A small exhibition that made a strong impression on me was Norma Vila’s A Metaphor Against Oblivion. The exhibit was installed at a gallery and consisted of nine photographs and several sculptures. Vila’s work focuses on the ways that unchecked development and environmental degradation alter the physical and cultural landscape of our memory. Using a stencil to form a tanned image on peoples’ backs, she depicts a scene that no longer exists. She then photographs these models in the exact location where the stenciled image had been previously located. “For this project, I am working with the representation of the metaphor ‘the skin of memory,’” says Vila. “Everything we have seen marks us, and many times when passing by some place, it is inevitable to remember that place as it was before… And that absent landscape is impregnated in us, it is a mark and a metaphor against oblivion.” Throughout our time in Puerto Rico artists and artisans were reminding us of that which was both seen and unseen, felt and forgotten, in the lives of the island’s residents.

On our last full day in Puerto Rico, we visited the studio of Antonio Martorell and the Museo de Arte de Ponce. I first encountered Antonio Martorell as an image on a wall honoring Puerto Rican artists outside our hotel. Later, I saw his bobbin lace-based work at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico and his installation with umbrellas and prints at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico. It was amazing to meet him in person and enter his warehouse-sized studio in Ponce filled with his artwork and objects he’s collected through the years.

A Metaphor Against Oblivion
Reception: November 8, 6-8 pm

In A Metaphor Against Oblivion themes such as the impossibility of the natural landscape on an island, the excessive urban development, the abandonment of cultural heritage, and the negligence in the communities and public spaces are over layered to contrast the effects caused by failed leadership and bad management in today’s society.”

With live performance by Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience
And poetry reading by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez

Waiting for the Garden of Eden is a multi-media group exhibition that culls its title from Pedro Pietri’s iconic Puerto Rican Obituary (1973), and inaugurates White Box’s new exhibition space in East Harlem. The stanza is part of Pietri’s performance poem that revolves around a Puerto Rican family in East Harlem that endlessly confronts inequalities succinctly phrased in which the family “All died yesterday, today, and will die again tomorrow.”

Puerto Rican Obituary is a timely work and pertinent to use as curatorial foil to topically explore some 46 years later, the changing demographic of East Harlem, New York City, and to a larger extent the USA. Rather than dovetailing only on the challenges the family faces in Pietri’s poem, Waiting for the Garden of Eden expands this to flesh out realities that immigrants face transnationally and American citizens of color negotiate locally within the shifting parameters of East Harlem, New York City, and the broader USA. Gentrification, identity, globalization, and socioeconomic disparity are just some of the points of thematic departure in the exhibition that are formally articulated via painting, sculpture, work-on-paper, photography, video, sound art, and performance. Waiting for the Garden of Eden will be supplemented throughout its exhibition run by performances, panel discussions, and readings.

Waiting for the Garden of Eden features works by Yelaine Rodriguez, Arnaldo Morales, Tania Candiani, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Edwin Torres, Arleene Correa Valencia, Yucef Merhi, Monica Rodriguez, Jorge Tacla, Charles Juhasz-Alvarado, Blanka Amezkua, Edgar Serrano, Eduardo Gil, Alicia Grullón, Leonardo Madriz, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Bernardo Navarro Tomas, Risa Puno, and Norma Vila Rivero, and Chico MacMurtrie..

Video del montaje de la exposición Una metáfora contra el olvido. Por Debbie Torres para DEBAS ART SERIES en Facebook.

Los egresados Gamaliel Rodríguez y Norma Vila exponen en prestigiosa Bienal del Whitney Museum of American Art.

Norma Vila Rivero, coordinadora de la Galería de Arte de Sagrado presenta una mirada crítica a la transformación del paisaje. La artista, curadora, humanista y coordinadora de exhibiciones de la Galería de Arte de Sagrado, Norma Vila Rivero, presenta su exposición Una metáfora contra el olvido en la Galería de Arte de la Universidad de North Carolina, a partir del 8 de noviembre de 2018.

A Metaphor Against Oblivion is Norma Vila’s latest conceptual body of work, inspired by two themes; landscape and absence. The exhibition consists of nine mid-size digital photographs and twelve sculptures made of Styrofoam. This collection of images and sculptures reference and criticize the notions of development by metaphorically representing the absent landscape that remains in the collective consciousness. Vila is tempted to convey the impossibility of the landscape that surrounds her by presenting a critical look at the transformation of the landscape -in the broadest sense of the word- while at the same time a contemplative view of the paradox of development in today's world.

Una metáfora contra el olvido, de la artista Norma Vila Rivero, es una mirada crítica a la transformación del paisaje, y una visión contemplativa de la paradoja del desarrollo en el mundo actual. Tentada a transmitir la imposibilidad del paisaje que le rodea, Vila Rivero se inspiró en dos temas: el Paisaje y la Ausencia. La exposición está compuesta por nueve fotografías digitales de tamaño mediano y doce esculturas hechas de espuma de poliestireno. Cada fotografía hace referencia y crítica a las nociones de desarrollo al representar el paisaje ausente que permanece en la conciencia colectiva.

Respecto a el origen y desarrollo del proyecto, Vila Rivero comenta: «Para este proyecto, decidí trabajar con la representación de la metáfora “la piel de la memoria”… Todo lo que hemos visto nos marca, y muchas veces, al pasar por algún lugar, es inevitable recordar ese lugar como era antes… Ese paisaje ausente se impregnó en nosotros, como una marca o metáfora contra el olvido. Para representar esa marca o rastro en la memoria, en esta serie de fotos coloco una plantilla en la parte posterior de un modelo y el sol imprime la imagen en su espalda… Luego coloco el modelo, marcado por el recuerdo de lo que ya no existe, en el lugar que corresponde al paisaje desaparecido. Todas las imágenes utilizadas como plantillas se basan en historias que he recopilado de amigos, familiares o personales. El resultado es que la foto sirve como testimonio o registro del evento específico… Al hacer esto el objetivo es presentar una ausencia clara y manifiesta. La fotografía como medio es vital, ya que hace una ausencia visible y sirve de certificado de presencia. En Una metáfora contra el olvido, temas como la imposibilidad del paisaje natural, el excesivo desarrollo urbano, el abandono del patrimonio cultural, la negligencia en las comunidades y en los espacios públicos se superponen para contrastar los efectos causados por un liderazgo fallido y una deficiente gestión en la sociedad actual. Estas preocupaciones surgieron anteriormente en mi obra, pero hoy se formulan abiertamente en lo que será un proyecto de investigación a largo plazo sobre la sostenibilidad ambiental frente al crecimiento económico en nuestra Isla».


Norma Vila Rivero (n. 1982) es artista, coordinadora de exposiciones y gestora cultural. Aborda la creación artística desde diversas perspectivas y disciplinas, dirigiendo su interés hacia realizar un análisis crítico en temas sociales. Con una profunda inmersión en los orígenes y el significado de sus temas, Vila Rivero prepara las bases para hacer comentarios visuales críticos, contemporáneos y pertinentes, enfocados desde un punto de vista humanista. Sus proyectos exploran las ciencias sociales, la fenomenología, la semántica y la condición humana en una práctica artística que une la estética con el compromiso social. Posee un B.A en Artes Visuales de la Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (2005) y una Maestría en Administración de las Artes de la Universidad del Turabo, Ana G. Méndez (2010). Su obra se ha presentado en México, Noruega, Suiza, Argentina, Mallorca, Ecuador, República Dominicana, St. Croix y E.U.A. En el 2013 fue seleccionada como artista finalista y participante para Saltando Muros 2013-2015 un Proyecto de Fotográfia Iberoamericana Emergente, organizado por la FiART (Fundación Fondo Internacional de las Artes), en colaboración con el Museo de Arte de Ponce. En 2017, fue seleccionada para participar en DebtFair por el colectivo Occupy Museums en la Bienal del Museo Whitney. En 2011, fue cofundadora del espacio METRO: plataformaorganizada, un espacio de gestión de artistas, y del 2015 al 2018 ejerció como directora de ÁREA: lugar de proyectos. El trabajo de Vila Rivero forma parte de la Colección Luciano Benetton, la Colección del Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos Dra. Josefina Camacho de la Nuez (Universidad de Turabo, Caguas, PR) y la Fundación FIART (Madrid, España), así como en varias colecciones privadas.

This year's Whitney Biennial lands at a controversial time in the US. Occupy Museums, a group borne out of the Occupy Wall Street decided to focus on debt as a theme this biennial. They had a call for Debt Fair art submissions that culminated in choosing 30 artists to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial. Included in their debt theme was a special call for Puerto Rican artists affected by the Puerto Rican debt crisis. The selected artists were:
Gamaliel Rodriguez
Norma Vila Rivero
Melquiades Rosario
Nibia Pastrana Santiago
Celestino Ortiz
Jose Soto
Gabriella Torres-Ferrer
Adrian Roman
Yasmin Hernandez
Sofia Maldonado

Metro: plataformaorganizada presents two solo exhibitions: Norma Vila Rivero’s “Desaforados” and Javier Bosques’ “Metonimia.” These two exhibitions opened on May 25 and will be on view at Metro until June 16, 2012. Founded in 2011, Metro: plataformaorganizada is a space that gathers local artists, with the common goal of creating a collective base to help promote, disseminate, and facilitate art projects. This creative space is located at 174 O’Neill Street (parallel to Roosevelt Avenue) in Hato Rey, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Her 2012 project “Desaforados” [which may be translated in many ways, including outrageous, excessive, extravagant, unbridled, out of control, or violated and transgressed, among many other meanings] includes objects, installations, and “ready-mades.” In this new project, by using highly symbolic objects, Vila Rivero comments on the division of power within the government, as well as abuse of power and its consequences. During all stages of humanity, people have suffered from abuse of authority by their rulers, which has caused given way to significant movements against abusive government actions; often, humans are protected against other humans, but not against the State itself, which may at times oppress with impunity, due to the coercive powers given to it by the community itself. “Desaforados” explores abuses of power, state protection for “insiders,” reaping profit, corruption, embezzlement, and the act of “getting away with it,” while escaping the appropriate penalties.

A political reflection on power and its hierarchy, its organization and its abuses is at the core of the Desaforados project by Norma Vila Rivero. Through several artworks created in 2012 (from objects to installations and ready-mades), the artist ponders on the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, and on the strategies put into place by the individuals to resist the domination and the excessive abuse of power of the ones who own the power. Demonstrations, riots are some of the techniques to oppose the power of those who stand at the highest ranks. Still, what can we do against the denial of justice, the corruption, the sentences that are not completed, and the impunity granted to the rulers? This endless question does not only concern one country but on the contrary concerns the whole of our leaders and is the key theme of the artworks presented by Norma Vila Rivero.

After traveling through Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic, the Latin American emerging photography project “Saltando Muros” (Jumping Walls) has arrived in Puerto Rico and is being exhibited in the Museo de Arte de Ponce from November 23, 2014 until January 12, 2015.

The exhibition, organized by the FIArt Foundation and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB for its Spanish acronym) collects the photographs of 19 artists under 35 years old, among them Puerto Ricans Julio Lugo Rivas and Norma Vila Rivero, whose works have been selected from 700 projects submitted through different national calls.

The project seeks to apply the art of photography as a tool for changing social reality and to establish an effective relationship between a museum project and the community to which it is addressed. Through an open and inclusive approach, the audience is conceived as a fundamental part of the exhibit. An interesting feature of this project is that its initiative is based on the work done on social media and the efficiency in the use and optimization of the resources to promote cultural exchange among different countries. "We urge the public to leave their comments on social media outlets using the hashtag #SaltandoMuros. Those comments will be projected on a digital screen around the exhibition" said Julio Amil, teaching artist from the Museo de Arte de Ponce.

"Saltando Muros", which documents the artist’s reality and includes an element of criticism and condemnation, will continue its Latin America tour throughout 2015. After passing through Puerto Rico, it will be exhibited in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Spain. The official website is www.saltandomuros.org

The participating artists are: Evelyn Merino Reyna (Peru), Miguel Francisco Rueda (Peru), Julio Lugo Rivas (Puerto Rico), Norma Vila Rivero (Puerto Rico), Francisco “Pancho” Rodríguez (Dominican Republic), Yael Duval Liriano (Dominican Republic), Chi-Hua Salinas (Chile), Víctor Anacona Ortiz (Chile), Gabriela Portaluppi (Ecuador), César Morejón Castillo (Ecuador), Sebastián Arce Manrique (Mexico), Fernando Manuel Escarcega Pérez (Mexico), Paula Jiménez (Argentina), Lola García Garrido (Argentina), Santiago Sebastián Salles (Uruguay), Vitor Pontes de Souza (Brazil), Raphael Alves (Brazil), Nicolás Combarro García (Spain), and Alberto Herrero Barceló (Spain).

Group Show- 35 Puerto Rican contemporary artists will be showing their pieces in The Gallery, located at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The opening of the exhibition is Friday, September 23 at 6:00 pm.

In collaboration with Galería Yemayá, Villa Victoria Center for the Arts present works by 35 Puerto Rican contemporary artists exploring “portability” through painting, sculpture, photography and video.

Guest Curator: Beto Torrens. Artists: Aby Ruiz, Abey Charrón, Admín Torres, Alberto Mier, Anabel Vázquez, Aslan, Alexis Bousquet, Bobby Cruz, Beto Torrens, Celso González, Chemi Rosado Seijo, Gerardo Cloquell, Elsa Meléndez, Edgardo Larregui, Héctor Rafael, Iván Girona, Ismo, Jorge Rito Cordero, Jason Mena, Joelly Rodríguez, Juan Negroni, Karlo Ibarra, Norma Vila Rivero, Nina Méndez Martí, Nepo, Manuel Rodríguez, Myritza Castillo, La Pandilla, Omar Velázquez, Omar Banuchi, Omar Obdulio, Quique Rivera Rivera, Vincent Diaz Negron, Yolanda Velázquez, and Zinthia Vázquez Viera.

Art in the middle: 35 years of photography in Puerto Rico is a panoramic display where, through some 130 works exploring the artistic development of photography in our island since Ramón Aboy to the Facebook generation and how they have dedicated themselves to break the mold .

This exhibition will allow you to tour over 35 years of artistic photography in Puerto Rico. You will appreciate the vision, aesthetics, experimentation and aesthetic and political commitment of the photographers who are dedicated to this art.

What began in 1977 as the National Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture is now the National Art Show. A project that has been known for presenting the best of current affairs in the arts.

In previous editions the selection of works was the responsibility of a group of professionals that made up the jury who, under the strictest criteria evaluated and selected the works and proposals submitted by local artists through open tender. On this occasion, the sample stands out as a curatorial and research devoted to a single medium, photography.

Under the curatorial approach of Dr. Mercedes Trelles Hernández, comes this extensive exhibition devoted to one of the most neglected artistic media for academic study

Brief Review by Trance Liquido Blog about Norma Vila's Solo Show at Área.

For more pictures:

www.flickr.com/photos/trance-liquido/sets/72157622680037014/

On the shore - 9 September - 1 October 2011
Open: Wed - Fri 10 - 12 and 14 - 18 clock / Sat 10-16 clock

Selected works by Momar Seck, Nadja Athanasiou, Rittiner & Gomez, Norma Vila Rivero, Carola Cintrón Moscoso and Richard Zangger, combined with idiosyncratic Shoowa-Webmatten, luminous fishing nets and Adele Bachmann's thematic residential island.

All works have a tactile quality, which opens only when you visit the exhibition!

Norma Vila is presenting "Los Top Five" a photography series about migration at Peripher- Cultural Magazine Gallery in Zurich, Switzerland, from May 4 -29, 2011

Concrete Illusions : Public & Private Spaces in Puerto Rico / Explorando las dimensiones urbanas del Caribe est une exposition curatée par les deux artistes portoricaines Norma Vila Rivero et Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez.

C’est la première fois que la collection d’art de José Hernández Castrodad est présentée aux États-Unis. Les deux commissaires ont choisi de montrer les œuvres « provocantes » de vingt artistes portoricains.

Artistes participants : Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Rogelio Báez, Jesus ‘Bubu’ Negrón, Michelle Gratacos, Radamés ‘Juni’ Figueroa, Edgardo Larregui, Michael Linares, Sofía Maldonado, Carlos Marcial, Josué Pellot, Raquel Quijano, José Quique Rivera, Quintín Rivera Toro, Aby Ruiz, Garvin Sierra, Renier Torres, Sebastian Vallejo, Omar Velázquez et Norma Vila Rivero.

La Galería, à la Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, 85 W. Newton St., Boston, Etats-Unis.