State of the Art: Your Weekly Guide to NYC’s Latino Art Openings
“I guess I am not a Minimalist, but rather a Mulata,” says artist Zilia Sánchez, who at 85 years old is having her first survey exhibit in the U.S. at downtown Manhattan’s Artist’s Space. Sanchez’s work is a striking combination of painting and sculpture. The canvases of her paintings are stretched in strange ways to produce shadows and bodily movement creating ambiguous topographies. Sánchez was born in Cuba in 1928 but since 1972, lives and works out of Puerto Rico. She was part of the pre-revolutionary, Anti-Batista movement in Cuba, designing stage sets for theatre troupes. Sánchez was also one of the founders of Zona de Carga, a Puerto Rican literary journal, that gave a platform to marginalized Latin American writers and poets. Saturday, April 20 from 6-8pm, make your way downtown for some cheese, wine, and to see the work of one of the harbingers of Latin American minimalism.
American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music
The NYPL for the Performing arts will be hosting a traveling exhibit that aims to reveal how “Latino” genres of music like rumba, salsa, mambo, and cha-cha-cha have influenced mainstream American staples like jazz, hip hop, r&b, and rock n roll. The multimedia exhibit includes listening stations, a jukebox, and films. It focuses on 5 major US city centers: New York, San Francisco, LA, Miami and San Antonio. The show opens April 20th. In conjunction with the exhibit, grammy-nominated artist Bobby Sanabria will be performing with his ensemble Quarteto Aché on April 17th at 6pm. He will also give a presentation on the musical history of Latinos in New York.