A Conversation with Michelle Angela Ortiz and José Ortiz-Pagán

A CONVERSATION WITH MICHELLE ANGELA ORTIZ AND JOSÉ ORTIZ-PAGÁN On March 15, 2022, jurors Michelle Angela Ortiz and José Ortiz-Pagán spoke with Woodmere Associate Curator Rachel Hruszkewycz and Director and CEO William Valerio about their selections for the Woodmere Annual: 80th Juried Exhibition. The jurors asked artists to submit works that reflect the theme of migration.

WILLIAM VALERIO: Thank you, Michelle and José, for organizing Woodmere’s 80th Juried Exhibition. It’s a great show that’s incredibly timely. Our hearts are breaking as we see the horrors unfolding in Ukraine, creating another wave of global-scale migration. It prompts us to question our values. The show you’ve organized for us is full of artists who are expressing the values they believe are needed to govern shared society on this planet. What’s happening in the show?

MICHELLE ANGELA ORTIZ: What is happening in Ukraine is a mirror of our own country’s treatment of immigrants and people of color in particular since the founding of this nation. When we look at Ukraine and we see a child crossing borders to arrive in a safe place, we should also see Mexican, Central American, and Haitian children that have been doing the same for years. I think that the groups of people we decide to pay attention to tell how the press and the media present their stories.

The theme of migration is very present now because of what the news media is showing us about Ukraine, but migration has been occurring in the United States for a long time. I thought about migration in a broader sense, not just about grandparents who migrated here from one country, but how, because of status, because of economic opportunities or lack thereof, we’re forced to move. We’re forced to migrate.

The selections in our exhibition address the Great Migration, the African American experience, modes of migration, the ways people seek refuge and safety, the search for a better opportunity, and even just reconnecting with a family that is here and there. There are artists who acknowledge their own ancestry and where they come from, which, I think, challenges the concept of what it means to be American. I’m first-generation born in the United States. My experience of being an American will be very different from my son’s experience.

JOSÉ ORTIZ-PAGÁN: I thought about what migration means in political terms. What does being displaced mean in a world that just keeps growing and becoming more attached to Western society, to Western culture? About the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the same time, you look around and everyone is trying to do the same thing—imposing these ideas, imposing these cultures into other communities that have been developing themselves.

Michelle and I wanted to see migration from a very humane point of view. Even though there’s a lot of pain and violence, we wanted to give people the opportunity to look at it from another perspective

Those Who Love You Make You Cry, 2022, by Maryanne Buschini (Courtesy of the artist)

that is often not talked about because it doesn’t necessarily sell. We were trying to approach it from a more gentle place, not because we were afraid of confronting the viewer, but because migration and immigration have other facets. We wanted to really explore what migration can mean for people going through that experience personally.

I think the show provides an opportunity to expand the context in which we are living. Under the previous and current administrations, there is mistreatment of migrant communities, not to mention all the disparities that their policies have supported in terms of viability for a better quality of life that will affect us probably for the next couple of decades. How do we talk about that, when it hasn’t passed, but is still going on and people are still hurting?

VALERIO: The focus on a “humane point of view” in the show comes down to a basic question: do we conceive of our lives in the most fundamental way as unfolding together with others?

RACHEL HRUSZKEWYCZ: José and Michelle, you did a great job selecting work that expresses the multifaceted experience of being displaced or migrating. There are works that are difficult to look at and the sentiments being expressed are disturbing, but there are others that are really joyful. These joyful sentiments are more about communities and the support systems established by people who care about each other. I was happy to see the whole spectrum that you were able to create.

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: Thank you.

ORTIZ: Thank you, Rachel, because as José said, when we had conversations we decided we wanted to ensure that there are moments of joy and moments of love and tenderness. Even with the work that I have been doing, especially through

Asian Fusion, 2019–20, by Chau Nguyen (Courtesy of the artist)

Triptych, 1967, by Edith Neff (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dr. Maria B. Smith, 2012)

my Familias Separadas project, which is focused on stories of families that have been affected by deportation in the United States, even within a racist, violent system, there are still moments of hope and light. And that’s what makes us thrive.

The human connection and feeling empathy, especially if that story is not yours, is very powerful because it moves us to action. It’s not just about feeling this way, but thinking about what can I do? There are so many things that are happening locally. How do we take action? How are we making a change in our own community? Are we welcoming and supporting people that have been doing this work?

The focus on love, abundance, and joy in the middle of struggle is really important to represent because that is the way that we thrive and survive. For example, we paired Maryanne Buschini’s Those Who Love You Make You Cry with Chau Nguyen’s Asian Fusion. Both have a sense of home. We might be displaced, we might migrate, but home is where you are. Both address the concept of constructing a home and a future for yourself in a foreign space, in a foreign land.

They are both very beautiful images, representing not just family, but also generational connection and joy. That is my experience as a child of immigrants. My parents experienced a lot of material poverty, but they were rich spiritually because of the traditions and our language and our culture.

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: From Woodmere’s own collection, I was glad to learn about Edith Neff’s painting Triptych of Russian migrants.

VALERIO: Yes, Neff painted three portraits of her mother, Ruth, in different stages of life. The first is derived from a photograph taken when she was about twelve years old in Russia and staged at a professional studio with a painted backdrop of decorative elements that speak to the Old World. Ruth’s brother, who had already come to the United States, missed her so much he asked for a photograph and encouraged her to come to the US as well. The second is of Ruth in middle age. Now a mother with two daughters, she appears as an assimilated American woman. Neff painted this from another photograph taken during a trip to New York City in the 1940s. The girl at her mother’s side is a young, red-haired Neff, charging toward the viewer. The third panel shows Ruth as an older woman, still a caretaker, her arm entwined with that of her own mother, who was also an immigrant. This also derives from a photograph of the two women standing outside their house in Fairmount.

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: We wanted to look at migration from a multigenerational point of view, not only about the communities that are being affected right now, but also, what was it like before, when laws were being changed in the ’20s and ’30s to stop immigration from Ireland and Italy. Many things haven’t changed.

Part of the issue we’re facing across the planet is cultural disagreement. Buschini’s painting, to some extent, brings you into the conversation in a very gentle way. Looking at her portrait, I feel many people can see themselves in so many different ways, in multigenerational ways, maybe as a third- or fourth-generation person.

ORTIZ: I also want to discuss Michael D. McGeehan’s piece, Beliefs. When I facilitate workshops with undocumented youth and communities, I ask them to share an object that reminds them of home. Sometimes that object doesn’t exist anymore because it was left behind or lost in the journey. Beliefs made me think of that, but it also made me think about what you decide to take, what remains even in its absence. ORTIZ-PAGÁN: My partner is from the Dominican Republic and she took a photography class a couple of years ago. The first thing she did in the class was an exposure of the photo her grandmother carried in her wallet until she passed away. In some way it helped her bring those objects to the present. The exposure of the photo (which later became a piece of artwork), celebrated an absence not only of her grandmother, but also the fact that they no longer lived in the same geographical space.

It must have taken a while for Michael McGeehan’s cross to print its negative on the wall. Beyond the image and beyond the symbols, these photographs speak about time. They speak about a void. They speak about no longer being there, about absence, and going back to that conversation about the humane aspect of this topic, I think they speak in a very gentle way about it.

VALERIO: José, I wanted to ask you a specific question because, on your website, you make a statement that communities have been affected by the way we approach time. Can you tell us more about what you’re thinking?

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: That was quite a while ago. Back then I was thinking that your time, depending on where you’re coming from, will be valued in very different ways. At the time I was talking about that, I had recently migrated to Philadelphia, which, even though things were going fairly well, it was, in a way, brutal. One of the things I had to do, like other people who migrate, was to work harder to achieve the American dream. People who are new to this country don’t have the chance to work smarter in any way whatsoever. Compensating time was discriminatory in many ways. We don’t get to start from the same places, right?

Beliefs, from the series Sweet Longings (Saudade), 2021, by Michael D. McGeehan (Courtesy of the artist)

Untitled, 2021, by Idalia Vasquez-Achury (Courtesy of the artist)

I was thinking about equity. Think about the pandemic and what happened, for instance, in Southeast Philadelphia, which is a community that I have been working in, and Michelle lives there. I’ve been working with different immigrant communities in the area. Many friends that are close to me and that work in construction or in health-related systems didn’t have the chance to take a break or to quarantine. That never happened to them. That wasn’t part of their reality.

Now, when I’m talking about trading time (which speaks about how migrants could only earn their time at a lower rate and therefore capacity), this specifically has to do with people who are recently arrived and are trying to pursue that dream of a better place. It contrasts with the culture of globalization we interact with and which doesn’t seem to care about borders and people the same way we do when people cross into our political territories. To some extent it speaks about our double standards as a society and how this standard does not evolve from a humane point of view, but from one of exploiting lands and beings. These things were meant to exploit the time and efforts of other people so we can guarantee and afford this “beautiful life” that is obsessed with modernity and the commodification of everything. I’m glad you brought this up, Bill. It is one of those things that nowadays resides at the core of my process of thinking and it informed the way we selected these artists.

ORTIZ: I think you’re talking about multiple identities. Idalia Vasquez-Achury’s fragmented selfportrait talks about these very facets of identity. From my own experience, I go to Colombia, and I’m not Colombian enough. I go to Puerto Rico, I’m not Puerto Rican enough. I’m here in the United States, I’m not American enough. She is also discussing the sense of identity that is either imposed upon you by the status quo or society or gender roles, et cetera. In my family I have had to experience what José is talking about. When we come to the United States, we are no longer a sister, a cousin, a brother. We just become dollar bills. We become someone who is able to provide money and currency only.

Untitled, 2020, by Idalia VasquezAchury (Courtesy of the artist)

It’s not necessarily the fault of our families. It’s the fault of the systems that we’re navigating through. I think that’s what you’re speaking about, José, about people who can’t take a break, who can’t take a moment to dream, who, because the need is so overwhelming, cannot stop. You become this machine that’s just working. This system fails to acknowledge the human part, the human aspect, the right to have pleasure, the right to have joy, the right to dream and become who you want to be. That is the challenge. The same artist submitted an untitled photograph of a little girl by a tree. She kind of becomes invisible. She blends into the background, supporting the duality of being present but still feeling invisible.

VALERIO: I agree. It’s an amazing photograph.

ORTIZ: Similar to McGeehan’s cross, there is a sense of absence, but still being present. This made me feel like being here but still being invisible and not seen. Referring to what José and I were just talking about, to me this photograph is about not being seen in general, in this foreign place or culture, but, at times, not even being seen by your own family because of the financial dependency that unfortunately occurs when living in a capitalist world. I like the way she paired the image of the little girl with this strong, overwhelming tree. Even though this girl is not seen, I see a connection of strength between her and the tree.

HRUSZKEWYCZ: Another work that discuss capitalist society, consumerism, and consumption is Once by Jacob Hammes. It’s a sculpture that moves slowly back and forth like a coin-operated kiddie ride. He explained that because our culture encourages limitless consumption, environmental degradation and destruction often take place. This can lead to large-scale human migration and political conflicts that also displace communities.

Once, 2022, by Jacob Hammes (Courtesy of the artist)

Rifle of the Eagle Man, from the series American Imaginarium, 2021, by Emilio Maldonado (Courtesy of the artist)

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: Exhibitions about migration often are obsessed with this question of identity, which is, to me, something that is transitional. In our exhibition we selected work like Hammes’s sculpture that, like you said, Rachel, addresses the complexity and causes of migration. It’s quite a powerful piece.

ORTIZ: I thought that it paired nicely with Emilio Maldonado’s Rifle of the Eagle Man. The rifle is the crutch. Like those boats in the Hammes sculpture that we can see if we go down to Delaware Avenue, Maldonado also selected familiar objects and transformed them. Now they have another meaning.

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: When I was working at the Fleisher Art Memorial, often when we approached immigrant families, mainly from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia, one of the things they wanted to guarantee for their families was access to culture and to the arts because they understood the power that those things hold. But they were not able to have access because that time for them was not available. They couldn’t afford it. I say this as someone who has many privileges and can afford to

Everlasting Playground 1, 2021, by Hee Sook Kim (Courtesy of the artist)

go to college and receive formal education. That’s a privilege I have that many of my friends don’t have.

ORTIZ: In terms of my own personal experience, my parents gave me the opportunity to become an artist. I could afford to make that decision and say this is what I’m going to do. In the case of my parents and many others, that wasn’t a choice. I know that because of their labor, both physical and emotional labor, I am granted that privilege and that space to dream and to choose. One thing I have tried to do is open spaces for them to dream—for example, my father has been singing since he was a child. He is a bolero singer. I try to consistently provide space for him to sing his songs, to share his songs. He might not remember my birthday, but he can remember every lyric from Los Panchos or different artists that he remembers as a child from Puerto Rico. That is a beautiful treasure. Hee Sook Kim’s Everlasting Playground 1 and Nirvana 3 express the right to dream or giving yourself permission to dream. Anybody can do that, right? But as José and I were discussing, both personally and within the communities I’ve worked with, that time is precious.

What I enjoy about Kim’s works is that there is really nothing about her own ethnic identity. The focus is on these worlds that she is constructing. In Nirvana 3, the figure is floating in the same way as the patterns and flowers are. You don’t necessarily know where she is, but the artist created her own world.

Even though we have other works that talk about brutality, Everlasting Playground 1, is an action of hope that is quite poetic because it says it’s still possible. There is still hope. It’s like a hopeful act.

VALERIO: I’m so glad you pointed to this piece. It might be the largest work of art we have ever shown at Woodmere! The scale is part of what makes it so powerful. Its monumentality allows for immersion. I think that’s what you were saying, Michelle, that it creates a space for people who don’t have the luxury of that space. It’s going to be a defining statement in the show. The bright colors and the lyrical quality make you want to sing.

ORTIZ: Speaking of playfulness, I thought Cristhian Varela’s piece was just so beautiful. It’s a music player. It also really connects to the inventiveness that happens when you’re lacking resources; that’s one thing that’s definitely an immigrant experience. It’s like, OK, what are you going to do? Just grab this and this and make it happen.

Nirvana 3, 2019, by Hee Sook Kim (Courtesy of the artist)

Llora Lata Llora, February 2022, by Cristhian Varela (Courtesy of the artist)

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: It’s extremely fragile.

ORTIZ: I think that’s important because it is so fragile and can just come apart. Like Emilio Maldonado’s crutch that is a gun, this is a can of tamales that is a music player. It’s another transformation of familiar objects.

Bhutanese Refugees from Nepal Spend First Day in Their Philadelphia Apartment, 2011, by Harvey Finkle (Courtesy of the artist)

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: I love the fact that it’s not tragic. It’s like, let me invent a machine to be happy from nothing, from scratch, and make it work. It is so clever. And it’s so rounded. I mean, we can talk about this for hours, right?

Someone else I wanted to talk about is Harvey Finkle. He has been involved with immigrant activism in Philadelphia for a long time. He is not an immigrant himself, but he’s always there, supporting, documenting.

VALERIO: I’m so happy to see these photographs in the show because I actually bumped into him at an event two months ago and he was excited about your call to artists. He brings so much passion to his work. ORTIZ: Harvey is someone that I highly respect. He’s not someone who centers himself. He believes in the work and he’s able to capture people in a way that’s so beautiful and intimate, especially in the pictures we chose. I’ve said this before many times: he needs a solo retrospective. His work deserves more recognition in our city. His work is an incredible archive of political movements and communities fighting for change. Harvey has been able to visually capture the activist movement, particularly the immigrant rights movement, the labor rights movement, through the lens of his camera for decades. He sees the value of communities. These are folks who don’t have the time but still make the time and push through and advocate for themselves and their communities. Their stories are important to tell.

Refugees Arriving from Burma, 2014, by Harvey Finkle (Courtesy of the artist)

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: Harvey knows the importance of his work. He doesn’t even speak that much when he’s out there.

VALERIO: Look at Refugees Arriving from Burma. He creates a directness with the gaze of the young woman in the center, and contrasts this with the soft focus and out-of-focus expressions of the other figures. It becomes a dialogue between the young woman and the viewer that’s contingent on a reading of the emotions of the other younger and older figures, who we assume to be family members.

ORTIZ: It is. I also see it as generational. There is an older woman and this child. The person who’s looking directly out at you is really present and living in the present moment, but it’s also about that connection she has to the past and future reflected in the people she’s with. It’s a beautiful photo.

VALERIO: What’s amazing about it, too, is the way the hands work throughout the photograph. There is the hand around the child, the hand that’s tucked under the arm of the figure in the foreground, and then the hand that’s around the shoulder of the older figure and just cut off at the right margin. There’s something about the way all of those hands wind themselves through the picture that helps represent the linkages you’ve talked about.

ORTIZ: When I think of Harvey, I think of artists in Philadelphia who have paved the way for other artists. Another artist like this is Shira Walinsky. There’s a book that’s coming out soon called The Road to Sanctuary. I contributed an essay and I

Welcome, 2017, by Shira Walinsky (Courtesy of the artist)

interviewed Shira about her work with refugee and immigrant communities in South Philadelphia. She spoke about just listening, not presenting an idea, really just listening and understanding. She has the point of view of someone from the outside, but she is respectful. Her photographs ask, how do we begin to really understand our social responsibility? How are we engaging and connecting with communities in a way that is really authentic and not ghettoizing or creating some type of token image? She comes at it in a very authentic way.

In the photograph of the Congolese women, there’s so much love and so much pride. The American flag is draped over the person standing in the center, in contrast to a more traditional dress on the sides. These two worlds can exist in one place.

What I also love about Shira’s poetry and video project Open City, which is also included in the show, is that it gives the audience an opportunity to listen to the very same members of the community that she is turning her lens on. When people come into the show, they’ll be able to hear poems and images coming directly from the community. Working with poet Ujjwala Maharjan, teacher Meg Flisek, and students in an ESL classroom at Furness High School, they have given these students an opportunity to share their stories.

VALERIO: When I first read your call I thought of the Great Migration.

ORTIZ: Yes, we also thought of this. The subject of Yolanda Ward’s work is the Great Migration. She works with just paper. And we paired Thomas McKinney’s High Noon with Jonathan Pinkett’s Mudlife 1.

In Ward’s piece, someone is fleeing. McKinney and Pinkett’s portraits are very stoic; there is beautiful strength and presence. Presenting this beauty and strength and these stoic figures does not do away with the struggle, but it is equally important, as José

Congolese Congregation, 3rd and Snyder, 2017, by Shira Walinsky (Courtesy of the artist)

Migration of Another Kind, February 2022, by Yolanda Ward (Courtesy of the artist)

and I have said, to have this other representation present. I felt that these pieces were really important to include.

HRUSZKEWYCZ: You both created a dynamic exhibition.

ORTIZ: Yes, we really wanted balance. Having artists like Jacqueline Unanue and others who are immigrating or migrating themselves was really important. All of the works were really compelling, but we also wanted variety within the artists we selected. Unanue is from Chile. Gaiamama I is another very joyous piece; it reminded me of a particular South American painterly style of the artist Oswaldo Guayasamín from Ecuador. I think of Unanue’s piece in that very same way, in terms of her style and her approach to painting. Her color palette and the sense of movement are just really beautiful.

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: It reminds me of constructivism in Brazil in the ’70s, in these very defined strokes. Really beautiful. ORTIZ: And it is another pretty big piece. The two largest works we chose are the most colorful and vibrant, which is great.

VALERIO: I read it as two figures, a figure on the left and a figure on the right. It’s as if they’re lifting something. Is that how you see it? What is it that they share? What is their responsibility to shoulder, to carry?

Mudlife 1, November 8, 2021, by Jonathan Pinkett (Courtesy of the artist)

High Noon, 2021, by Thomas McKinney (Courtesy of the artist)

ORTIZ-PAGÁN: She speaks about hope.

ORTIZ: She talks about a universal concept emerging from two concepts: Pachamama, which is the Andean Mother Earth, and Gaia, the primitive goddess of the land of the Greeks. I love the fact that they’re two female entities. VALERIO: Thank you, Michelle and José. Woodmere is grateful. It’s an incredibly exciting, but also moving show that speaks to the world we share with others. It also opens our eyes and helps us learn. I’m so glad for the many new ideas the exhibition brings into the fold of Woodmere.

Gaiamama I, 2019, by Jacqueline Unanue (Courtesy of the artist)