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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Alicia Grullón: LLEVAR Opens
at Casita Maria Gallery on
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 Media Contact
Elaine
Delgado
Director of Marketing &
Individual
Giving
(787) 627-9228
[email protected]
Casita
Maria Gallery
928 Simpson Street,
6th Floor Bronx, NY 10459
Gallery Hours
Mon-Fri:
10 AM – 6 PM
Sat-Sun: By appointment
SCHEDULE
OF EVENTS
EXHIBITION DATES
April 22 – June 24, 2015
ARTIST RECEPTION
WITH
BSSWA GLOBAL
KIDS PRESENTATION:
Wed., April 22, 2015
6 – 8 PM
Youth Workshop:
TAKE BACK OUR GOLD
Thurs., May 28, 2015
3:00 – 4:30 PM
ARTIST TALK:
ALICIA GRULLÓN
In Conversation With
MARTHA WILSON
Wed., June 24, 2015
6 – 8 PM
ALL EVENTS ARE
FREE
Alicia Grullón, PERCENT FOR GREEN, [detail logo], 2014
BRONX, NY – (April 2015) Casita Maria is proud to present Bronx-based artist Alicia
Grullón’s solo exhibition LLEVAR, curated by Christine Licata. Representing a survey that
spans the last 10 years of Grullón’s interdisciplinary practice, the show includes a
combination of on-going and individual projects that explore the politics of race, gender,
class and economics between underrepresented communities and society as a whole.
Throughout her work, she interweaves sculpture, language, photography, video and
performance, blurring the boundaries between documented reality and staged theatricality.
The title of the exhibition, LLEVAR is taken from one of the most complex verbs to translate
in Spanish. Understanding its meaning requires taking into account the other words,
grammatical structures and intention of the speaker (the “linguistic environment”). In
English, it can mean any of the following: to lead, to drive, to bear, to keep account, to
direct, to last, to cost, to take away, to get along with, to receive, to carry, to wear, to include
and to become. For Grullón, the verb llevar mirrors the dynamic complexity and depth
within social and economic cultural relationships. Her overall practice explores the
historical, environmental and political influences on minority communities as well as ways
that stereotypes, governmental policies and the media can be influenced and changed.
The concept of action-based, “social sculpture” plays a critical component in her work. The
role of the artist in society and how art can actively serve and shape community are
questions she considers throughout her practice. Within Grullón’s ongoing project,
PERCENT FOR GREEN, she aims to pass a legislation that would allocate city-funded
construction budgets to support sustainable green initiatives in underserved areas in New
York City. Through creative brainstorming and information-driven interviews, roundtables,
workshops, lectures, panels and discourse-driven performances, her goal is to encourage
and empower local residents and their community leaders to take action on climate change
through finding accessible, local solutions to this global, cataclysmic issue.
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CURATORIAL QUOTE ON
EXHIBITION
“Alicia Grullón’s artistic
practice is crucial to the
growth and progress of
underserved communities.
LLEVAR is an interactive
guidebook, mapping the
routes to positive change. Her
work empowers our youth and
families with the knowledge
and agency to create a
society that equally respects
and unifies our needs and
goals,” explained Christine
Licata, Curator and Director of
Performing and Visual Arts at
Casita Maria
CASITA MARIA CENTER
FOR ARTS & EDUCATION is
an 80-year old South Bronxbased community arts and
educational organization that
presents diverse,
contemporary visual and
performing arts and education
programming for all ages.
www.casitamaria.org
Casita Maria’s Gallery‘s
exhibitions and public
programs are supported by
the Ford Foundation and
public funding from the New
York City Department of
Cultural Affairs and the New
York State Council on the
Arts.
In addition to the practical applications of art interventions, Grullón seeks to expose and
transform how cultural histories are constructed and experienced within society. Using
current events and factual, historical narratives where power relations are in question, she
stages in-situ theatrical reenactments and public, performative interventions that reveal the
institutional practices and underlying foundations that support social and economic
inequality, structural racism, stereotypes and racial profiling.
For example, throughout her Revealing Ethnographies and Becoming Myths series (2005present), she conceals her individual persona through masks constructed from political
data, academic, news and mass media ephemera that deal with these issues. The process
of constructing the masks directly onto her face while interacting with passersby initiates a
dialogue around the information contained within them, uncovering the larger identity-based
challenges within diverse ethnic groups.
Grullón is also an arts educator, teaching youth the power of their own voices and the
agency they potentially have in their communities. Throughout her exhibition, she has
invited the Global Kids initiative to be an integral part of her exhibition’s public
programming. Led by Youth Specialist, Ramon Ramirez (who is also the Founder and
Director the Welfare Poets), Global Kids is a leadership and activist program for Middle and
High School students currently partnering with The Bronx Studio School for Writers and
Artists and Casita Maria’s Afterschool program. The students take trips to Washington D.C.
and Costa Rica to learn about civil rights, legislation and indigenous cultures.
For Grullón’s opening reception on April 22 the students will share what they learned in
their travels and the practical applications of this knowledge in the South Bronx. Then, on
May 28, Global Kids will participate in the workshop “Take Back Our Gold”, a look at the
business of buying and selling gold in pawn shops. The students will investigate the
underlying agendas behind pawn brokers, a staple in largely low-income, economically
struggling communities, as well as learn about the political influence of gold and its
international and local trade value.
During her Closing Reception and Artist Talk on June 24, Grullón will be in conversation
with artist Martha Wilson. A groundbreaking pioneer in political art-activism and
performance, Wilson is also the Founder and Director of the Franklin Furnace, one of the
most important arts organizations for contemporary, experimental art practices in New York
City. Together they will discuss their respective work, the theories behind their ideas and
unconventional artistic processes.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
ALICIA GRULLÓN is an interdisciplinary Bronx based artist. She received a BFA from New
York University and an MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Most
recently she was a part of “inClimate” an exhibition on climate change and the city
presented by the Franklin Furnace Archives and its Founder, Director Martha Wilson. In
2014, she was a presenter at the Queens Museum for the “Open Engagement”
Conference and spoke about her green legislation project PERCENT FOR GREEN at the
Association of Art Historians in London. She was awarded residencies with the Bronx
Museum of the Arts, Arts Council Korea, Five Colleges Women’s Studies Center, Volunteer
Lawyers for the Arts and in Germany for Migrating Academies. Grullón has presented at El
Museo del Barrio for “La Bienal (S-Files),” Performa 11, The Bronx Museum of the Arts
“AIM Biennial,” Art in Odd Places and in Socrates Park. Her work has been funded by the
Puffin Foundation, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Department of Cultural Affairs of the
City of New York, the Crompton Foundation and the Franklin Furnace Archives. She was
an Artist Fellow in 2013 with A Blade of Grass Foundation and Culture Push. In October
2012, Grullón received the Sol Sharvio Award for Emerging Artist in the Marketplace. Her
work has been published in NY1 Noticias, ArtFAGCity, Brooklyn Rail and New York Daily
News. www.aliciagrullon.com
80 YEARS: EMPOWERING MINDS. IGNITING CREATIVITY.
928 Simpson Street | Bronx, New York 10459 | www.casitamaria.org