We Are All Africa Towards a Pictorial Representation of the Orishas The work We Are All Africa is a work I completed during my four-year stay on the island, where I studied a part of Puerto Rican history. It arose from my interest in ritual, spirituality, and a series of interviews I had with Tata Tony Oma Obatala, who shared his ancestral knowledge with me. As I discovered the Orishas through reading the book El Monte by Cuban anthropologist Lydia Cabrera, he clarified my doubts, we studied the myth (Pataky), and I listened to the songs of praise while I painted each painting. Each painting in this series is unique. The color of each one is inspired by the Elekes (necklaces), the myths (Patakis), and the songs of praise to the Orishas. With this work, I seek to highlight the essence of these orishas, who have been and continue to be a great source of inspiration in daily spiritual and communal work, as evidenced in Puerto Rican and Caribbean culture; in their music, their cuisine, and their arts. Furthermore, with these works, I intend not only to approach elements of color inspired by African fabrics, but also to work on the symbolic elements that define the personality and powers of each orisha. I exhibited the work "Todos somos África" before leaving the island in 2017 at the Guatibirí Gallery in Río Piedras. Now I have the great opportunity to return to the island after four years of living in Philadelphia and show you this work inspired by their African ancestors. On display starting August 12, 2021. Salomé Cosmique is a Colombian artist, educator, and curator currently residing in Philadelphia (USA). She holds a master's degree in visual arts from the University of Strasbourg, France. In 2012, she earned the French National Diploma of Fine Arts, concentrating in sound arts, from the Haut École des Art du Rhin (Rhin Arts School) in Mulhouse, France. After completing her studies, she moved to Puerto Rico, where she participated in several group and solo exhibitions at the Tibes Ceremonial Center, the Museum of the Americas, and the Ponce Biennial, among others. In 2017, Salomé moved to Philadelphia, USA, where she has developed her artistic, curatorial, and educational career. She is currently the curator of Dissident Bodies and Dislocada/Dislocated and works as an educator at the Barnes Foundation. For Salomé, the arts are a positive vehicle that can bring about positive change in society and transform lives, which is why the artist also promotes art as a means of healing. Since 2012, her performance work has been inspired by colonialism, immigration, women's inequality, and dissident bodies. Through her pictorial work, Salomé seeks to recall the memories of our ancestors. She has exhibited in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, and India. David Acosta is a poet, writer, curator, and cultural worker. He is currently the artistic director of Casa De Duende, which he co-founded with his life partner, Gerald Macdonald. He is a published author and poet whose work has appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines. Notable anthologies include The Americas Review (University of Texas Press, 1997), American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press, 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press, 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in the United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). Literary magazines include Mayrena, The James White Review, The Evergreen Chronicles, and Philomel, among others. He is a contributing writer to Queer Brown Voices, the first anthology focused on documenting the history of the Latinx LGBTQ+ movement in the United States and Puerto Rico. He has organized numerous visual art exhibitions, including co-curating Stonewall @ 50 in 2019 at Drexel University's Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, showcasing the work of 129 artists, which became the largest exhibition of LGBTQ+ art in Philadelphia history. He co-founded the Philadelphia Latin American Film Festival and has directed shows at First Person Arts and performed at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. He currently serves as the chair of the board of directors for the Da Vinci Art Alliance. David serves on the artist advisory board of Taller Puertorriqueño and is a member of the art collectives Dissident Bodies and Dislocada/Dislocated. He is currently working on several projects, including organizing two major art exhibitions in the summer and fall of 2021. Exhibition catalog

Eroticism in Pre-Hispanic Cultures Catlett Collection, 21 anthropomorphic clay figures from the La Tolita, Jama-Coaque, or Bahía de Ecuador cultures. By Miguel Rodríguez López, Archaeologist. The subject of eroticism, sexuality, and their representations in art have been a source of great interest throughout history. And it is no wonder, because sexuality, along with religiosity, cultural creation, and the ability to organize in society, are some of the main forces that govern and direct human experience and the survival of our species on this planet. Erotic and sexual figures are as old as art itself. In Paleolithic cave paintings and engravings, representations of human genitalia are found, which are assumed to be symbols of fertility. Both the Egyptians and the Greeks painted scenes of sexual activities on their pottery and on the walls of their temples. In the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, paintings and mosaics with various scenes of highly erotic and sexual content are also found. Ceramic production with erotic representations reached its greatest expression and complexity in the areas of Peru, Ecuador, and southern Colombia. The creative Mochica artisans of the northern coast of Peru, as well as those of the La Tolita and Jama-Coaque cultures of the coast of Ecuador and southern Colombia, crafted thousands of these impressive pieces, which were used primarily as propitiatory and funerary offerings. The valuable Catlett collection of erotic figures, donated to the Museum of the Americas, belongs mostly to the La Tolita culture, according to the expert analysis of archaeologist Osvaldo García Goyco, who studied them in 1997. This indigenous culture, concentrated on the island of La Tolita, is considered a major ceremonial center that flourished approximately between 500 BC and 500 AD. For a long time, these pieces were hidden or destroyed by their discoverers, considered a threat to the family and religious values of the time. Even throughout most of the 20th century, galleries and museums considered them offensive, sinful, and violating established cultural norms. However, important collectors around the world acquired them and displayed them very discreetly and privately. But at the height of the 21st century, these manifestations have begun to be accepted as an anthropological, cultural, and artistic expression of the societies that created them. In both Europe and Latin America, old collections of erotic art have begun to be revalued and displayed to a public that receives them with interest, curiosity, and maturity. On display from May 20, 2021. Eroticism in the pre-Hispanic cultures

Rafael Trelles: The Imagined Word By Efraín Barradas Ekphrasis or ekphrasis is a technical term used almost only by specialists. Many dictionaries do not include it, and even its spelling is uncertain. The word comes from Greek. It is said that the first example of ekphrasis is Homer's description of Achilles' shield in The Iliad. Since then, many writers have followed his example, trying to transform a work of visual art into words. I simplify in order to define this obscure term. But in doing so, I emphasize that scholars always tend to favor the route that goes from the work of visual art to letters: from Achilles' shield to Homer's text. Horace summarizes it: “ut pictura poesis.” Ulrich Weisstein, one of the great scholars of this aesthetic practice, lists sixteen variants of ekphrasis, of which thirteen are based on the literary phenomenon—from Achilles' shield to Homer's text—and only three the other way around—from text to shield. Among the latter, the most common is book illustration. But even in these cases, the letter is always privileged. Given the shift in direction—from the literary to the visual—and the high quality of the work, I was drawn to it from the moment I saw some recent drawings by Rafael Trelles reproduced. Trelles manages to reverse the traditional path of ekphrasis in twenty-two drawings that combine diverse techniques and media and once again demonstrate his great artistic mastery. The drawings, which sometimes begin with an accident, a principle so beloved by the masters of Surrealism and Siqueiros, have as their center a figure constructed from the broad norms of realism. These figures point to literary texts that demonstrate our artist's voracity as a reader and, indirectly, as a literary critic, since we can read these drawings as a commentary on the texts they seem merely to illustrate. (Or am I channeling my interests here by turning Trelles into a literary critic, as I am?) A simple inventory of the texts the artist uses to create the drawings is already revealing of his intentions and his aesthetic sources. Although Trelles rarely takes as his starting point writers we might call realists—Tolstoy, Poniatowska—it is evident that he favors works with a fantastic, magical, or absurd tone—Lewis Carroll, García Márquez, Kafka, Ionesco—and this interest coincides with his own aesthetic: the surrealist elements in Trelles's work are notable, even defining. On the other hand, the combination of the Puerto Rican and the foreign stands out in this collection: alongside Palés Matos we find Saramago, alongside Ana Lydia Vega, Shakespeare, alongside Cézanne Cardona, and Chekhov. Trelles knows that what is ours has value beyond just belonging to us. Blackness is also highlighted in the selection of literary starting points for these drawings. Therefore, Trelles draws on Carpentier, Palés, and Vega, whose texts exalt Afro-Caribbean culture. It is also evident that the artist carefully and carefully observes anonymous texts that refer us to folklore and tradition: One Thousand and One Nights, Chilam Balam, and The Golem. The sources or starting points are diverse and broad, evidencing Trelles's voracious appetite as a reader and his capacity and interest in seeing our own within the broad context of what some call the universal, a term that often hides colonialist elements, elements that are absent here. And what does Trelles do with these diverse literary sources? I already noted that the artist does not illustrate the text in the traditional sense. Instead, he draws from it to create a visual text parallel to the literary text, but independent of it. The text from which he draws, in the vast majority of cases, suggests to the artist an isolated face or a face and part of the body. There are only two instances in this series where full bodies are portrayed, and one of these, based on Kafka's The Metamorphosis, is a fantastical body composed of the artist's face, an insect, and a shoe. But clearly the interest in these drawings is in the human face. Thus, "Miriam," based on an early and little-known story by Truman Capote, is reduced to the face of the little girl who pursues Mrs. Miller, the central character, in the story. And the little girl wears the cameo she takes from the story's lonely widow. It is the cameo that identifies and defines her. The features of a man, not the full face, are juxtaposed with the axolotl in Cortázar's story. Sometimes the relationship between the text and the work is more arbitrary: three idealized heads represent Ti Noel, Boukman, and Mackandal, characters in Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World. Each drawing features an animal in the upper right corner—a bird, a snail, a beetle—that reminds us of the religious beliefs of the Haitian slaves in the novel. A floating piece of cloth, with a clothespin in its hem, makes the face depicted in the drawing that of Remedios, the Beauty. It is these details—objects or animals—that provide the key to understanding the drawing as a literary commentary. Thus, the torso of a girl who may live in a housing development in Río Piedras or Humacao appears surrounded by four animals—a mouse, a rabbit, a heron, and a dodo bird—that transform her into Carroll's Alice. The inclusion of a small object or animal is the primary way—beyond the title the artist gives the drawing—that we associate the image with the text. And the selection of the animal or object functions as the critical element in the work, since the artist, by selecting that object or animal, highlights an aspect of the text that inspires him. And in doing so, Trelles breaks with a tradition.

The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine Every year, ICOM chooses a theme for International Museum Day that is at the heart of society's concerns. With the theme "The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine," International Museum Day 2021 invites museums, their professionals, and communities to create, imagine, and share new practices for (co)creating value, new business models for cultural institutions, and innovative solutions to today's social, economic, and environmental challenges. The COVID-19 crisis has served as a catalyst for crucial innovations that were already underway, particularly a greater focus on digitalization and the creation of new forms of cultural experience and dissemination. On this occasion, the Museo de las Américas joins the celebration of International Museum Day, reflecting on this past year, full of challenges and lessons learned, as an exercise in reflection and goal-setting. Given this context, we have planned various activities for this coming Tuesday, May 18, 2021. You can enjoy a guided tour of the Museum's exhibition halls through our Facebook page and YouTube channel (@museolasamericaspr). As part of our commitment to the school community, we have called on collaborating teachers to coordinate the creation of posters in their classrooms alluding to the theme "What will the Museum of the Future be like?" We will feature selected works created by students between the ages of 6 and 17; these works of art will be exhibited virtually through this page. We invite you to join us in this celebration and thank everyone who has supported us during this unusual year. You, our community, have been the fuel that has fueled our move into this digital age.

Echolalia Luis Romero To René Arrillaga and Fernando Feliú, essential friends Echolalia I like the word echolalia because it sounds like a garden of echoes, an abundance of echoes. In reality, echolalia is immediately and compulsively repeating what another person, or oneself, says. I want to use the word in a broader sense to talk about that act of emptying oneself and surrendering to repetition. I think of echolalia as the will to become an echo. Those are all appropriate associations. I build my pieces through repetitive structures. The repetition of marks and forms is what gives unity to my works and is what allows them to expand. It's a strategy. But there is another sense in which this room is a garden of echoes. All of these pieces somehow bear the trace of the masters and artists here in Puerto Rico who taught me to live through art. These works that I present offer something transformed, perhaps expanded, enriched by my years abroad; But they are connected and indebted to those original experiences. The essence of the echo is that it returns, and so here I am back through my art. About My Art: This exhibition includes recent works alongside some earlier pieces for context. My recent works are assemblages made mostly of paper, cardboard, and canvas. To construct them, I repeat patterns of marks on separate surfaces. The patterns find themselves and connect the sections randomly. In this way, the pieces accumulate, and the piece grows organically. The works accumulate patterns or systems of marks to create visual uncertainty. When there is density, the relationship of the marks to the surface becomes confused. The repetition functions as camouflage. Although my works are tactile and have evidently been touched by hand, they create a primitive optical effect. I love the idea that something eminently tactile and perishable can create an immaterial effect. Some of my pieces are like handmade Op Art. My works seek an ambivalent space, an absolute or ecstatic space, where the marks are simultaneously present and absent; They are haptic and disembodied, existent and illusory. A place where marks exist in our space and elsewhere. “Here” and “there.” Biography Luis Romero is a Puerto Rican artist based in Chicago since 1998. He received his MFA in Drawing and Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his BFA in Philosophy, Literature, and Film from Boston University. His work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, and is featured in important public and private collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Museum of Art, US Department of State, Fidelity Corporate Collection, and the Deutsche Bank Collection, among many others. Ecolalia is his first exhibition in Puerto Rico.

Afro-Mexicans: Belonging and Pride The Museum of the Americas and the Consulate General of Mexico in Puerto Rico present the photography exhibition “Afro-Mexicans: Belonging and Pride.” The photography exhibition, published by the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico (CNDH), seeks to contribute to the recognition and awareness-raising efforts that this autonomous public body is making on behalf of the Afro-descendant population in Mexico, in accordance with the United Nations proclamation of the “International Decade for People of African Descent 2015–2024, Recognition, Justice, and Development.” The photographs that make up the exhibition were taken during visits made by CNDH staff to various Afro-descendant populations in the states of Coahuila, Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Tabasco, reflecting the phenotypic, economic, social, and cultural characteristics of these communities and highlighting the inequality in which they live. The exhibition reflects the CNDH's commitment to promoting and protecting the rights of Afro-descendant populations in order to achieve a real impact on their lives by highlighting and denouncing their invisibility.

Form and Void Fernando Varela Fernando Varela is a Dominican-Uruguayan visual artist whose work stands out significantly for the nature of his research focused on the connections between forms of artistic expression and the revelation of an inner truth of a vital and deeply spiritual nature. The development of his sensitive work dialogues with a tradition that conceives art as a space of confluence between the spiritual, the natural, and the human. He was born on January 19, 1951, in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. He is the youngest and third son of Luis Alberto Varela Carvallido and Irma Calveiro Lee. From a very young age, he showed an ability for plastic expression, especially for painting and modeling. At the age of twelve, he began musical studies, a sensitivity that would always accompany him. At fourteen, he ventured into painting and began to familiarize himself with ceramics in the workshop of his maternal relatives César Courtoisie and Margarita Courtoisie de Perotti. The context of freedom that permeated Fernando Varela's family life during his childhood and youth provided a favorable environment for the cultivation of the arts and creativity. At a very young age, between the ages of sixteen and seventeen, he had the opportunity to meet the modernist sculptor and painter José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín, the most prominent artist of 20th-century Uruguayan monumental sculpture. In mid-1969, Fernando Varela met the artist Enrique Guillemette, with whom he began an intense exchange focused on the study of numerology, art, and especially the theosophical work of the spiritual master Bô Yin Râ [Joseph Anton Scheneiderfranken (1876-1943),] whose manuscripts ended up in Guillemette's studio. Varela's exposure to Bô Yin Râ's work was a significant axis for his aesthetic orientation and the development of a personal and vital artistic language; it represents what we can consider a fundamental reference. From this moment on, the young artist dedicated himself to the systematic interpretation of Bô Yin Râ's texts. During these early years of exploration, his work also drew on references centered on the work of artists such as the Uruguayan Joaquín Torres García, whom he discovered through his exhibitions in Uruguay, but also through reading his essential lectures collected under the titles: Constructive Universalism and The Recovery of the Object. In 1971, he undertook a six-month trip through Europe that took him to various countries on the old continent: Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and England. Each stay represented an opportunity to explore, visit museums, and nurture and expand the curiosity and intuition of a young man with sensitive concerns. In 1976, he moved to the Dominican Republic to serve at the embassy of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. The Dominican Caribbean became a key territory in defining his creative destiny. However, traveling to the United States in 1976 and coming into contact with North American avant-garde painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, represented the emergence of an immediate affinity. The expressive force of artists such as Mark Rotkho, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willen de Kooning, Jasper Johns, among others, represented the possibility of conceiving a horizon of transcendence that involves the human, spirituality, and aesthetic representation as a potential for convergence. Thus, these references, along with the early experiences of his early years in Uruguay, began to form the foundation for the subsequent development of a vibrant creative space. It was his return to the Dominican Republic that marked the consolidation of his vocation oriented toward art. Beginning in 1978, Fernando Varela became involved with the Dominican visual arts scene in the context of the Caferelli Gallery, an innovative venture that combined the promotion of the visual arts and gastronomic projects. This project was avant-garde for its time. It was led by the young Dominican Rosario Bonarelli, who would become his wife and mother to his three children, the Varela Bonarelli family, and his permanent roots in the fertile soil of the Caribbean island of Quisqueya. From these years on, he maintained intense dialogues and exchanges with Dominican artists. José Ramírez Conde (Condesito) and Domingo Liz stood out, having a great influence on his artistic formation. Both contributed to the refinement of his expressive languages, while accompanying him in the exchange, reflection, and appreciation of Dominican aesthetic traditions, in contrast to his investigations into the production of art in diverse contexts. In 1983, he held his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo. He exhibited two-dimensional ceramic pieces, inscribed within the heritage of constructive modernism of the School of the South. It was a beginning that bore the imprint of the tradition of his place of origin, the identity that shaped him at that time. From this first exhibition onward, and for approximately a decade and a half, Fernando Varela's work underwent an intense process of transformation and experimentation. His explorations embraced diverse media of visual expression and explored different paths of thematic possibilities. This period witnessed an intense output that allowed his work to be shown in different contexts, including the Cuenca Biennial (1994); the Havana Biennial (1994); and his participation in Documenta in Kassel (1997). In 1998, Varela held the exhibition "Man and Woman" at the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo. This exhibition represents a summary of his aesthetic explorations conceived to date. In 1999, through the exhibition The Magic of Fear, organized at the Cultural Center of Spain in Santo Domingo, Varela's work presented a turning point in the development of expressive resources and thematic treatment. The Magic of Fear was characterized by the placement of works that presented an evident economy and discursive synthesis and that were shown to be articulated.

The Escape Ladder by Annelisse Molini History repeats itself, and in its cyclical recreations, it demonstrates to those who experience it that it always retains a core of its essence, even if it presents itself in a new guise. Therefore, the presence of the ladder initially appears as an unusual element in the iconography of Annelisse Molini's work. However, those familiar with the artist's extensive career recognize that it is a new take on one of the constant concerns that has manifested itself throughout her career: movement, mostly voluntary, and escape, almost always as a necessity in the search for order amidst the suffocation of prevailing chaos. Annelisse Molini's current series is clear proof that this artist remains faithful to the vital concerns, the visual impulses, and the forms that have shaped a distinct identity throughout her output. The costume she now wears is clear evidence of the creative maturity she has forged over the years. The enrichment of her technical craftsmanship and the deepening of the complexity of her particular forms and iconography reveal that after trauma, beyond chaos and overcoming destruction, the tensions inherent to every human being are unleashed once again, seeking an outlet that embodies an answer to the questions that will eternally remain unanswered. Laura Bravo, Ph.D. www.annelissemolini.com THE ESCAPE LADDER - Annelisse Molini Essay by Laura Bravo History repeats itself, and in its cyclical recreations shows its essence to its witnesses, albeit under new clothes. The ladder initially appears as an unusual element in the iconography of Annelisse Molini's work. However, those familiar with the artist's long career can recognize it as a twist of one of the constant concerns throughout her career: moving, mostly voluntarily, and escaping, almost always as a necessity in the search for order in the midst of prevailing overwhelming chaos. This series by Annelisse Molini is an obvious sign that she is faithful to those vital concerns, visual drives and shapes that have drawn her particular identity throughout. Her new clothes are evidence of a creative maturity forged over the years. The rich craftsmanship and deep complexity of her particular iconography prove that beyond trauma, chaos and destruction, there's a resurfacing of human emotions looking for a way out, for questions that will forever remain unanswered. Laura Bravo, Ph.D.

Drawers of Illusions and Allusions Jaime Cobas Drawers of Illusions and Allusions, by renowned architect Jaime Cobas, is “a set of pieces that aspires to establish a dialogue between the work and the observer, stimulating their imagination, where they delve into memories, interweave historical events, mythological legends, or those of the collective consciousness, in order to create a new, personal and individual reality.” The exhibition is composed of 15 pieces on individual pedestals and special lighting to allow their interiors to be visible. In addition, two large-format pieces, “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, fire and water,” are: Locura de Amor (Love Madness) and Give Me My Number (Give Me My Number). The latter is an illustration of the prayer by Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos, where she begs for the end of a life full of disappointments. The purpose of this exhibition, according to the artist, is "to establish a dialogue between the work and the observer, stimulating their imagination, where they delve into memories, interweave historical events, mythological legends, or those of the collective consciousness, in order to create a new, personal, and individual reality." Jaime Cobas holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University (1963) and a Master of Architecture from Yale University (1967). His artistic production has been exhibited and recognized by the press and the public. In 1997, a retrospective of his work was held at the Chase Manhattan Building in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, and his work Gepetto's Conundrum was auctioned to benefit the Artist Assistance Program of the Puerto Rico Museum of Art. In 2015, his work Estudio para Locura de Amor was selected for the "National Arts Exhibition" of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, at the Arsenal de La Puntilla in San Juan. Distinguished for his architectural works: Fraternidad AFDA, Las Carmelitas, Caparra Executive Condominium, and the "MuSA" in Mayagüez, as well as for his interior designs: Bull's-Eye, Chayote, and various private apartments in Puerto Rico, New York, and Japan. His designs have been published in international magazines such as Interiors, Interior Design, Florida Quarterly, Mix, and Archivos de Arquitectura Antillana. He currently works as a professor of architectural design at the Polytechnic University, and his class "Architecture and Lighting" is highly regarded by students.

Reflections: Between Joy and Despair Antonio Turok Antonio Turok, born in Mexico City in 1955, is considered one of the most important documentary photographers today, internationally recognized as one of the artists who have dedicated 40 years of their lives to capturing the human condition or simply sharing a beautiful landscape. Turok and his olfactory gaze are always at a place where adrenaline and fear would drive almost anyone away, where thanks to his instinct the viewer can access images that capture the precise instant, the one that summarizes between the four corners of the photograph an entire historical moment, a defining feature of a society or a social conflict. He has participated in various journalistic publications such as: Aperture, United States; Camera Work, United States; Crónica, Mexico; DoubleTake, United States; Paris Match, France; Proceso, Mexico; Stern, Germany; Texas Monthly, United States; The Independent, Great Britain; he has also collaborated on several collective books such as: 160 Years of Photography in Mexico, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico. Indians Chiapas-Mexico-California – A World Made of All Worlds. From Parc de la Villette, Paris. Memory – Presence of Guatemalan Refugees in Mexico, Ministry of the Interior, Mexico. He has published the books: Chiapas: The End of Silence/El fin del silencio. Aperture Foundation, New York, and Ediciones Era, Mexico, 1998. Images of Nicaragua. Casa de las Imágenes, Mexico, 1988. He has received various awards, including: a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship; a Mother Jones Fund for Documentary Photography Award; a grant from the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, California, for the documentary project Neighbors, Two Sides of a Coin; a grant from the Mexico-United States Cultural Trust “Maya in the United States” Rockefeller Foundation. Some of his photographic works are part of museum and private collections: Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles County Museum of Art – Photographic Collection, Los Angeles. Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography. Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. Brooklyn Museum—Photographic Collection. Brooklyn, New York; among others. Antonio Turok: Reflections Between Joy and Despair is a traveling exhibition first presented in late 2016 at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía in Mexico City, which traces his trajectory through more than two hundred images. I have curated this exhibition again for the Museo de Las Américas, a space dedicated to the dissemination of the history and culture of the American continent for more than twenty-five years. These photographs make us question what we have learned from the history of our peoples: the guerrillas in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Guatemalan immigrant crisis in Mexico during the 1980s, the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in the jungles of Chiapas, and 9/11 in New York. The most recent images show us what is currently happening with the emigration of Mexicans to the United States and the arrival of President Trump to the White House. In putting together this exhibition, I reflected on the questions that photographers and budding artists ask themselves: What is art? What is photography? What power does the photographer have when documenting reality while seeking personal expression through the camera lens? The photographer has a perception of the world, but with an image, he allows us to interpret the depth of life. As the great American documentary filmmaker Eugene Smith said: "I feel my art or my need is communication, so I use photography to tell a story." Turok believes that an image is the closest thing to poetry, and that photography is his weapon to transcend and serve something, to "have a commitment." Through this poetic exhibition, we see how the photographer agrees with Smith on this need to have a defined purpose in the act of photography. These images tell us the story Antonio Turok has lived for more than thirty years, documenting battles that claimed countless lives in the fight for justice. At the same time, they show us the peaceful existence of the indigenous communities of Chiapas where he lived as a young photographer at that time. In his visual quest, we see Turok using video as a new tool to tell stories, leaving us with questions before the images of the US border, where migrants wait to cross to a future they imagine to be promising. Is it true that there is a better life on the other side? Is this the beginning of a new and unjust battle in which the photographer will continue to tell the story of the times we live in? Antonio Turok is the artist, a rebellious, independent, and poetic photographer, who seeks to make his images useful, with a deep commitment to life, and from whose eye emerge images that transcend the visual memory of our times. Both the artist and this curator dedicate this exhibition to those young photographers and artists who today ask the same question as so many others: What is photography and the visual image? What have we learned from the history of our Latin American peoples during so many years of injustice? Marietta Bernstorf, Curator