Nueva Luz Vol 3 Issue 3 by En Foco, Inc.

N U E VA L U Z

photographic journal Volume 3 #2 1990

NUEVA LUZ Volume 3 #2 1990

p ljo to ^ r a p I) i c journal Editor Charles Biasiny-Rivera Associate Editor Betty Wilde Designer/Art Director Frank Gimpaya Translator Amaldo Sepulveda East Coast Distributors Total Circulation Services Ubiquity Typography Ortiz Typographies Printing Expedi Press

Nueva Luz (ISSN 0887-5835) is a photographicjour nalpublished by En Foco, Inc. 32 East Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, New York 10468, (212) 584-7718. Single issue price is $4.00, yearly individual subscription is $12.00 in the U.S. In all other countries, yearly subscription is $18.00, institutional subscription is $30.00. Portfolios of at least 15 unmounted prints or copy slides may be submittedfor viewing. Ifmailed, the prints may be no larger than 11" *14". A selfaddressed stamped envelope and appropriate packaging must ac company all mailedportfolios to insure proper return. We do not assume responsibility for unsolicitedphotographs or manuscripts sent by mail. Photographers wishing to deliverportfolios in person must call our office to make ar rangements. For advertising rates and distribution contact En Foco, Inc.

Copyright ©1990 by EN FOCO, INC. All Rights Reserved Nueva Luz is made possible with funding by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Bronx Bor ough President, Fernando Ferrer, New York State Council on the Arts, Bronx Council on the Arts, The National En dowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and Art Matters, Inc. All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced or published in whole or in part without the written permis sion of the publisher, En Foco, Inc.

Editorial Pa £ e

usually enjoy the writings of other pho tographers: their insight comes from within and carries references photographers can easily relate to. Ben Lifson’s commentary was a joy to read; 1 read it over afew times just for the pleasure it gave me. Each is in the center of his or her own storm. And since it’s the storm in all of us, artist and viewer alike, that makes art necessary, each of them is in the middle of everywhere, which is where every artist belongs. Those words illuminate all the more because of the dimness so often encountered by many of our talented photographers when they approach major museums and galleries. A fundamental purpose of Nueva Luz is to illume that darkness and inform the art establishment that we are a very significant part ofeverywhere. The part capable of invigorating a palid, uninspired photography arena overconcerned with marketable trends, repetitious devices and art exercises that isolate art istsfrom the place oftheir own truths. Its the same place that Lifson refers to when he writes . . . every artist is thrown back upon his or her real reasons for making art. I’m impressed by the volume and level of photographers that are arriving at our office each week. Our Slide Registry is growing rapidly and so are the number of curators and art professionals interested in broadening their references. The old excuse of “If I only knew of one I’d (exhibit, publish, collect) them’’ is seldom heard anymore. For the innovative and perceptive arts deci sion maker, now is the time to invest in our com munity ofphotographers. The melting pot lid can no longer restrain our enthusiasm and contribu tions to the future art history of this nation. Art investors are in an excellent position to make their individual discoveries from the con stantly growing number ofartists ofcolor. The ex tended nurturing and support that would benefit this emerging population can only come from sincere individuals of vision who also realize the injustice ofexcluding such an enormous artist con stituency. It could be that exclusion is the result of a contemporary American art which deals with the soul and ecstasy of the experience of art and more with the corporate concern of art as a capitalist powerchild. Charles Biasiny-Rivera Editor

o suelo disfrutarlos escritos de otros fotografos: sus juicios son genuinos y comprenden referencias que el lector fotografo capta con

facilidad. El comentario de Ben Lifson fue una lectura de placer; lo reflet varias veces poreste placerjustamente. Cada uno esta plantado en el centro de su tormenta propia. Y puesto que es la tormenta de cada uno de nosotros, del artista y del espectador por igual, lo que vuelve el arte en algo necesario, cada uno de ellos esta en el medio de todo, adonde pertenece todo artista. Palabras iluminadoras si recordamos la opacidad que confrontan a menudo muchos de nuestros talentosos fotografos cuando abordan museos y galenas de renombre. Proposito fundamental de Nueva Luz es alumbrar estas sombras e informarle a la oficialidad del arte que nosotros formamos parte muy significativa de ese todo. Una parte capaz de vigorizar el mustio circuito fotografico que esta empozado en corrientes de mercado, en trucos reiteratives y poses de 11arte ’’ que aislan al ar tista de la cuna de suspropias verdades. A ella hace referenda Lifson cuando escribe: cada artista es devuelto a las razones reales que posibilitan su arte. Me impresionan el volumen y la calidad de las fotografias que recibe nuestra oficina cada semana. Nuestro Registro de Dia-positivas aumenta rapidamente, el numero de conservadores y profesonales del arte interesados por ampliar sus referencias asimismo. La antigua excusa aquella, “si solo supiera de algo, las exhibirialpublicarialreuniria, ” casi ya no se eschucha. Si se esta involucrado en las artes de manera innovadoray penetrante, ahora es la bora de invertir en la comunidad nuestra de fotografos. La tapa del llamado caldero de razas no puede restringir mas nuestro entusiasmo y nuestra aportacion a la historia futura del arte de esta nacion. Los inversionistas de arte estan en condiciones excelentes de hacer sus hallazgos individuales de la creciente cantidad de artistas minoritarios. El apoyo efectivo de esta poblacion naciente puede provenir unicamente de individuos sinceros y con vision que comprendan, ademas, lo injusto que es la exclusion de semejante sector artistico. Tal vez dicha exclusion es obra de un arte contemporaneo y nacional que atiende el aliento y el extasis de la experiencia artistica menos que la inquietud corporativa del arte que lacta plusvalla.

Table of Coplepi? .... page l . pages 2-11 pages 12-21 pages 22-51 . . . .page52

Editorial.............................. Fernando La Rosa............... Sandra Reus........................ Clarissa T. Sligh................. Commentary by Ben Lifson Comentario........................

■ ■ ■ -page 55

Cover photograph: Fernando La Rosa, Horizon, Jamaica, 1989, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Fcrpapdo La Ro?a

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t& S Fernando La Rosa was bom in Arequipa, Peru and now lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received his Masters of Fine Arts from Tulane University, New Orleans; his Bachelors ofFine Arts from the Fscuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, Lima, Peru; and he studied under Minor White at M.I. T., Boston, Massachusetts. La Rosa has been awarded grants from the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, City of At lanta, GA., 1988, the Fulton County Arts Coun cil, GA., 1988 and the Southern Arts Federation/ National Endowmentfor the Arts, 1987. His most recent group exhibition was shown at Art in Gen eral, New York City produced by En Foco Inc. Solo exhibitions include Nexus Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia; Parson's School of Design, New York City; andSequenciaFoto-Gal leria, Lima, Peru. His work is in the permanent collection ofthe Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Columbia University, all New York City; Rhode Island Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; New Orleans Museum of Art, Loui siana, and the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima, Peru. “I have begun to realize a (framing) phenomena as it occurs in architecture, using the device of the window to isolate spaces. These fragments are icons, landscapes, cityscapes, portraits; small pieces making a whole. This division of the objects in the photo graphs allows for the abstraction of the space and peculiar changes in planar relationships. By this division it becomes more apparent why we like a certain view. Through this process of fragmentation, the photographic image is more-like the process of human sight. We do not see situations as a whole but rather as a summary of a collection of many objects and relationships. ”

Ferpapdo La Ro^a

City Park, New Orleans, 1988, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Fcrpapdo La Ro?a

Seascape II, Jamaica, 1987, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Ferpapdo La Ro^a

Seascape, Jamaica, 1987, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Ferpapdo La Ro?a

Nude, Atlanta, 1987, gelatin silver print, 20” x 16”

Fcrpapdo La Ro?a

Building, New York, 1982, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Ferpapdo La Ro?a

Winter, Atlanta, 1986, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16â&#x20AC;?

Fcrpapdo La Ro?a

Doorway, New York, 1982, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Ferpapdo La Ro?a

Piedmont Park, Atlanta, 1987, gelatin silver print, 20” x 16”

Ferpapdo La RoÂŤ;a

Palms, Dominican Republic, 1985, gelatin silver print, 20" x 16"

Sapdra Reu?

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Sandra Reus is a freelance photojoumalist bom in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Pine Arts from William Smith University, Gen eva, New York and has studied at the New York Studio School, as well as the University ofPuerto Rico. A self-taught photographer, she has been exhibited in the United States, Puerto Rico, France, Cuba and Columbia. Her most recent solo exhibition Belleza Encarnada, was at the Museo de Grabado Latinoamericano, San Juan, Puerto Rico, while an earlier exhibition took place at Galena SanJuan Bautista, and Casa Alcaldin de SanJuan, both Puerto Rico. Group exhibitions include: Museo del Barrio, Galena Fotografica, New York; Consejo Puertorriqueno, Puerto Rico; Casa de las Americas, Cuba; and the Universidad Autonoma Latinamericana, Colombia. Reus has received several photojournalism awards through the Over seas Press Club. In 1988, she received the OPC’s Joel Magruger Fellowship to complete a photo graphic essay comparing the family life of differ ent social classes in Haiti. 1Puerto Rico is obsessed by its women — as sym bols and objects of beauty, pleasure, sex and ex ploitation. Yet tradition expects women to be virginal, maternal, passive, and nurturing, the tower of strength within the family. I began pho tographing beauty contests to obtain some insight into how some of these contradictions are ex pressed by the women in our society. ”

Sapdra Reu?

Miss Puerto Rico, 1988, gelatin silver print, 12" x 8"

Sapdra Reu?

Miss Catano, 1986, gelatin silver print, 12" x 8"

Sarjdra Reu?

Miss San Juan, 1988, gelatin silver print, 12" x 8"

Sapdra Reu?

Miss Puerto Rico, 1988, gelatin silver print, 8" x 12"

Sapdra Reu?

Miss Puerto Rico, 1989, gelatin silver print, 8" x 12"

Sandra Reuj;

Miss Catano, 1986, gelatin silver print, 8" x 12"

Sapdra Reu?

Miss Legs of Gold, 1987', gelatin silver print, 8" x 12"

Sapdra Reu?

National Mother and Daughter, 1986, gelatin silver print, 12" x 8"

Sapdra Reu?

Miss San Juan, 1987, gelatin silver print, 12" x 8"

Clarita T. Sli£l)

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S Clarissa T. Sligh was bom in Washington, D. C. and now lives in New York City. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Howard University, Washington, D. C. Sligh is the recipient of awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Selected solo exhibitions include: White Columns, New York City; Art Awareness, Lexington, and C.E.P.A. Satellite Space, Buffalo, New York. Sel ected group exhibitions include: Latin American Gallery, SoHo 20 Gallery, Chuck Levitan Gallery, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Tisch School of the Arts, P.S. 39/LongwoodArt Gallery, Franklin Furnace, all New York City; Photographic Re source Center, Boston, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts; Fotofest, Houston, Texas; C.E.P.A. Gallery, Buffalo, Vis ual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York; Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas. Her work has been collected by the Museum ofMod em Art Library, New York City; The Woman s Museum, Washington, D. C.; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York.

“I work to investigate intersections of reality and myth. I struggle to cut away illusions and to re claim my fully human self Using old family photographs, I connect to who I was. My silence has kept me invisible and has even separated me from myself. I begin to un derstand that public hatred, disgrace and ridicule are tools used to keep me in my place. I have no choice. I must pass through my 'shadow areas ” as well as through light so that the meaning ofexper ience shines through its form. As I construct the unsayable, the unseakable, and the unrepresentable through this reframing process, a frozen reflection of time and light be come free. ”

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She Sucked Her Thumb No. 1, Cyanotype, 1989, 9 Vi * x 72*

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Three photographers, in short, whose surroundings, sensibilities and styles are distinctly dissimilar, yet who are united by the same urgent need to deal with theforces which bear most immediately upon them. Each is in the center of his or her own storm. Andsince it's the storm in all ofus, art ist and viewer alike, that makes art necessary, each ofthem is in the middle of everywhere, which is where every artist belongs. For what each of them gives us is intensely human. What flashes of emotion in Reus' characters! Emotions so strong, so rich in variety . . . exhaustion, delight, disgust, anxiety . . . and expressed in precise and beautifully ren dered gestures offace and body! Sligh discloses the often overlooked beauty offigures andfigure groups in common snapshots; andshe isolatesfor us the poignance in some faces. But because she is also aware of emotional undercurrents which family snapshots often mask, she uses writing to bring them out. "He was her hus band when they played "HOUSE". "I am a very happy kid. In this house, Grandma is in charge". Her momma whis pered, "Hush, yourfather won't believe you. " La Rosa's pictures . . . views seen through transparent patches in otherwise black or cloudy barriers held up in front of the camera give us not only the unique pleasure of the beautifulfragment quickly seen, but also the emotional and intellectualpleasure which wefeel when the mind tries to re assemble these fragments into a coherent whole. This work is strong, then, not because it refers us either to theory or to art, and not only because it is strongly made (which it is), but because it also throws us back into experience. Reus' pictures put us in the midst of the lives of her beautiful and exploited young women. Anyone who has driven at high speeds through city and countryside has ex perienced the pleasure to which La Rosa’s pictures give ac cessible andpermanent form. Sligh's captions are powerful and often painful; but are they not written in the same flat laconic style as the things that we write beneath the pictures in our Family albums? And do they not remind us ofjoyful or painful things we could have written if we had dared to express ourselves so directly ? Reus too ... if I read her statement correctly ... is aware ofgoing against the grain when she, a woman, turns an inquiring eye upon a male society’s hallowed myths. And La Rosa resists our common demand for easily assimilable knowledge. Courage, then, also unites these three artists ... a courage to go one's own separate and necessary way. This perhaps is the chief lesson of these portfolios, and one of its main values.

write from a small late nineteenth-century farm house in a stretch of countryside so isolated and with so few features to distinguish it from so many other stretches of hills andfields that l guess you could say it's in the middle of nowhere. But it's also the middle of every where. Some examples: A sign on the bam across the road reads, “Rusty-Dor Farm". The mispelling is intentional and a joke: everyone who knows the farmer and his wife, Russel and Dorothy, knows that although his nickname is Rusty, hers is Dot, not Dor. In the Methodist Church Thrift Shop the sense that you can read through the cast-off objects into countless lives is the same as on Second Avenue, or in Boston, or in Oxnard, California. One of my neighbors tells me that when he and his family fledLong Islandseven years ago the headlines up here were all about who hit a deer on Route 82; now they 'refull of budget shortages, corruption and cover-ups. It's the same now in Art: formerly, distinctions among theories and movements were clear-cut. But so many movements and theories have come and gone recently that there is no longer a "place", geographical or intellectual, which is so strong that ifyou aren 't in it you 're in the middle of nowhere. Some critics hate this and say that we need a strong new theory to tell us what art is and isn't. No. Without a party line, every artist is thrown back upon his or her real reasons for making art. Consider the three photographers here: Clarissa Sligh who lives in New York and re-photographs family snapshots in order "to reclaim my fully human self' ... to reclaim it, perhaps, from the crowded impersonal city around her, a city whose intensity and whose spectacle, nonetheless, have made scores of other photographers feel most human when they are out working in it; Sandra Reus, who photographs beauty contests not for their own sake, but in order "to ob tain insight" into myths about women in her native Puerto Rico; and Fernando La Rosa, who lives in New Orleans, and whose work seem?a response to the intense light and to the disorienting transitions between the urban and the natural which characterize the Gulf Coast. La Rosa shows us only those patches oflandscape which assail his sight; he feels no obligation to locate them in a larger, more familiar, more knowable world. Sligh, who writes on herpictures, has no patience with theory which in sists that visual art must be strictly visual. Reus, obsessed by something so conceptual as myths about women, works in a straight forward direct style whose imagery . . . womens’ faces and bodies ... is nothing if not physical.

Ben Lifson

Ben Lifson is a photographer and critic. He was the photography critic with the Village Voice from 1977-1982. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Photography Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Critic's Fellowship.

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o scribo desde un pequefio cortijo de fines del siglo diecinueve, en una region de campo que esta tan aislada y que se distingue tan pobremente de tantas otras regiones de campos y colinas que supongo que algunos diran que esta en medio de la nada. Pero tambien esta en medio de todo, de todas partes. Varios ejemplos: Un rotulo en el granero al otro lado de la carretera reza: “Rusty-Dor Farm. ” El deletreo incorrecto es intencionaly es una broma: todos los que conocen al agricultory su esposa, Russel y Dorothy, saben que, si bien el apodo de aquel es Rusty, el de ella no es Dor sino Dot. La posibilidad que se da en la Tienda de Gangas de la Iglesia Metodista de entrever innumerables vidas en objetos descartados es igualque en la Segunda Avenida, en Boston o en Oxnard, California. Uno de mis vecinos me cuenta que hace siete ads, cuando el y su familia abandonaron Long Island, los titulares de aca tenian que ver solamente con cualfulano habia arrollado a un venado en la Ruta 82; ahora tratan mas bien de deficits de presupuesto, corrupcion y encubrimientos. Lo mismo le sucede al Arte: antes, las distinciones entre teonas y movimientos eran clansimas. Pero tantos movimientos y teonas ban surgido y desaparecido recientemente que ya no existe un “lugar, ” geografico o intelectual, de tal fortaleza que si no estas en el estas en medio de la nada. Algunos criticos detestan esto, reclamando que nos falta una nueva teona superior que nos diga que esy no es el arte. No. Sin la linea de partido cada artista es devuelto a las razones re ales que posibilitan su arte. Reparen en los tres fotografos siguientes: Clarissa Sligh, quien vive en Nueva Yorky vuelve a fotografiar instantaneas familiares ‘para recuperar mi ser humano cabal” . . . para recuperarlo, tal vez, del gentio anonimo; la ciudad que la rodea, cuya intensidad y espectaculo, sin embargo, ha logrado que tantosfotografos se sientan mas humanos cuando se lanzan a trabajar en ella; Sandra Reus, que fotografia concursos de belleza, por amor al arte no, sino para “poder profundizar” en mitos sobre la mujer en su Puerto Rico natal; y Fernando La Rosa, quien vive en New Orleans, y cuyo trabajo parece ser una respuesta a la intensa luz y desordenado paso de lo urbano a lo natural que caracteriza la costa del Golfo. Nos muestra La Rosa unicamente aquellos tramos del paisaje que asaltan su mirada; no se ve en la obligacion de ubicarlos en un mundo mayor, mas conocido, mas conocible. Sligh, que escribe en sus fotos, no tolera la teona que recalca que el arte visual tiene que ser estrictamente visual. Reus, obsecada con algo tan conceptual como los mitos sobre la mujer, se vale de un estilo franco y directo cuya imaginena, los rostros y cuerpos femeninos, es sin duda fisica.

Tres fotografos, en fin, cuyos ambientes, sensibilidades y estilos son claramente disimiles, pero que estan ligados por la urgente necesidad comun de lidiar con las fuerzas que les atafien con mayor cercania. Cada uno esta plantado en el centro de su tormento propia. Y puesto que es la tormenta de cada uno de nosotros, del artista y del espectador por ig ual, la que vuelve el arte en algo necesario, cada uno de ellos esta en el medio de todo, adonde pertenece todo artista. Porque lo que nos brinda cada uno es profundamente humano. I Que rafagas de emocion en los personajes de Reus! jEmociones tan vitales, tan ricas por su diversidad — agotamiento, gozo, disgusto, ansiedad — y que se expresan con gestos faciales y corporales precisos y hermosamente concebidos! Sligh descubre la belleza que a menudo pasamos por alto: figuras y conjuntos de figuras en instantaneas comunes; y atsla para nosotros la viveza de algunas caras. Pero gracias a su conciencia de las corrientes emotivas y calladas que estas fotos suelen encubrir, recurre a la escritura para hacerlas resaltar. “El era su esposo cuando jugaban al hogar. ” “Soy una nina muy feliz. En esta casa Abuela es la que manda. ” “Su mama susurro: lCalla, tu padre no te ereera. Las imagenes de La Rosa . . . captadas a traves de zonas transparentes que rebasan barreras negras o nubladas que se colocan frente a la camara, nos brindan no solamente el placer peculiar de un bello fragmento que se ha visto brevemente, sino tambien elplacer emotivo e intelectual que pro duce la reorganizacion mental de dichos fragmentos en un todo coherente. Su trabajo es poderoso, pues, y no lo es porque nos remite a la teona o al arte, ni tampoco porque esta muy bien constituido y punto, sino porque nos devuelve tambien la experiencia. Las fotos de Reus nos colocan entre sus mujeres bellasy explotadas. Cualquiera que haya guiado aprisa por campo y ciudad ha experimentado elplacer que La Rosa plasma direc ta y permanentemente. Los titulos de Sligh son poderosos y frecuentemente dolorosos. ^Pero acaso no muestran el mismo estilo laconico y chato de las cosas que escribimos al pie de las fotos del album familiar? £ Y acaso no nos recuerdan lo que hubieramos escrito con alegna o con dolor si nos hubieramos atrevido a expresamos asi de claramente? Reus tambien ... si capto la entrelinea correctamente . . . sabe que rema contra la corriente al examinar, como mu jer que es, los sagrados mitos de una sociedad masculina. Y La Rose se resiste a la exigencia comun de un conocimiento suavemente asimilable. El valor, entonces, une tambien a los tres artistas, el valor de seguir el camino propio y necesario. Fie aqui tal vez la leccion mayor de estos portafolios, y uno de sus valores centrales. Ben Lifson

Ben Lifson es fotografo y critico. Fue critico de fotografia del Village Voice de 1977 a 1982. Ha recibido becas de la Guggenheim y del Na tional Endowment for the Arts.

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