Museo de Arte de Ponce inaugurates Art in Response with Luis Camnitzer and Jorge Díaz-Torres

The new work has been installed throughout the museum’s permanent collection galleries in relation to the objects that inspired the artists. In the inaugural year of Art in Response, The Museo de Arte de Ponce has invited two artists: Luis Camnitzer (April 14 - August 27, 2012) and Jorge Díaz-Torres (September 15, 2012 – January 14, 2013). Camnitzer, born in Uruguay and based in New York, a conceptual artist, writer, teacher and curator who has been exhibiting internationally for over forty years has been invited to participate in Art in Response because of his pioneering and outstanding conceptual artworks that question systems of power. Camnitzer also has a strong connection to art and artists in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, and a long history with the San Juan Polygraphic Triennial, which will occur at the same time as the museum exhibition. Díaz-Torres, born in Puerto Rico and based in San Juan, is an emerging artist who uses unconventional materials to re-create familiar objects from daily life. In doing so, he questions our perceptions of reality. Díaz-Torres consistently demonstrates excellence in his work through his well-developed concepts and meticulously hand-crafted objects.
This annual exhibition program encourages collaborations between the artist, the curator of Art in Response, Museo de Arte de Ponce’s conservation department, the Assistant Curator of European art, and the Curator of Education. It also advances the museum’s recent initiative to include a “counterpoint” object, in this case, a work made by a contemporary artist, in each of the European galleries featuring painting and sculpture from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. “Counterpoints” inspire comparisons and connections across the ages and offer an enhanced understanding of the diverse ways in which artists see the world. Likewise, the artists and visitors will embark on a creative exploration of past and present simultaneously. The museum’s European collection is exhibited by theme—landscape, portraiture, the transience of life, mythology and masters of light and emotion, to name a few. Art in response will share space with European paintings and sculpture from various schools and centuries, thereby allowing the public to travel visually through time and admire the diversity of the collection.
Art in Response has been made possible in part with the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Arts; el Fondo Puertoriqueño para el Financiamiento del Quehacer Cultural and the Oficina de Apoyo a las Artes y al Quehacer Cultural del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.
www.museoarteponce.org