The exhibition “Swagger and Tenderness: The South Bronx Portraits,” by John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, is on view on the Bronx Museum of the Arts till April 30, 2023. The museum is situated at 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York.
Impressed and enabled by the individuals who stay within the vibrant group the place the Bronx Museum is situated, native artists John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres have change into world-famous for his or her portraits of their South Bronx neighbors. Whereas museum-goers elsewhere have celebrated these famend sculptures honoring Bronxites for 4 a long time, that is the primary time a big group of those artworks might be exhibited collectively at house for the very folks represented therein. This main survey exhibition mirrors the artistic and loving residents of the South Bronx whose private tales and progressive aesthetics each replicate and form tradition internationally.
Ahearn and Torres are sometimes praised for uplifting their topics, thus representing social justice, variety, dignity, and fairness. This exhibition conveys how the themes additionally uplifted the artists, making these portraits highly effective by contributing their information and spirit in addition to their bodily type. These timeless artworks rejoice the swagger and tenderness—the true energy—of our stunning, fashionable neighbors. The present goals to carry consideration to the worth of each particular person and household who has helped form this proud, distinctive, and influential group. Swagger and Tenderness is framed by and for the very group that nurtured and empowered Ahearn’s and Torres’s artistic skills.
This present will characteristic over 60 portraits alongside archival supplies from 1979 to the current, from the Bronx Museum Assortment and different private and non-private collections. The portrait sitters offered visibility to Ahearn and Torres and acquired it in return.
The exhibition catalog will embrace interviews with portrait topics, poetry by Bronx authors, illustrated curatorial essays, and a graphic novel written by Ron Kavanaugh and illustrated by Sole Insurgent, each from the Bronx. The exhibition [was] designed by the curators in collaboration with Bronx-based architect Jorge Plazas and Darío Nuñez-Ameni (former architect of Vito Acconci Studio–Acconci was born within the Bronx). Curatorial advisors from the group embrace Alveda Alston, Leenda Bonilla, Johnny Chavarria, Luís A. Pagán, and Moisés Rivera.
For extra info, see https://bronxmuseum.org/exhibition/swagger-and-tenderness-the-south-bronx-portraits-by-john-ahearn-rigoberto-torres/
See extra on the artists at https://www.thebroad.org/artwork/john-ahearn-and-rigoberto-torres