Juana Valdes — Smithsonian Acquisition + Artist Talk, Today 5:30 PM EST

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CONTACT:
Contact: Anthony Spinello
Gallery: Spinello Projects
Email: gallery@spinelloprojects.com

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY & CULTURE ACQUIRES JUANA VALDES' REDBONE - COLORED CHINA RAGS

Porcelain china is prized for its whiteness. Injected with pigment to reflect a range of skin tones, these porcelain objects look like fabric rags.

Afro-Cuban American artist Juana Valdes created “Redbone - Colored China Rags” in 2012. With the range of colors skewing lighter, she remarks on discrimination against darker skin tones in Latinx communities. Valdes has experienced colorism personally. As a Black woman, Valdes says she’s often heard, “You don’t look Cuban.”

The stereotypical representation of Latinas in American culture marginalizes Black identity. People who self-identify as Latinx vary in racial identity; Latinx is not a race.

The rag shape references domestic work, labor often performed by women of color. The color gradation invites the viewer to reflect on their own skin tone in comparison.

— Text via Smithsonian Instagram

Available works by Juana Valdes here ▸

TONIGHT: ARTIST TALK

October 7, 5:30 PM EST

Juana Valdes' recent exhibition, Absence/Presence: Latinx and Latin American Artists in Dialogue will host a panel with guest curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Arlene Dávila and Mari Carmen Ramírez, moderated by Gilbert Vicario.

— RSVP here

ABSENCE/PRESENCE: LATINX AND LATIN AMERICAN ARTISTS IN DIALOGUE
This conversation is presented in conjunction with ANOTHER SPACE’s current exhibition Absence/Presence: Latinx and Latin American Artists in Dialogue on view through October 9, 2021.

To make an appointment to visit the exhibition, please email contact@anotherspace.org.

ANOTHER SPACE is a program established by the Daniel and Estrellita B. Brodsky Family Foundation to broaden international awareness and appreciation of art from Latin America.

Available works by Juana Valdes here ▸

Juana Valdes
b. 1963, Cabañas, Cuba

Juana Valdes uses printmaking, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and site-specific installations, to explore issues of race, transnationalism, gender, labor, and class. Functioning as an archive, Valdes’s work analyzes and decodes experiences of migration as a person of Afro Caribbean heritage.

Her work has been included in group exhibitions in such museums and university galleries such as: Site Santa Fe, Perez Art Museum, El Museo del Barrio, NYC; P.S. 1 MOMA, NYC; MOCA, North Miami; Galerie Verein Berliner Künstler, Berlin; the Mason Gross Galleries at Rutgers University, NJ; Newark Museum, NJ; Galerie Binnen, Amsterdam; and FreeSpace, Sydney. Recent solo exhibitions include: Terrestrial Bodies, Cuban Legacy Gallery, Miami Dade College Special Collections, Freedom Tower (2019-2020); An Inherent View of the World, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami (2017); From Island to Ocean: Caribbean and Pacific Dialogues, Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University, NJ (2015), and Remnants-What Remains, Thomas Hunter Project Space, Hunter College, CUNY (2014).

Born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, Valdes came to the United States in 1971. She received her BFA in Sculpture from the Parsons School of Design (1991), her MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (1993) and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (1995). She is currently an Associate Professor in the Art Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is represented in Miami by Spinello Projects.

Available works by Juana Valdes here ▸

Image 1:
Juana Valdes
Redbone - Colored China Rags, 2017
Bone China fired 1234°C at European Ceramic Work Center, NL
Set of 15 unique porcelains approximately 12’’ x 15” x 4” each

Image 2:
Juana Valdes
Colored China Rag (Detail), 2017
Bone China fired 1234°C at European Ceramic Work Center, NL
Unique porcelain, approximately 12’’ x 15” x 4”

Image 3:
Juana Valdes speaking in front of her installation at the opening reception of Hanging By, a group exhibition curated by Anthony Spinello at Spinello Projects, 2018

Courtesy of Spinello Projects, photos by Diana Larrea

Spinello Projects is a Miami-based contemporary art program founded in 2005. It is a gallery, creative space, and an innovative platform for nomadic site-specific and curatorial projects. Follow us here ▸

For press inquiries and hi-res images, contact gallery@spinelloprojects.com.

For available works contact gallery@spinelloprojects.com or visit Artsy.

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