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The Three Kings Are Back!

No matter what you’ve heard, there’s apparently no stopping them. But is that really a bad thing? We caught Gaspar, Baltazar, and old whatshisname at Museo de Arte de Ponce just as they arrived in their special vehicle, a kind of low-rent Pope-Mobile. Further details to come.

Barcelona is Hopping

There’s the Barcelona we all know and love, the city of El Barrio Gótico, the funicular, La Rambla, and Gaudí’s ever-unfinished, monumental fantasia, La Sagrada Familia. But who says an ancient city can’t be cool?

The rasty guy above caught our attention because just as we were leaving for our Iberian getaway, our favorite milksop, El Nuevo Día, published an apparently audienceless round- table on the graffiti phenomenon and the hand-wringing that surrounds it in Puerto Rico. We won’t say the discussion was all senseless twaddle—there was an actual graffiti maker in attendance, and whenever Rafi Trelles has something to say, you ought to pay attention —but be sure to visit the next Rotund update to read just how bad we think it was.

Art, Poetry . . . Lordy, What’s Next?

Plenty happened in our absence, and we fervently hope some of what we’re writing about is not as cold as day-before-yesterday’s mofongo. Fer instance . . .

The two bohemian characters above are works by Nick Quijano who had—and hopefully still has—an ample exhibition of paintings and amazingly creaturely sculptures at Viejo San Juan’s Galería Alegría. We advise you to waste no time and call 787-723-3206 to see if these marvels are still on view.

Is it really possible that there are artists living in San Juan who have never visited the Berezdivin collection’s exhibition space, Espacio 1414? So the sad truth seems to be. At a party not long ago, our aggressive pollsters found out that two out of two respondents, hard-working young artists both of them, have never taken the time to see curator Julieta González’s always-thoughtful installations from the collection. She’s titled her latest show Globalización, and while it’s not exactly a fresh idea, the curator has very good works to choose from and an intelligent—at times very droll—way of putting things together. There is always plenty of readable text for guidance, although as the above image suggests—a detail from Mark Lombardi’s astonishing pencil and crayon schematic of world-wide money laundering, World Finance Corporation Miami—the works themselves usually speak volumes. We’ll have more to show you, but meanwhile you can pay the warehouse a visit and see for yourself. Call Ms. González for an appointment: 787-725-3899.

Galería 356 may be damned hard to park in front of, but it is increasingly worth the walk from the surrounding residential streets. The gallery’s present exhibition—Emergencias, convergencias y divergencias—is, indeed, quite the amalgam of artistic styles, media, career standings, and so forth. But it is not the worse for so much hugger-mugger! On the contrary, it appears to hold largely new works by artists who are doing their things with vigor and a sense of expectancy. Carmelo Fontanez has returned to his pencil boxes, though along with the usual whittled No. 2s and graphite dust, he’s gotten deeply into color, as shown in the detail above. The show has some of our favorite artists on the San Juan scene, including Christopher Rivera, Elsa María Meléndez, and Edgard Rodríguez Luiggi. It closes at the end of January, and you can call 787-282-7820 for hours and details on how to get to the gallery. We’ll have other images to show you when we return.

La Muestra Nacional continues until the first week of February, and there is a dynamite exhibition of santos at Museo de Arte de Ponce, neither of which we're allowed to mention in bold type for the obvious reasons. No doubt there is plenty we haven’t seen since we got back from las afueras, although by the time you return to this space it should all be clear to us. Hah. You, dear reader, could be helpful in that regard. Let us know what you know at this address or this one.

One or two last words in our more windy than expected preview. Área, the Caguas redoubt of discussions, exhibitions, films, and all things high-tone—brainchild of artist Quintín Rivera—has had its ups and downs, not so much for its programming as in terms of those who are willing to travel the distance to get there. Or not. In lean times and fat, Rivera has never lost his enthusiasm for his project or his incredible energy. His one-year anniversary party was one for the books, and we were delighted to be there. It now seems that the space-master has come up with a way to maintain Área’s momentum without wearing its main cog—Rivera himself—to a toothless frazzle, and this is to invite guest “curators” and masters-of-ceremony.

If the poetry reading of a few nights ago is any indication, this is a winning strategy. San Juan’s Nelson Rivera—need we say “no relation”?—is in charge of the discussion side of the programming for the month of January, and he asked four area poets to present recent works and talk about the bedraggled state of poetry in the modern world. Rey Andujar (pictured above), Irizelma Robles, the one-named Gallego, and Juanmanuel González Ríos gave a highly informal but hugely satisfying round-robin reading in a variety of styles, all of them better than you’d expect. Perhaps the decent state of poetry among young Caribbean writers owes itself to an awareness of and respect for the traditions of their craft. As the after-reading discussion pointedly maintained, it unlikely has anything to do with formal training. Whatever the reason, this particular evening in Caguas lived up to everything the much ballyhooed phenomenon of alternative spaces has been promising. More on this touchy subject upcoming.

The Área schedule presently features a Monday film series and a Tuesday discussion, performance, or what’s-in-the-box. Additionally there are special events, such as the screening this month of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, with a discussion afterwards. Events usually kick off at 7:30 p.m. You can get the whole story, including an easy-to-read map to far-off Caguas, by calling 787-402-9271 or emailing info@proyectosarea.com.

We Don't Know Who these Folks Are . . .

. . . but their sense of humor is definitely intact. Trip on over to Plaza las Américas this weekend, and tell them those Rotund brainiacs sent you.

This pretty much exhausts our announcements, and it may well have worn out our welcome. We hope not! Come back and see what we’re up to, but not too soon. We’re not sure ourselves. Meantime, you can amuse yourself by going into the archives, if you haven’t spent the last several weeks nervously poking about while you waited for us to return. Just click on the magic blue word below.

Go back with us now.