Adál Maldonado
Utuado, PR,1948 - San Juan, PR, 2020
Biography Details
Photographer, graphic artist, and installation, performance, and alternative artist. Since the seventies, Maldonado has lived in New York City. In 1986 he was artist-in-residence at Light Work, and in 1994 he and poet Pedro Pietri founded the El Puerto Rican Embassy project, based on Eduardo Figueroa’s El Spirit Republic of Puerto Rico (1979). In 2005, Maldonado was a member of the delegation of Puerto Rican artists invited by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture’s Poli/Gráfica Triennial to take part in Impulse: 26th International Graphic Arts Biennial in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with the group show The Print as Metaphor: Puerto Rico in Ljubljana. His work alludes constantly to the phenomenon of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York, problems of identity, the political status of Puerto Rico, and the perception of Puerto Rico abroad.
Artist Statement
“For the past twenty years my art has been a journey of self-discovery: the amelioration of conflicts between my experiences as a Nuyorican and my traditional Puerto Rican culture”.
Adál, 2007
Formation
Education
1973-1975
- San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, United States
1971 – 1973
- Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, California, United States
Profesional Experience
1999 - Present
- Co-Founder and Director. El Puerto Rican Embassy, Loisaida, New York, United States
1975 – 1980
- Co-Founder and Co-director. Foto Gallery, Soho, New York, United States
Exhibitions
Solo Shows
2011
- Out of Focus Traffik Signs, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2010
- Please Touch and Other Ideas, Galería Fotográfica PL 900, Casa Aboy, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2008
- Blue Prints for a Nation y Obra Reciente, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española. Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2004-05
- Blueprints for a Nation, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
2004
- Blue Bananas on Fire, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- Blueprints for a Nation, Center for Latino Arts, Villa Victoria, Boston, Massachusetts; Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Lehigh University Art, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States
2000
- Out of Focus Nuyoricans, El Museo del Barrio, New York, United States
1988
- Mango Mambo, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan; Galería Luiggi Marrozzini, San Juan, Puerto Rico
1987
- Museum of Modern Art of Latin America, Edificio de la Organización de los Estados Americanos, Washington DC, United States
1982
- Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, United States
1979
- Levy Gallery, Hamburgo, Germany
1978
- Fiolet Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland
1977
- Vision Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Cameraworks Gallery, Los Ángeles, California, United States
1975
- Foto Gallery, New York, United States
1973
- Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California, United States
- Focus Gallery, San Francisco, California, United States
Group Shows
2013
- Interconexiones: lecturas curatoriales de la colección permanente, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Awards, Distinctions and Achievements
2009
- Fellowship. JP Morgan Fellowship, United States
2003
- Playwright Residency. Tribeca Performing Arts Center, New York, United States
1974 – 1975
- Creative Arts Program, New York, United States
1975
- National Endowment for the Arts, Washington DC, United States
Collections
- Biblioteque Nationale, Paris , France
- Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, United States
- Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, United States
- Johnson’s Wax Corp, New York, United States
- Levy Gallery, Hamburg, Germany
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States
- Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi, Belgium
- Musée Moderne d’ la Villa de Paris, Paris, France
- Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Museo del Barrio, New York, United States
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States
- National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, United States
- New York University Art Collection, New York, United States
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, United States
- Witkin Gallery, New York, United States
Bibliography
Catalogues
“Mango Mambo”, Galería Luiggi Marrozzinni, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1987.
Books
“Enciclopedia Oxford de latinos y latinas en las artes norteamericanas”, editado por Suzanne Obeler y Deena J. González, 2005.
“La caída de los párpados", Nueva York, Estados Unidos: Foto-ediciones, 1980.
“La evidencia de las cosas no vistas", Nueva York, Estados Unidos: DaCapo Press, 1975.
“Nuyoricans fuera de focos", Massachusetts, Estados Unidos: Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos David Rockefeller, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2004.
“Retratos de la experiencia puertorriqueña", Nueva York, Estados Unidos: IPRUS Institute, 1984.