Thursday evening, was the opening reception of ¡Aqui! (Here) - an exhibition at NoMAA’s newly inaugurated gallery space in Washington Heights.
¡Aqui! (Here) will take place from September 25th - December 30th and exposes works by local artists depicting their creative experiences within neighborhoods in NYC, as well as celebrate Latino arts and cultures uptown. A panel of jurors selected the fifteen artists exhibiting in the show whose work was curated by Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, special projects coordinator at El Museo del Barrio.
I was able to speak briefly to artist, Hector Canonge, about his piece entitled "Intersections." His multi-media project includes neon signs, a map of NYC with bar codes, a scanner, and a projector and screen.
Joking how much of his art deals with food (a passion we have in common). He explained how the bar codes on the map are the locations of food carts around the city. When you click on a bar code, an interview with the person that handles the food card in that particular location appears on the screen. He continued to say how the people (who are mostly immigrants) that work in these carts are "codified" by the actual owners of these carts - a sort of underground mafia that we never see.
Canonge also has another exhibit called "Epistolar" which talks about his family history. This will be going on until September 29th at Peter Fingesten Gallery, Pace University.
