Juan Francisco Elso: Por América

Organized by El Museo del Barrio, Juan Francisco Elso: Por América investigates the brief yet significant career of the late Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso (1956–1988), who emerged as a visual artist in the late 1970s and early 1980s before dying of leukemia at the age of 32. 

Elso, who was based in Havana, is associated with the first generation of artists born and educated in post-revolutionary Cuba. 

Por América is the first traveling survey of Elso’s work in the United States since the early 1990s, representing a rare opportunity for Arizona audiences to experience the artist’s dynamic and visceral creations.

Juan Francisco Elso: Por América investigates the brief yet significant career of the late Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso (1956-1988). Based in Havana, Elso was part of the first generation of artists born and educated in post-revolutionary Cuba, who gained international recognition in the early 1980’s.​
Created mostly using natural, organic materials, his sculptural practice examines the complex forms of contemporary Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American identities, as inflected by the cultural influences of Indigenous traditions, Afro-Caribbean religious beliefs, as well as the traumas of colonial oppression. Elso’s commitment to such histories – which relate to El Museo del Barrio’s own foundational ethos – presage current post- and decolonial perspectives. The exhibition examines such legacies and parallels by placing Elso’s prescient work alongside a multigenerational group of artists active in the Caribbean, and throughout North, South, and Central America.

Presented through a contextual rather than monographic approach, Juan Francisco Elso: Por América is organized into several, interrelated thematic sections that explore vital crosscurrents between Elso’s art and the creative output of both close colleagues and others who, despite having not known him, demonstrate parallel affinities. Featuring 45 works by more than 30 artists, the exhibition includes Belkis Ayón; José Bedia; Ricardo Brey; Tania Bruguera; María Magdalena Campos-Pons; Luis Camnitzer; Los Carpinteros (Alexandre Arrechea, Marco Castillo, and Dagoberto Rodriguez); Albert Chong; Papo Colo (Francisco Colón Quintero); Jimmie Durham; Melvin Edwards; Scherezade García; Silvia Gruner; Karlo Andrei Ibarra; Graciela Iturbide; Magali Lara; Kcho (Alexis Leyva Machado); Glenn Ligon; Rogelio López Marin (GORY); Ana Mendieta; Senga Nengudi; Lorraine O’Grady; Gabriel Orozco; Marta María Pérez Bravo; Gustavo Pérez-Monzón; Ángel Ramírez; Michael Richards; Alison Saar; Leandro Soto; Renée Stout; Gerardo Suter; and Ruben Torres Llorca, as well as new commissions by Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Reynier Leyva Novo.

 The show is accompanied by a publication, co-published by El Museo del Barrio, which will offer the first comprehensive bilingual study dedicated to the artist (available early 2023).

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website