Néstor Millán
San Germán, PR, 1960
San Germán, PR, 1960
Painter, printmaker, photographer, and creator of mixed-media constructions. Millán earned his undergraduate degree in humanities from the University of Puerto Rico in 1982, and his MFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1987. Since the late eighties he has taught at the University of Puerto Rico. His work has appeared in dozens of group and solo exhibitions, and has often won awards. He has worked in several media, and often in mixed media. He recently said that painting is the core of his work, with prints and photography having now become reinforcing components, like the found and reworked objects that he has been gradually incorporating into his paintings. These found objects sometimes lead him to an idea for a painting, or at least complement it. He has done many male nudes, and other subjects he often explores are dreams and memory, his thematic concern being to attempt to free the human figure from the weight of history and to emphasize the everyday by bringing it into the sphere of art.
“My production unfolds from pictorial and photographic premises, combining two disciplines that might give the impression to be antagonists but at the end converge within my goals. I have also experienced with video art, performance, modern dance and constructions. My career emerged in the 1980's with a critical discourse about male nudity, censorship and issues related to the AIDS epidemic.
Narratives of memory, dreams, and aging give way to the mix of both abstract and real spaces trying to relieve the weight imposed by the History of Art and Latino Culture over the representation of the male body.
Teaching at the University of Puerto Rico since 1988 has been fundamental and parallel to my artwork. There, I have successfully developed workshops on Papermaking, Creative Bookmaking, Photosensitive Methods and Multidisciplinary courses. Most recently, holistic and health related courses such as Practices and Current Issues of LGBT Art and Art & the Art of Healing, under the Medical Humanities Program.”
Néstor Millán, 2013
1987
1984-85
1982
1988-present
1992-1990
1993
1995
1990
2018
2013
2010
2009
2008
2006 -2007
2005
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2002
2000
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1996
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1993
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1988
1987
2020
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1989
Barradas, Efraín. “El Jardín del sueño y la memoria”, Catálogo de la exposición, Desde un lugar secreto, Galería Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2002.
Biaziny-Rivera, Charles. "Voces americanas: Fotógrafos latinos en Houston, Texas, “Fotofest 94”, Houston, Texas, Estados Unidos, 1994.
Bleys, Rudi C. "Imágenes de Ambiente: Homotextualidad y Arte Latinoamericano 1810 al presente", Continuum, Londres, Inglaterra, 2000.
García Gutiérrez, Enrique. "La exhibición del decenio: Marcos de la identidad en la década de 1980", Identidad Recordar: Visiones de conexiones, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latino, Nueva York, Nueva York, Estados Unidos, 1990.
Georgiou, Aris. “Néstor Millán”, Tempus Fugit, San Juan, Museo de Arte e Historia, San Juan, Puerto Rico febrero-marzo 1998.
Georgiou, Aris. Catálogo de la colección permanente. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Salónica, Grecia.
Jiménez, Ingrid María. “El origen de la prisa”, Catálogo de la exposición. Invocaciones. Galería Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2004.
Dodson, Laura. "Fotografía de Nueva Generación", Photographos Magazine, Atenas, Grecia, abril de 1993.
Newspapers
Toro, Ana Teresa. “El pasado, ese gran pasillo de espejos”. El Nuevo Día (San Juan, PR), 28 de agosto de 2013.
"La mística pictórica de Néstor Millán". 90 Grados. 28 de diciembre 2020.
http://90grados.com/arte/la-mistica-pictorica-de-nestor-millan/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaQfGMWZ1zM