{"id":5084786,"date":"2016-11-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlatinonews.com\/puerto-rican-artist-creates-exhibit-with-a-political-edge\/"},"modified":"2016-11-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T05:00:00","slug":"puerto-rican-artist-creates-exhibit-with-a-political-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/2016\/11\/29\/puerto-rican-artist-creates-exhibit-with-a-political-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rican Artist Creates Exhibit With A Political Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> A photograph from a new exhibit by Puerto Rican photographer Ad\u00e1l Maldonado<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBeing underwater in a confined space, unable to breathe, triggers an instinctual alarm\u2014it\u2019s uncomfortably close to actually drowning. For celebrated Puerto Rican photographer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adalmindfictions.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc\">Ad\u00e1l Maldonado<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s also a biting metaphor for the state of the island today.<br \/>\nIn his new series, <em>Puerto Ricans Underwater<\/em>, Ad\u00e1l presents Boricuas of varying ages, lifestyles and occupations, each of them submerged in a tub, their bodies restricted by its size and their faces obscured beneath the bathwater. The resulting images are subtly eerie and chill-inducing; they evoke the shock and burn of accidentally inhaling water.<br \/>\nBut that\u2019s only the first-glance effect. What do these photographs mean in the context of Puerto Rico\u2019s colonial state?<br \/>\n Photography Exibiit: Ad\u00e1l Maldonado<br \/>\n&#8220;I think mainly and most importantly, it\u2019s the sense of denial of self-determination by having the federal government sort of impose their agenda on you. That feeling that you get from not being in control of your own life,&#8221; Ad\u00e1l says. &#8220;That will manifest differently\u00a0depending on different people\u2026but I would say that\u2019s pretty much it; not having a voice, feeling impotent inside of your own condition.&#8221;<br \/>\nBut before he\u2019d settled on the final out-of-focus effect, Ad\u00e1l tried out the underwater idea\u2014ultimately, though, it was set aside. A few years ago, he recalls, he revisited the concept when taking photos of a visiting friend, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeannettebetancourt.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc\">Jeannette Betancourt<\/span><\/a>, a Puerto Rican visual artist living in Mexico. It wasn\u2019t until a month-and-a-half ago, however, that he began developing a complete series.<br \/>\n&#8220;I was like, oh my God, this happened 20-something years ago, but it seems to be appropriate to what\u2019s happening in Puerto Rico right now,&#8221; he says.<br \/>\nAd\u00e1l\u2019s storied artistic history is rich with political and social commentary. The <em>Nuyoricans<\/em> series was an outgrowth of a project with the late Pedro Pietri, a founding member of the Nuyorican Movement of the \u201960s and \u201970s. Together they created El Puerto Rican Embassy, &#8220;a mythological state&#8221; replete with manifesto, passport and other identifying documents for citizens, as well as a<br \/>\n<em><strong>To see more photos please visit:\u00a0 http:\/\/remezcla.com\/features\/culture\/puerto-ricans-underwater-photos-adal-Maldonado\/<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Being underwater in a confined space, unable to breathe, triggers an instinctual alarm\u2014it\u2019s uncomfortably close to actually drowning. For [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,576,1022,983,984],"tags":[1185],"ppma_author":[565],"class_list":["post-5084786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-democracypolitics","category-ma-arts-culture","category-ma-politics","category-ri-politics","tag-adal-maldonadopuerto-rican-artpuerto-rican-photographerspuerto-rican-politcal-artpuerto-rico-debt-status"],"acf":[],"mb":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jermaine Smith","author_link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/author\/jay\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"&nbsp; Being underwater in a confined space, unable to breathe, triggers an instinctual alarm\u2014it\u2019s uncomfortably close to actually drowning. For [&hellip;]","authors":[{"term_id":565,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"news-editor","display_name":"News Editor","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"mfb_rest_fields":["title","uagb_featured_image_src","uagb_author_info","uagb_comment_info","uagb_excerpt","authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5084786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5084786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5084786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5084786"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5084786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}