Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but can’t vote in U.S. presidential elections and don’t have voting representation in Congress. The relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States is complicated.
The curators intentionally didn’t focus the show on Hurricane Maria, like the Whitney Museum of Art did with its 2023 exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria.”
Josué Pellot’s “Temporary Allegiance” adds the 50 stars from the American flag onto the Puerto Rican flag. (Alicia Eler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Chicago-based artist Josué Pellot’s “Temporary Allegiance” blends the Puerto Rican and American flags, adding 50 white stars to the blue triangle of the five-striped Puerto Rican flag and reflecting the complex relationship between the U.S. and the territory.
Bronx-based artist Shellyne Rodriguez’s sculpture “Deity (in the spirit of the Garbage offensive)” is on view in the exhibition “Vaivén: 21st Century Art of Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora.” (Alicia Eler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Other artworks in the show directly address historical political events.
In 1969, residents of East Harlem ― a predominantly Puerto Rican and Black neighborhood ― were tired of the city of New York ignoring garbage collection. Members of the Puerto Rican-led Young Lords movement organized a “garbage offensive,” blocked traffic and cleaned the neighborhood. The Young Lords disrupted the system, at times burning garbage, and creating a “dentera,” or “tooth irritation.”
Bronx-based artist Shellyne Rodriguez’s sculpture “Deity (in the spirit of the Garbage offensive),” pays homage to this political act, through a broom with teeth.
Minnesota-based Olivia Levins Holden’s collaboration with the Puerto Rico-based woman-led artistic collective Colectivo Moriviví is on view in the lobby of the U’s Regis Center for Art. (Olivia Levins Holden )
Minnesota-based mixed Boricua artist Olivia Levins Holden, who won a 2022 McKnight fellowship for community engaged artists, collaborated on murals with the Puerto Rico-based woman-led artistic collective Colectivo Moriviví.
The finished artworks will be on display at the African Career Education & Resource Inc. in Brooklyn Park and in the Río Piedras neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“In Puerto Rico, we talked a lot about displacement and people losing their homes because of being priced out, which is happening in a big way,” Levins Holden said. “A lot of Airbnb takeover of homes … kind of an orientation more towards tourism.”
Levins Holden said that has affected the area in Puerto Rico where the 80- by 40-foot mural titled “Aquí nos quedamos (Here we stay)” will be displayed.
The as-of-yet untitled 16- by 70-foot Minnesota mural will focus more on this state, staying connected to Puerto Rico and building home here.
Levins Holden’s father, 2024 McKnight Distinguished Artist Ricardo Levins Morales, also has work in the exhibition.