Radamés “Juni” Figueroa’s Sabroso Veneno transports you to the sensory space of a seventies salsoteca. Bright colors, neon lights, palm trees, paintings, and parrots transform the gallery into a lively space of festivities. Here, you are invited to enjoy food, drink, and music, to linger in the atmosphere of another time and place. Inspired by the stage design of salsa performances from the seventies and eighties and embellished with a tropical flare, Sabroso Veneno evokes the visual culture of the Caribbean. It is a venue where pathways of American culture–Mexican, Puerto Rican, US, and Caribbean–enter into dialogue. Sabroso Veneno will host live music performances with food and drink, as well as a series of programs organized by curators and art historians from throughout Latin America.
Juni Figueroa is the second artist to participate in anonymous gallery’s new residency program, which invites artists to spend between one and two months producing an exhibition in Mexico City. The program’s goal is to facilitate alternative forms of intercultural dialogue between the United States and Mexico. Artists-in-residence are encouraged to engage with the community, source materials, design supplementary programming, and develop a body of work, which will be on display in the gallery for 4-8 weeks. Each artist will also use their time to create a limited edition and a small publication in conjunction with the gallery.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Radamés ‘Juni’ Figueroa (b. Bayamon, Puerto Rico, 1982) is a Puerto Rican artist whose work mobilizes visual tropes of the tropics, humor, and personal experience to explore stereotypes of Caribbean life and the impact of American capitalism on Puerto Rico, as well as to convey the material experience of the tropics. Originally trained as a painter, Figueroa began to construct tropical environments in galleries and public spaces in 2008. These vivid installations feature rudimentary structures often built of found materials, “tropical readymades”—mixed-media sculptures the artist fashions out of tropical plants and found objects, and paintings; and are intended to serve as gathering places for visitors and community members, as well as platforms for concerts and performances. Figueroa is well-known for his 2013 project Casa Club—The Treehouse of Naguabo, a treehouse he built collaboratively in Puerto Rico, and later reconstructed for SculptureCenter in Queens, New York, the 2014 Whitney Biennial, and galleries in London and San Juan. In 2012, he co-curated the first Tropical Biennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He has had solo exhibitions at SculptureCenter, Queens, New York; Taymour Grahne Gallery, New York, NY; Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala, Guatemala City; Roberto Paradise Gallery, San Juan, Puerto Rico; 43 Salon Inter-Nacional, Medellín, Colombia, among others. Most recently, Figueroa was selected to participate in the New York City High Line’s annual group show. His structure, La Deliciosa Show will serve as a site for performances and gatherings throughout the summer.