U’s Nash Gallery art show features works of the Puerto Rican diaspora

A photograph of the San Juan airport and a sculpture adorned with rejas — wrought-iron bars and gates popular in Puerto Rico — meet visitors at the entrance to the University of Minnesota’s Nash Gallery.

It’s a fitting welcome to “Vaivén: 21st Century Art of Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora,” an exhibition of more than 40 artists centered on Puerto Rican migration. The term “vaivén” comes from the Spanish words “vai” and “vén,” or coming and going, said Teréz Iacovino, director of the gallery.

“The airport is often a portal to the diaspora, but we’re also thinking about what histories spurred that migration?” Iacovino said.

This is her first exhibition as director since former director Howard Oransky retired in August.

To further embody that sensibility of “coming and going” between the United States and Puerto Rico, Iacovino teamed up with José López Serra, a San Juan-based curator and director of the artist space Hidrante.

A $65,000 curatorial research fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts helped fund the project.

“We wanted to think about Puerto Rican art and diaspora not just from the lens of people who moved recently to the U.S., but people who have been living their entire lives there,” said López Serra from Puerto Rico.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

Minneapolis-based Cándida González’s sculpture “I Wear Gold to Talk to My Ancestors” is an altar filled with golden jewelry and objects.

Spanish singer and songwriter Quevedo’s song “Wanda” was an inspiration.

“He says: ‘For you, I would sell all of my chains,’” González said. “I was like wow, what an expression of love!”

González started wondering why Latinos wear a lot of gold.

“I think by wearing all of our gold, we are trying to reclaim the gold that was stolen from us, the gold that our ancestors were killed for,” González said.

“Where do we fit in?” López Serra said. “Is it Caribbean or is this an American art? Where does Puerto Rican art fit in?”

When: Ends Dec. 6.

Where: University of Minnesota’s Nash Gallery at the Regis Center for Art East, 405 21st Av. S., Mpls.

Cost: Free.

Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat.