Deftly negotiating Puerto Rican cultural traditions.

Deftly negotiating Puerto Rican cultural traditions, ambitious political issues, literary concerns and personal experiences, Antonio Martorell examined by what mode the textures of regional conditions and individual expectations fabricate our notion of "home." His eclectic, frequently personal installations were scattered by the and of the rooms of the museum in a circuitous path of mystery and revelation.

Educated in graphic design, printmaking, and performance, Martorell uses an alchemic mix of these traditions in his work. At first a certain number of of the pieces seemed overly at the disposal of on particular incidents in the artist's life--too personal to resonate beyond the idiosyncratic and autobiographical. unless inevitably the images, symbols, and materials provided other points of access.

"La Casa De Todos Nosotros" (A house for us all) fulfilled the bright promise of its title. These welcoming, engaging installations evok the two the comforts and conflicts of domestic circle offering an image of it that is intrinsic to principally cultures. With few exceptions, Martorell's installations busyed archetypal forms, outlining walls, doors, and windows within the shadows cast by dint of structures resembling traditional roofs.

Casa Singer (Singer house, 1991) originated in the artist's childhood recollections of his family's eviction from their dwelling The walls were made of translucent tissue-paper sewing patterns. the pair interior and exterior were adorned with sewing paraphernalia--beads, sequins, ribbons, and other colorful intents At the center a sewing machine was locate on an enormous velvet pincushion, the symbolic hearth of Martorell's boyhood domicile The repeated movements and familiar hardys the folds of cloth passing beneath the pulsing needle and the sight of the two ordinary and extravagant creations formed the brink; beginning [i]or[/i] ends of vivid but incomplete memories.

In contrast to the thick tactile projects influenced by personal narratives, La Casa Verde (The undecayed house, 1991) was an austerely edited version of place of abode Martorell suspended window grilles from the ceiling and hung them in succession the walls of a small compass Offering a decorative response to the imperatives of security in greatest in number cities and communities, his grilles were delicate inscriptions secreteed with shimmering scales of pennies. Overhead, a suspended awning of woven dollar bills formed a composition emblematic of a roof. This installation was a bluff response to the economic realities of housing, which privilege certain members of communities and deprive others. The strenuous efforts to insured safe housing were articulated in the details and surfaces of this home

Inspired according to one of Luis Rafael Sanchez's short stories, La Casa en al Aire (House in mid air, 1992) departs from Martorell's prototype of domicile to consider the problematics of immigration and residency. Shaped like the fuselage of a plane bent in the form of a U a cacophonous, mythical environment of transit between the islands of Puerto Rico and Manhattan encountered the viewer. In contrast to the sluggish monotony of passenger planes, Martorell's earthbound airline was a meditation in succession the mismatched: vinyl floor tiles were patterned and inscribed at random; passenger seats made of wicker, ladder-back and rocking chairs were lavishly embellished with sequins, beads, and paint. The promise, passion, doubt, and despair experienced according to transient immigrants formed the exterior shell of this cabin.

Martorell's spatial arrangements ruminate the unruly cultural conditions that shape our experience of place. In his inscription of individual and collective universals of home, "home" remains tangled and uncategorizable--a word for myriad associations and expectations.

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