BX1:The Second Bronx Biennial
Group Show featuring Juan Doe
organized by the Bronx Council of the Arts
Run Dates June 5th 2007-August 25th 2007
Opening: Wednesday June 5th 5-9pm
Location: Longwood Art Gallery
Directions: CUNY 450 Grand Concourse at 149th St, C-190
For additional information, a price list, hi-rez images, and/or an artist press kit, please contact us
In its 19th year, BRIO award (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) continues to provide support for artistic development of individuals creating works of literary, media, performing, and visual arts in the Bronx. The Bronx Council of the Arts (BCA) awarded Juan Doe for his achievements in visual arts for his 360° Project. The selection for awards is based solely on artistic excellence and is decided on by a panel of professional artists representing the various disciplines.
With its nose thumbed at Americana, Juan Doe’s 360° Project represents an amalgamation of pop culture and historical influences in the form of satirical propaganda-esque icons. Meant to turn familiarity on its side, viewers get a daily dose of philosophical and metaphorical art that speaks to anyone who has grown up in this media driven society. It has become the generational cyber equivalent of the political cartoon; a peek into the mind set of the status quo through a collage of images and ideals never meant to co-exist within a single concept. But the melding of those concepts recreates a diatribe as specific to this generation as a fingerprint; Juan Doe presents significant dichotomous imagery in a satirical yet thought provoking manner.
Neatly packaged and presented as a series of flashing “subliminal” imagery, the viewer “flips” through the monochromatic work reminiscent of 1st grade flashcards; meant to imprint familiarity into memory. But with the 360° Project, our preconceived notions of what icons are meant to represent are deconstructed and rearranged seamlessly. It challenges institutionalized thought and aggressively shows the viewer that our current world view is made up of force-fed religious beliefs, political agendas and a viral dose of video, media and internet distractions.
360° leaves no pop culture stone unturned, from Hungry Hungry Hipsters and its commentary on gentrification to the man-love phenomena that came out of the closet with Bert and Ernie in Broke Back Buddies. No cultural medium or genre is safe from 360°’s reach and each day bring about a change of perspective that delves into and breaks apart convention. Juan Doe takes snapshots and reinvents memory with the 360° Project. He becomes an iconoclastic hero, in his maddening pledge to reassemble and re-present media as the new religion… every day for 365 days
Describing himself as the last of a dying breed, Juan Doe represents the endangered painter whose work characterizes a fusion of visual symphonies that dictate dignity and morality through the mediums synonymous with contemporary culture. Born and raised in New York City, he has been evolving the language of interdisciplinary art since the 1970s.
With Bill Aguado, the Executive Director at the Bronx Council of the Art’s helm since 1980 the organization has launched many successful programs. Together, with his long-time associate, Deputy Director Ed Friedman, BCA has emerged as a local, regional and national voice for artists and the community. Because of the Council's ongoing success, arts organizations in many cities in the US and abroad have sought the Council’s advice in launching new programs using BCA as a model for their own. The Bronx Council on the Arts is proud to have a whole host of world class artists living and working in the Bronx and to have been a part of supporting artists to achieve the impossible – making the Bronx a viable home for artists and achieving great success in the process
-text excerpts by Melissa A. Calderón
BX1: The Second Bronx Artist Biennial will showcase the talents of Bronx artists who are featured winners of the borough’s BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) Individual Artist Fellowship, a product of the Bronx Council on the Arts’ mission to support and nurture Bronx artists. The BX1 Festival is a celebration of these artists’ continued dedication to excellence as well as to honor those who have continued to live, work and produce art in the Bronx.
2007 Honorees: This year's honorees are truly “Arts Heroes”. In this day and age, with all the cutbacks, the arts are put on the back burner, but NYC Council Members Maria del Carmen Arroyo and James Vacca continue to support the arts and the work we do in our beautiful borough of The Bronx. The third “Art Hero” is our Deputy Director, Ed Friedman. Ed has given BCA and The Bronx 20 years of dedicated and tireless service. He is committed to raising the profile of the arts in The Bronx.
The VIP Kickoff Reception for BX1: Second Bronx Artist Biennial Exhibition
This exhibition features eighteen 2006 & 2007 BRIO winners in visual and media. Artists include Blanka Amezkua, Melisa Firelei Báez, Timothy Blum, Reina Mia Brill, Toby Bounagurio, Peter Cabot, Marisol Díaz, Juan Doe, Ruth Marshall, Josh Millis, Joel Neff, Danny Ramón Peralta, Wanda Raimundi-Ortíz, Silvia Romero, Pam Sporn, Ron Terner, José Antonio Vicenty and Lois Weingarten. This show, curated by Longwood;s curator Edwin Ramoran.
2007 BRIO Awards Presentation Ceremony (5:45pm) Twenty-two Bronx artists will be recipients of the BCA's prestigious BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) Award for artistic excellence this evening's award presentation ceremony. They are: In Literary Arts: Carlos Serrano (Playwriting), Bruce Tallerman (Fiction), Julio Toro (Screenwriting). In Media Arts: Pamela Sporn (Documentary Film/Video). In Performing Arts: Jessica Danser (Choreography), PattyDukes (Vocal Music), Bradon McDonald (Dance), Maxim Pakhomov (Instrumental Music), Jennifer Shyu (Music Composition), Muhamadou Salieu Suso (Instrumental Music), Nelida Tirado (Dance), Rhina Valentin (Acting). In Visual Arts: Blanka Amezkua (Crafts)
Melisa Baez (Illustration/Drawing), Reina Mia Brill (Crafts), Toby Buonagurio (Sculpture), Peter Cabot (Mixed Media), Marisol Diaz (Photography), Joel Neff (Crafts), Danny R. Peralta (Photography), Ron Terner (Photography), Lois Weingarten (Painting).
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about the artist: Juan Doe an artist that strains the boundary between painting, propaganda, polemics, and philosophical discourse in art. He encapsulated a new age aesthetic through his command of the graphic process but with the masterful execution of a painter. His images are non-negotiable, they cannot be interpreted or postponed; they exist now, for the oxygen of the viewers eyes. A recipient in 2007 and 2008 of an individual grant in visual arts from the Bronx Council of the Arts, he is represented in the Bronx Museum (New York).
about the gallery: Longwood Gallery is the contemporary art center of the Bronx Council on the Arts with the mission to support artists and their work, especially emerging artists from underrepresented groups such as people of color and women, through Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos, Digital Matrix Commissions Program, and public programs that provide opportunities for free and open dialogue. Longwood Arts Project presents solo and group exhibitions of works of art produced in various media or through interdisciplinary practices that connect artists, communities, and ideas within and beyond the Bronx.
Juan Doe, Dancing Sars (from the Series 360), 2007, enamel on linen, 36x24in (90x60cm)Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
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