Ana Rosa Rivera and Charles Juhasz-Alvarado with Alanna Heiss

Artists Ana Rosa Rivera and Charles Juhasz-Alvarado, with Alanna Heiss of the alternative spaces movement and PS1, discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.,

Ana Rosa Rivera Marrero: Sculptor, photographer, and video, installation, and performance artist. Rivera Marrero graduated from the Puerto Rico School of Plastic Arts in 1992 with a degree in sculpture and then took graduate courses in sculpture and art criticism at the Yale School of Art in Connecticut. Since the nineties she has been involved in countless group and solo projects, including public art, and her work has been included in some twenty group shows, in addition to her one-woman shows, inside and outside Puerto Rico. In 2006, she had an artist’s residency at the Fabric Workhouse and Museum. She is interested in exploring the island’s political situation in pieces and events in which she uses symbols such as cross-dressing, the abalone shell, and daily objects from the traditional life of Puerto Rico. She also examines historical architecture from the viewpoint of its associations with patriarchal power, creating mixed-media pieces that draw attention to these associations and alter them and thereby encourage viewer reflection. Her work is distinguished by the number and variety of materials she skillfully handles—from raw materials to found objects, photographs, videos, and mixed-media constructions, which, in combination, lend added significance to her works. Read more.

Charles Juhasz-Alvarado: Creator of mixed-media sculptural constructions and installations, architect, and teacher. In 1988, Juhasz completed his bachelor’s degree in art and architecture and in 1994 he completed his master’s degree, both at Yale University. He has shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions and at events inside and outside Puerto Rico, such as the Sao Paulo Biennial in 2002 and the Singapore Biennial in 2006, and in such international contemporary art fairs as Art Basel Miami (2005) and ARCO, in Madrid (1997). He has received academic fellowships such as the Phillip Morris Fellowship for graduate studies at Yale (1992–93) and a number of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His installations, sometimes interactive, involve subjects such as cultural hybridization, identity, and the relations of power between cultures in a time of globalization, and provoke viewers not only to be participants as they interact with the pieces but also to look beyond their experience with the work. Read more.

In the Rail:

• Charles Juhasz-Alvarado Complicated StoriesJuly-August 2008

Alanna Heiss, Director of Clocktower Productions, is a leader of the groundbreaking early 1970s alternative spaces movement in New York City, which radically changed the way large-scale art projects were produced, shown, and seen. In 1972 she founded the legendary Clocktower Gallery, and in 1976 she founded P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1) which she directed for 32 years and transformed into an internationally renowned non-collecting center for the production and presentation of contemporary art. Heiss has organized over 700 exhibitions at P.S.1 and in art spaces around the world. In 2003 founded Art Radio WPS1.org, the Internet radio station of P.S.1 and first ever all-art museum station. Among her numerous publications are catalogues of the work of Janet Cardiff, Alex Katz, Dennis Oppenheim, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Katharina Sieverding, and John Wesley. Heiss was Commissioner of the 1985 Paris Biennial, and Commissioner of the 1986 American Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She served as Chief Curator of the Tribute for John Cage, organized for the 1993 Venice Biennial, and as the Curatorial Director of the 2002 Shanghai Biennale, and she was a panelist for the 2005 Yokohama Triennial. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1943, Ms. Heiss resides in New York City with her husband, Fredrick Sherman. Read more.

In the Rail:

• ALANNA HEISS in Conversation with David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro, with the assistance of Gaby Collins-Fernandez December 2014-January 2015
• 2002 Painting Report, Plane: The Essential of Painting by Daniel Baird, Autumn 2002

The New Social Environment — Daily conversations with artists, writers, filmmakers, poets around the world where we discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.