visual artist living and working in Carolina, Puerto Rico. He’s the recipient of various awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and the Lexus Grant for the Arts. He has participated in residencies at B.P.S.22 Musée d'art de la Province de Hainaut in Belgium and Batuco Arte Contemporaneo in Chile. His art practice combines conceptual strategies, reduces gestures and visual immediacy, and appropriates objects, materials, and fragments of everyday-life into his own system of concepts. His work spans video, painting, collage, performance, public intervention, and installation and has been exhibited in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Beijing, Paris, United States, Argentina, Italy, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
(video still from short film Ramos directed)
Gisela Rosario Ramos
In residence: July 15 - August 11, 2020
Gisela Rosario Ramos is an interdisciplinary artist who returned to Puerto Rico in 2001 after working in New York for several years. She was editor of Mi Santa Mirada, the first Puerto Rican film to compete for the Palm D’Or short film section of the Cannes Film Festival. In 2014, she directed the short documentary, El Hijo de Ruby, winner of best documentary in the Kerry Film Festival in Ireland. In 2017, she made a commissioned video piece for the Museum of Contemporary Art, and in 2019 she received an Art Matters Foundation grant, and a Puerto Rican Artist grant by NALAC for her musical performance and visual art work under her persona Macha Colón. She is about to film her first feature narrative, Perfume de Gardenias.
Credit: Wenceslao Morales at Arsenal de la Puntilla, Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2008
Awilda Sterling
In residence: September 9 - October 6, 2020
While well known for her decades of dance and performance work (including the photo shown here from her work at Temple University), Awilda Sterling is also a trained painter, the practice of which has informed much of her work in the fields for which she is better known. During her residency, Awilda will revisit a series of abstract paintings and collages she began in the ‘70s and ‘80s with the aim of scaling larger and translating them into oil. This work will be in preparation for a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that will take place later this year.
Quintín Rivera Toro
In residence: July 1 - July 14, 2020
Educated in the era of conceptual art, Quintín Rivera Toro gravitates toward that discipline’s many forms. He recently completed his Ph.D. with a focus on the art of resistance in twenty-first century Puerto Rican art. He has attended residencies in Berlin, New York, Vermont, Michigan and Pennsylvania and has been included in exhibitions in Spain, London and Korea. He chooses his medium based on his resources and has recently been drawn to woodworking because of the hurricane's left over lumber.
Omar Velazquez
In residence: May 20 - June 16, 2020
Omar Velazquez is a painter whose work responds to social behavior, psychological experience, and economic phenomena. He combines the island’s art history with the politicalization of contemporary Puerto Rican identity. He received his M.F.A. from the Art Institute, in Chicago, where he also had his latest show, “Miracle fruit,” at Corbett vs Dempsey. His work has been presented at the Puerto Rico Museum of Art and the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as in exhibits in Japan, Beijing, Spain, Republic of Macedonia, New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Argentina, Mexico and Colombia.