Nitza Tufiño: Asserting Presence
On view From march 17, 2023 - may 13, 2023
Asserting Presence is an intimate exhibition of Nitza Tufiño’s (b. 1949) prints and paintings of family, friends, and places she has visited. In her work, she addresses the duality of seeing and being seen. To the artist, the former, seeing, is an act of acknowledgment, and the latter, being seen, is an act of asserting agency. With a vast body of work, Tufiño commemorates the people she knows and addresses historical inaccuracies. She also brings attention to the richness of the cosmology of the indigenous people of the Caribbean, the Taínos, whose influence persists. To Tufiño, her subjects are not strangers; what she does, she would say, is not about “me” but “we.”
About Nitza Tufiño:
Born in Mexico, Tufiño is the daughter of the Puerto Rican artist Rafael Tufiño and the Mexican dancer and model Luz Maria Aquirre. She considers herself bi-cultural, being from multiple backgrounds, Puerto Rican and Mexican or Mexi-Rican. She was spiritually raised as a Catholic but was influenced by the Caribbean Orishas of Santeria in her art. She celebrates the diversity of her children’s ancestry, with a half-Jewish daughter and a half-Japanese son. She is now a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and a proud member of the SGI (Soka Gakaai International), a Japanese-based organization dedicated to happiness and world peace.
Her childhood in Puerto Rico surrounded her with artists, dancers, musicians, filmmakers, intellectuals, and activists. Upon arriving in New York in 1969, Tufiño became involved in the founding of el Museo del Barrio, for which she created the original façade artwork. At this time, she also was a consultant on Puerto Rican and Caribbean art at the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, making her voice and the voice of Latino artists a part of the mainstream conversation. These activities led her to the installation of public works around New York City, which visually celebrate Puerto Rican, South American, and Caribbean cultural and artistic heritage. Tufiño was also a founding member of El Taller Boricua and is the master printmaker and director of the Rafael Tufiño Printmaking Workshop. As a “Friends of Puerto Rico” board member, she opened the Cayman Gallery in SoHO exhibition space, later known as the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MOCHA). (In 1990, MoCHA shut its doors, and its archives were donated to Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, in the South Bronx, New York). In her artwork, pedagogy, and civil activism, Tufiño has been a tireless champion of diverse representation and Latino/x agency.
Major funding for this exhibition and its programs was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional generous support was contributed by Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Connelly Foundation, Independence Foundation, Joseph Robert Foundation, PA Council on the Arts, Samuel S. Fels Fund & William Penn Foundation.
Related Programs:
Opening Reception
MARCH 17, 2023 | 5:30 - 8:00PM
We are excited to invite you all to the opening of Asserting Presence by Nitza Tufiño.
Printmaking as a statement: Community printmaking workshop & talk with Nitza Tufiño
MARCH 18, 2023 | 10:00AM - 2:00PM
Join Tufiño and Taller’s education team for a community printmaking workshop followed by a discussion on the importance of Printmaking in the Latinx community.
Art at noon: Nitza tufiño
may 10, 2023 | 12:00pM - 1:00PM
Join Nitza Tufiño and Taller Puertorriqueño Curator, Rafael Damast, in a virtual conversation about Nitza’s work and lifelong contributions to creating spaces and opportunities for artists who could not fine acceptance in established American art institutions.
