• Sujeto muerto con banderita roja

    “Sujeto muerto con banderita roja*”

    Date 1996
    Dimensions 22"x 28"
    Category Painting
    Medium Oil on cloth
    Genre Scenes
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: Dead subject with red flag
  • Pintora y pintura

    “Pintora y pintura*”

    Date 2006
    Dimensions 48"x 36"
    Category Painting
    Medium Acrylic and marble dust on canvas
    Genre Scenes
    Period 21st Century
    Collection * Title Translation: Painter and painting
  • La imaga

    “La imaga*”

    Date 2005
    Dimensions 36"x 48"
    Category Painting
    Medium Acrylic on canvas
    Genre Scenes
    Period 21st Century
    Collection * Title Translation: The imaga
  • La exlplicación

    “La exlplicación*”

    Date 1996
    Dimensions 72"x 48"
    Category Painting
    Medium Oil and acrylic on canvas
    Genre Scenes
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: The explanation
  • Autorretrato albizuista

    “Autorretrato albizuista*”

    Date 1991
    Dimensions 24"x 18"
    Category Painting
    Medium Oil and acrylic on canvas
    Genre Self-portrait
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: Albizuista Self-portrait
  • Los sepultureros

    “Los sepultureros*”

    Date 1985
    Dimensions 80"x 50"
    Category Painting
    Medium Acrylic on canvas
    Genre Scenes
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: The gravediggers
  • La máquina del tiempo

    “La máquina del tiempo* ”

    Date 1993
    Dimensions 68"x 48"
    Category Painting
    Medium Oil on synthetic canvas
    Genre Scenes
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: The time machine
  • El velorio

    “El velorio* ”

    Date 1991
    Dimensions 72"x 48"
    Category Painting
    Medium Oil and acrylic on canvas
    Genre Scenes
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: The wake
  • Heurística uno

    “Heurística uno* ”

    Date 1992
    Dimensions 16"x 18 1/4"
    Category Painting
    Medium Acrylic, photo paintings, photocopy and collage on Masonite
    Genre Scenes
    Period 20th Century
    Collection * Title Translation: Heuristic one
  • El embalsamador y la viuda

    “El embalsamador y la viuda* ”

    Date 2001
    Dimensions 37 1/4"x 44 1/4"
    Category Painting
    Medium Mixed media on Masonite
    Genre Scenes
    Period 21st Century
    Collection * Title Translation: The embalmer and the widow

Elizam Escobar

Ponce, PR, 1948 - San Juan, PR, 2021

Biography Details

Painter, draftsman, poet, theorist and professor. Escobar earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Art from the University of Puerto Rico and continued his studies at the University of New York City, the Brooklyn Museum, and the New York Art Students League. He worked as a cartoonist and as a teacher at several public schools and the Art School at El Museo del Barrio in New York; and was linked with the Association of Hispanic Arts of New York. As a member of a movement pro-independence of Puerto Rico, he was sentenced in 1980 by the USA government to 68 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy. While in prison, he continued to paint, and dedicated himself to reading and cultivated poetry and (“The Artificer’s Essays”). He was released from prison in 1999 and returned to the Island. In his more recent painting and mixed media works, he raised matters of the human communication, the phenomenon of the painter as an observer (or not) of the reality and the marginality and the isolation in the contemporary world. His latest works incorporated digital and electronic transfer media in an unconventional way.

Artist Statement

“The specificity of art (its identity and its difference) arises from its breach (transfixion) from the arbitrariness and equivalence aspects of the linguistic and ideological code. It only happens through an esthetic based in the symbolic exchange of the artistic work. Esthetics have to do not only with the criteria of beautiful, quality, the sublime, etc. but with its capacity to symbolically intoxicate us and reveal to us the actual structures of thinking and conscience. The practice of art is connected to the contradiction movement itself and, simultaneously, to the necessity of establishing in relative permanence, sense and meaning of the world, existence, life. In this sense, art is the limit of freedom and the continuation of life by other means.

 

Art does not possess an epistemology per se but the presentation of life itself through the artistic-symbolic means that reveal, discover, invent and capture what we perceive and conceive of the world in another plane of conscience. We can call this capacity of art its heuristic power, which finality is not to prove some truth or falseness but to reveal it to us without the necessity of external evidence. Art is its own evidence.”

 

Elizam Escobar

18 octubre 2006

Formation

Education

1973

  • Bachelor’s Degree of Art. Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

nd

  • The City University of New York, New York, United States
  • School of Art, El Museo del Barrio, New York, United States
  • Art Students League of New York, New York, United States

Professional Experience

Present

  • Professor. Department of Painting, Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

nd

  • Painter. Asociación Hispana de las Artes, New York, United States

1979-1980

  • Professor. School of Art, El Museo del Barrio, New York, United States

Exhibitions

Solo Shows

2013

  • Elizam Escobar: Introspectiva Simbólica, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2010

  • Retros/Intros/Pectivas, Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (IPRAC), Chicago, Illinois, United States

2007

  • Cámara obscura/Enmatrizamientos /ConSecuencias, Galería Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2006

  • Bar/Transmutaciones, Polvo Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, United States

2005

  • Homenaje al Grito de Lares, Lares City Hall, Lares, Puerto Rico
  • Homenaje al Grito de Lares, Cooperativa de Ahorros y Crédito de Lares y la Región, Lares, Puerto Rico
  • Paisajes y pasajes del regreso, Galería Lorenzo Homar, Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

2004 

  • Pinturas/Medios Mixtos, Casa Biblioteca Nilita Vientós Gastón, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2002

  • Paisajes y pasajes del regreso, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico
  • Los Albizus, Museo Casa de la Masacre de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico
  • Banderas Mixtas, Casa Escuté, Carolina, Puerto Rico
  • Pa(i)sajes de Elizam Escobar, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Passages and Views from the Return, Third Stage Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
  • Passages and Views from the Return, Fourth Stage, Collage Fine Arts Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, United States 

2001

  • Tres Tiempos, Galería Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2000

  • Relaciones/Distancias, Galería Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • El sujeto muerto/El muerto vivo, Museo de las Américas, San Juan, Puerto Rico

1999

  • Series alternas, Galería Calles y Sueños, Chicago, Illinois, United States

1994

  • Transfixiones, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

1993

  • El juicio de la pintura, Prospectus Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, United States

1991

  • Albizu en La Princesa con Antonio Martorell, Galería Antigua Cárcel la Princesa, Compañía de Turismo, San Juan, Puerto Rico

1988  

  • Arte como acto de liberación, Convento de los Dominicos, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

1986 

  • Art As An Act Of Liberation, Axe St. Arena, Chicago, Illinois, United States

1980

  • Sur-Irrealismo-Realista, Galería Moriviví, New York, United States

1979

  • Galería Pretto, New York, United States

Group Shows

2012

  • Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan, Casa de los Contrafuertes, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2010

  • Casa Abierta, Carlos Irizarry y Elizam Escobar, Galería Carlos Irizarry, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Muestra Nacional, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2008

  • 100 imágenes de Corretjer en el tiempo, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2007

  • CIRCA 07, Centro de Convenciones de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • El Pulpo, Galería Nacional, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2006

  • Autocontemplación, Museo de Historia Antropología y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Espacios: Pinturas, Galería Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Verano es color, Galería Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Exposición + Que Colectiva, Galería de Arte, Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Muestra Nacional de Arte Puertorriqueño, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2005 

  • Instalación, Ventanas de la Galería Sin Título, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2004 

  • Eugenio María de Hostos: una nueva mirada. Exposición en Conmemoración del Centenario de su muerte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Humacao Campus, Humacao, Puerto Rico
  • Santos Irreverentes, Galería Petrus , San Juan, Puerto Rico         

2003

  • Pares, Galería Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Muestra Nacional de Arte Puertorriqueño, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • 3 Amigos: Luís Alonso, Marta Pérez García, y Elizam Escobar, Aquí Se Puede,
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico           
  • Simplemente Betances, Museo de las Américas, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2002

  • Artistas por el ambiente, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2001 

  • Correspondencias...un diálogo con Ramón Frade, Museo Dr. Pío López Martínez, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Cayey Campus, Cayey, Puerto Rico
  • La palabra dibujada: grabados y libros de artista, Museo de las Américas, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Oaxacan/Puerto Rican Presence, Collage Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, United States
  • Obras del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Galería del Senado, El Capitolio, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Creo en Vieques, Museo Fortín Conde Mirasol, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Vieques, Puerto Rico
  • El arte en Puerto Rico a través del tiempo, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Muestra Nacional de Arte Puertorriqueño, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico    

2000

  • Viequesí, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Los tesoros de la pintura puertorriqueña, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Los profesores de la Escuela de Artes Plásticas, Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Imágenes de Don Pedro Albizu Campos: Exposición Colectiva de Pintores       Puertorriqueños, Galería Taller Boricua, Centro Cultural Julia de Burgos, New York, United States
  • Exhibición colectiva de ocho artistas puertorriqueños, Polo Norte Bar and Grill, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • El papel del papel/The role of paper: Affirmation and Identity in Chicano and Boricua Art, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Visual Arts Annex, San Antonio, Texas, United States
  • Noche de Galería, Galería Sin Título, San Juan, Puerto Rico

1999

  • Arte para el milenio, Petrus Galeros, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Dead Time=Tiempo Muerto, with Antonio Martorell and Dread Scott, Taller Boricua Gallery, Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center, New York, United States

1998

  • 100 en la sien: 10 artistas ante el 98, Museo del Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • 100 años después...100 artistas contemporáneos, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

1997

  • Iberoamérica pinta, Casa de América, Madrid, Spain

1995

  • Political Works from El Museo’s Collection, El Museo del Barrio, New York, United States
  • Transnational Identities: Cultura en Proceso, De Paul University Art Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, United States

1993

  • Impresiones: Posters from the Collection of El Museo del Barrio, Pace University, New York, United States

1992

  • Beyond, A Space, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1991

  • Remerica/America, 1492-1992, Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College, New York, United States

1985

  • Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Puerto Rico, NAB Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, United States

1979

  • Muestra de Pintura y Escultura, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Collections

  • Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Compañía de Turismo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Bibliography

Catalogues

López Quintero, Juan Carlos. “Elizam Escobar: Introspectiva Simbólica”, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2013.

“Elizam Escobar: Transfixiones”, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1994.