New York Artist Roberto Juarez: Crossing Five Decades At The C. Parker Gallery Till April 15, 2024

From a media release

Roberto Juarez: Crossing Five Decades
Works Created Between 1983 and 2023
On view through April 15
At the C. Parker Gallery

• Check It Out [HERE]

The work of celebrated New York artist Roberto Juarez will be on display at the C. Parker Gallery in Greenwich, CT until April 15, 2024.

Falo, by Roberto Juarez (1999), mixed media on linen

Juarez's story is the stuff of New York art world legends, and he still makes the city his home.

In 1981, Juarez was one of the first artists of Latinx descent to break into the NYC art scene during that pivotal era that changed the culture, alongside other young artists of colour from that era who broke down barriers – and he continues to have a prominent career today.

One of his paintings was selected for the cover of the Whitney Biennial Catalog in 1987.

“This is the first time an exhibition chronicles five distinct eras of artmaking by Roberto Juarez,” says Tiffany Benincasa, the owner and curator of C. Parker Gallery. “We are honoured to present this group of exquisite paintings, illuminating his position in the canon of art history in the New York art world, for our tenth anniversary season.”

The gallery is located at 409 Greenwich Avenue, near Manhattan (just a 40-minute train ride from Grand Central Terminal, where one of Juarez’s public commission murals majestically holds court in the Station Manager’s Office, pictured below).  

A Field of Wild Flowers, public commission mural by Roberto Juarez (1997). Located in the public waiting area of the Station Manager's Office at Grand Central Terminal. Photo by Rob Wilson.

New York Grand Central Terminal Public Commission

Juarez’s artistic trajectory could only have happened in New York. In 1981, the East Village underground arts icon Ellen Stewart offered Juarez an artist studio in an abandoned garage owned by the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.

The space, on First Street between Bowery and Second Avenue, had no electricity and was offered to Juarez rent-free. Renowned costume designer Gabriel Berry lent Juarez an extension cord from her studio to his, to provide light and heating.

A 1985 poster designed by Roberto Juarez for his gallery show at La Galleria at La MaMa

That same year, Juarez was showcased in the New York/New Wave group show curated by Diego Cortez, who united the downtown scene for this history-making exhibition.

Cortez selected 35 works by Juarez for the 1981 New York/New Wave show, granting him an entire wall across from a wall of works by Basquiat (some of these original 1981 works by Juarez have been selected for an exhibition during the Venice Biennale this year).  

During the decades that followed, Juarez’s milestones include:  

A Guggenheim Fellowship in Painting . . . the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award . . . the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome . . . one of his paintings was selected for the book jacket cover of the Whitney Biennale Catalog in 1987 . . . he was chosen for a public commission mural installation in Grand Central Station in 1997 (new.mta.info/agency/arts-design/collection/field-of-wild-flowers) . . . and several art in public places commissions, including Miami International Airport.

Works by Juarez are in the collections of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), the Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio (NY), Perez Art Museum Miami, and the Denver Art Museum, among others.

Museums that have exhibited the work of Roberto Juarez include: Museum of Modern Art (NY); Whitney Museum of Art/Whitney Biennial (NY); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LA); Brooklyn Museum; Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice); MoMA PS1 (NY); the China National Academy of Painting; Stamford Museum (CT); El Museo del Barrio (NY); McNay Art Museum (TX); Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (CO); Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (KS); Portland Museum of Art (ME); Center for the Fine Arts Miami; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art; Austin Museum (TX); and Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, among others. 

The Miami Flower Fence as a work-in-progress, photo taken at the artist's studio prior to installation at the airport.

Miami International Airport Public Commission

M.I.A. Flower Fence, by Roberto Juarez (2011). Installation photo taken at the Miami International Airport. The Art in Public Places mural by Juarez juxtaposes botanical-style renderings of Florida wildflowers with patchwork designs of Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe of Indians.

Juarez frequently employs painterly floral motifs, often inspired by the traditions of Hispanic and non-Western painting. 

“Roberto Juarez is somebody I had long thought combined a sense of an engagement with the poetic, an engagement with the provocative,” said Edward J. Sullivan, Professor of Art History at NYU.

“A use of colour which brings to mind not only images but emotions, in a way that is very convincing – also allowing us to enter into a certain subconscious emotional territory.”

“Roberto Juarez is somebody I had long thought combined a sense of an engagement with the poetic, an engagement with the provocative, a use of colour which brings to mind not only images but emotions, in a way that is very convincing – also allowing us to enter into a certain subconscious emotional territory,” adds Sullivan.

Pine Branches with Lichen (Grey Eye), by Roberto Juarez (2023), mixed media on canvas 

Edward J. Sullivan curated one of Juarez’s solo museum exhibitions that included the artist’s Pater series (pictured below, one of the Pater works in the current gallery show).

Sullivan has worked for more than thirty years in the field of Latin American and Caribbean art, and has influenced many artists and curators. 

Pater Painting, by Roberto Juarez (2017), mixed media on canvas. This work was also exhibited at the Boulder Museum, in the exhibition curated by Edward J. Sullivan, the NYU Professor of Art History who influenced many artists and curators. 

The Pater works were produced over a number of years during which Juarez was dealing with the death of his father.

Read more about the artist and this series at the review by Clayton Kirking, former Chief of Art Information Resources for the New York Public Library at this link.

Captured in Time

Juarez’s mother was from Puerto Rico, and his father was from Mexico. He was born in 1952 in Chicago.

Juarez has a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute (1975), and Graduate Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (1978).

Portrait of Juarez (1989) by Jack Pierson.

Juarez and his circle of artist friends were often captured in time by well-known photographers/artists of the era.

Portrait of Roberto Juarez (1985) by David Seidner, for Interview Magazine.