[Many thanks to Tess O’Dwyer for bringing this item to our attention.] The Whitney Museums of American Artwork presents “El bello no ser de nuestros cuerpos / Our Our bodies’ Lovely Not Being: A studying,” which takes place on Sunday, December 4, 2022, at 2:00pm [at The Whitney, 3rd Floor, Susan and John Hess Family Gallery and Theater.]
[This event has reached in-person capacity but will be live streamed on Zoom. A limited number of standby tickets may be available at the admissions desk on a first-come, first-served basis. The standby line will open one hour prior to the program’s start time. Register to attend ONLINE.]
“Nada” (Nothingness)
If from not-being we come and towards not-being we go, nothing between nothing and nothing, zero between zero and 0, and if between nothing and nothing, there may be nothing, allow us to toast to our our bodies’ lovely not being.
—Julia de Burgos (translation by Raquel Salas Rivera)
In her poem “Nada,” Julia de Burgos invitations us to “toast to our our bodies’ lovely not being” in response to the argument that “life is nothingness.” This studying, curated by poet Raquel Salas Rivera, expands on the title of no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Artwork within the Wake of Hurricane María by inviting an intergenerational group of poets to deal with the methods by which Puerto Ricans repeatedly create from “nothingness,” making a life, a manner ahead, and even magnificence, regardless of colonialism’s erasure and violence.
Readers embody Giannina Braschi, Rubén Ramos Colón, Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Francisco Félix, Denice Frohman, Joey de Jesús, Yara Liceaga, Roberto Ncar, Urayoán Noel, Mara Pastor, Willie Perdomo, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Verónika Reca, Gaddiel Francisco Ruiz Rivera, Irizelma Robles, Sandra Nia Rodríguez, Edwin Torres, üatibirí, Xavier Valcárcel, and Elizabet Velásquez.
For extra info, see https://whitney.org/occasions/el-bello-no-ser-de-nuestros-cuerpos
[Image above: Javier Orfón, “Avispas” (Wasps), detail of “Bientevéo” (Iseeyouwell), 2018–22. Inkjet print. Collection of the artist; courtesy Hidrante, San Juan.]