In the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the struggle to survive is real. Natural disasters, a failing economy, corrupt leadership, and the legacy of colonialism in the Caribbean are among forces that challenge sustainability and sovereignty. Outside investments in tourism have had the effect of disenfranchising locals and fragmenting the island’s creative community. San Juan born and based, curator Marina Reyes Franco has a lot to say on this subject. Her research, writing, and curating illuminate the powerful impact of the burgeoning visitor economy.

In 2019, three years after Hurricane Maria, we venture to Puerto Rico for the opening of Resisting Paradise, an exhibition Reyes Franco organized with the support of Apex Art, New York. Jamaica born artists Leasho Johnson and Deborah Anzinger, and artist Joiri Minaya, from the Dominican Republic, show work engaging at the intersection of tourism, sexuality, gender, music and the internet. We record this episode inside Espacio Pública, a newly established culture space, in San Juan’s Santurce district. 

This segment of our Puerto Rico Rising series revolves around creative resistance to foreign fantasies of ‘paradise.’ The conversation exposes a few of the complex histories and current conditions that inform contemporary art in Puerto Rico and the greater Caribbean. 

Voices in the episode: Naima Rodriguez, Marina Reyes Franco, Leasho Johnson, and Joiri Minaya

Sound Editor: Anamnesis Audio

Related Episodes: Puerto Rico Rising—Radical Leaders, Puerto Rico Rising—Resilient Artists, The Awakening, Juan Botta Makes One-Minute Movies in Puerto Rico, Edra Soto on the Architecture of Connecting Communities, Mapping Caribbean Cultural Ecologies

Related Links: Resisting Paradise exhibition, Espacio Pública, Deborah Anzinger, Leasho Johnson, Joiri Minaya, apex art, Marina Reyes Franco, ATLAS SAN JUAN: TROPICAL DEPRESSION, Art in America, Oct 1, 2018.

Iranian born, New York based artist Bahar Behbahani talks about the layers of poetry and politics she discovered while researching the legendary Persian garden. Her solo exhibition at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College reveals how the idyllic refuge became entangled with American espionage and a 1953 political coup in Iran. Highly relevant considering the mounting intensity of today's global tensions, the hidden agendas and coded behaviors exposed in Bahar Behbahani's work might well be the blueprint for a new political barrier erected this week: the executive order of a restrictive, anti-Muslim United States immigration policy.

Sound Editor: Guney Ozsan | Sound Effects: Bahar Behbahani, Visiting you in summer, 2015

Fresh Art International presents a live podcast event with American artist Amy Sherald at moniquemeloche gallery in Chicago. Recorded on July 9, 2016, at a moment in American history marked with killings that accentuate deep racial issues in this country, our conversation verges on joy and sadness. The timeless sense of black identity described in Amy Sherald’s figurative paintings reminds us how art can be both transcendent and aspirational.

Sound Editor: Jesse McQuarters

French curator Jérôme Sans and Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong talk about Xiaodong's exhibition Painting as Shooting at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Italy. On view for three months during the 56th Venice Art Biennale, the show reveals how Xiaodong approaches his work with the eyes and the storyboard practice of a filmmaker. His daily diary entries, the photos he takes, and the people he meets come to life in his paintings—his subjects play lead roles in paintings that depict contemporary life in unsettled environments the world over.

In Berlin, contemporary art collector Erika Hoffmann talks about her love for artists who question traditional forms and take the risk of inventing new genres. For this conversation, we take you inside the famous Sammlung Hoffmann (Hoffmann Collection) to learn what compelled her to collect the work of Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, and Katharina Grosse.

Surinamese-Dutch artist Remy Jungerman talks about how European modernism and Afro-religious aesthetics influence his art, and describes the recent public art project he created back in Morengo, his home town in Suriname. Selected for inclusion in Prospect.3, the 2014 contemporary art biennial in New Orleans, Remy's work will be on view in an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center from late October 2014, to January 2015.

Sound Editor: Kris McConnachie | Episode sound effects: Chris Quinlan, drum set and Evan Dyson, toad mating call

Related podcast: Fresh Talk: Franklin Sirmans

Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century Cathy Byrd telephones Charles Guice, owner/director of Charles Guice Contemporary, to talk about his passion for contemporary art and his commitment to participate in the international scene. Pivotal in the careers of leading contemporary artists, including Hank Willis Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems, Charles represents some exceptional talent, including Max de Esteban and Erika Diettes, artists featured in Buenos Aires' Festival de la Luz 2012 this summer.Of note: Charles works with Chicago-based artist Jefferson Pinder, who appeared on an earlier Fresh TALK episode. 

This episode features Navid Nuur, an Iranian artist based in the Netherlands. Navid was invited to present his first solo exhibition in Spain at Matadero Madrid, an art center developed on the former site of the city’s main livestock market and slaughterhouse. The artist who loves to experiment talks about Hocus Focus and the painting project he just presented in Switzerland at Art Basel 2012.

Special thanks to Gema Melgar, Matadero Madrid, for facilitating this podcast production.

Sound editor: Leo Madriz

Photos courtesy Matadero Madrid and Cathy Byrd

Episode Sound: Navid Nuur, Fire Painting, 2012

Sound Editor: Leo Madriz

Photos: Cathy Byrd