Friday, April 1, 2016

BULLET SPACE    AN URBAN ARTIST COLLABORATIVE                   
bulletspace.org                           
                                                    
PRESENTS:

Mestizo

An Art Exhibit from New York's Lower East Side Urban Artist Collaborative. Featuring 12 Contemporary Artists of Latin American Ancestry. Opens on May 14, 2016 - June 26th. Bullet Space: 292 East 3rd Street New York, NY 10009. Opening reception May 14,
7:00 -9:00 pm

Meaning mixed Mestizo is an art exhibit that embraces the concept of integration and acceptance. It is a contemporary artistic response to identity and multicultural intolerance. Highlighting a fraction of artists categorized within a Latin American context. The exhibit is not about Latin American art, but about the diversity found within all cultures. Featuring Artists: Juan Sanchez, Lady Pink, Lee QuiƱones, Andres Serrano, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Daniel Martin Diaz, Leslie Jimenez, Alexandra Rojas, Itzel Alejandra Martinez, Jose Camacho, and David Yanez. 

Mixed blood, mixed ethnicities, mixed cultures, all contribute to shaping individual, group and national identities. Identity fuels and drives political, cultural and corporate interests throughout the world. It shapes individuals and the world in ways that we are only beginning to understand. Mestizo challenges the concept of race in favor of a scientific ambiguity of genetic racial and ethnic boundaries. It is an artistic response to the intolerance and discrimination expressed throughout the world, as it responds to a vast Syrian exodus, ideological extremism and continuous war. While the U.S. responds to racially motivated mass shootings, Black Lives Matter, and a political campaign that has given rise to Donald Trump and a resurgence of latent racism and conservative extremism.

We invite you to see the multi-layered painting of celebrated Nuyorican artist Juan Sanchez, alongside drawings and paintings by the pioneers of the graffiti movement, Lee QuiƱones and Lady Pink. Jose Camacho's painted surfaces evoke a visual language of their own. Las Hermanas Iglesias knitted "Nude Suits" invite you to see the artists up close and personal with birth marks and all, while Leslie Jimenez's delicate embroidered eyelash drawings form a connection with Itzel Alejandra's poetic and moving photographic GIFs. All contrasting to the natural realism of the gun toting photos of Alexandra Rojas. The exhibit takes form as a metaphysical drawing by Daniel Martin Diaz adds an esoteric ambiguity against David Yanez's emotionally charged drawing entitled "Tales of an American Spic…" All culminating in an exhibit that opens up an overdue conversation about the reality of the multi-cultural, and multi-ethnic nature of human beings. We propose Mestizo as a symbolic unifying terminology of identity for all humans.

Curated by: Andrew Castrucci and David Yanez

About: Bullet Space is an act of resistance. A community access center for images, words, and sounds of the inner city. The center was founded in the winter of 1985 in New York's Lower east Side, and was part of the squatter movement and reconstructed with or without the formal sanction of the city, invisible officialdom. Bullet Space is the first of the 11 former LES squats to be turned over to its residents. Hours: Saturday and Sunday: 1:00 pm - 5:00pm  by appointment or by chance.