From Aqui, From Alla
Participating Artists: Albany Andaluz, Estelle Maisonett, Aida Lizalde
On view March 25-April 5, 2021 at School of Visual Arts, 10th Floor, 132 W 21st St, New York, NY 10011
For many people of Latin American descent who were born or raised in the United States, fluency in the Spanish language is often perceived as an indicator of cultural authenticity and authority. Likewise, those who immigrate to the U.S. often feel pressured to become proficient in English or otherwise risk cultural and social isolation. The role that language plays in the Latinx context is one that could either unite or further alienate an individual from their cultural orientation. From Aqui, from Alla is an exhibition that contemplates the complex relationship between language and multicultural identity formation by investigating how Latinx artists Albany Andaluz, Estelle Maisonett, and Aida Lizalde each utilize language—English, Spanish, written, spoken, visual, and otherwise—to navigate and negotiate their hybridized selves.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by the popular 1970 folk song called No Soy de Aquí Ni Soy de Allá (I Am Not from Here, Nor Am I from There) written by the late Argentine singer-songwriter Facundo Cabral. The lyric has since been borrowed and stretched by a variety of
The exhibition’s title is inspired by the popular 1970 folk song called No Soy de Aquí Ni Soy de Allá (I Am Not from Here, Nor Am I from There) written by the late Argentine singer-songwriter Facundo Cabral. The lyric has since been borrowed and stretched by a variety of
writers, musicians, and artists to describe the notion of in-betweenness that is broadly characteristic of the Latinx experience. Here, it is playfully rewritten in Spanglish, a blend of English and Spanish widely spoken among Latinx communities across the nation, and grammatically altered to reflect an attitude of acceptance and ownership of the multiple inherited environments, ideologies, and sayings that make us who we are.
The exhibition features an interactive element that allows viewers to select any of over 50 musical covers of Cabral’s song to demonstrate the breadth and diversity of this shared experience.
From Aqui, from Alla aims to stage a conversation among the practices of three artists who each imaginatively perceive written, spatial, and material languages as extensions of their Latinx identities in such a way that transcends the simple bifurcation of speaking only Spanish or English. Rather than mourn what is often deemed “lost” when one lives at the crossroads of two
The exhibition features an interactive element that allows viewers to select any of over 50 musical covers of Cabral’s song to demonstrate the breadth and diversity of this shared experience.
From Aqui, from Alla aims to stage a conversation among the practices of three artists who each imaginatively perceive written, spatial, and material languages as extensions of their Latinx identities in such a way that transcends the simple bifurcation of speaking only Spanish or English. Rather than mourn what is often deemed “lost” when one lives at the crossroads of two
or more cultural landscapes, this exhibition aims to celebrate the beauty in existing as a breathing collage of several legacies.
Multidisciplinary artist Albany Andaluz incorporates collected objects into mixed-media works that are expressive of her split upbringing between New York and the Dominican Republic, as well as her interest in meshing together high- and low-brow visual cultures. In her piece titled pley (2020) (left), Andaluz paints the texture of a city sidewalk marked with hopscotch numbers onto recycled fabrics passed onto her by a
family member. The title wittily connects the meaning of the word “play” as it is used in the Dominican Republic to describe baseball and its use in a US context to describe neighborhood games.
Estelle Maisonett is a Bronx-based Mexican-Puerto Rican artist whose practice investigates how personal ties to objects and built surroundings inform preconceived notions of identity by incorporating found materials into collage. This mixed-media work (left) was created on a deteriorated US flag and in Spanish reads: “We Are Americans, We Are Mexicans, and Together, We Are Human.” The piece is a meditation on the
common requirement in US public schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, despite the irony that “liberty and justice for all” does not reflect the reality of innumerous immigrants. Alluding to the word “indivisible,” Maisonett’s declaration defies grammar rules by pairing the plural verb Somos (We Are) with the singular noun Human (You Are), and suggests the playful reimagining of language as a tool for embracing one’s hybrid identity.
