Issue # 8 Lionel Cruet
Flood Aftermath and other Hurricane Stories
Texts by: Jonas Albro and Natasha Becker
In Flood Aftermath and other Hurricane Stories (2015-2020), Cruet produced poignant paintings, which point both to the ecological devastation of climate change, and how the economic and political legacies of colonialism affect the modern Caribbean. The blue tarps, which serve as the ground for these paintings, reference their use as temporary solutions to damage from hurricanes, and also their eventual architectural permanence in those communities most affected. At the same time, the paintings literally depict scenes of flooding in Caribbean locales. This layering of meaning through the careful choice of material and subject matter is essential to Cruet´s work. For Lionel Cruet, an artwork containing multiple, reinforcing meanings is not unusual. As we move into a new era defined by a rapidly changing climate, Cruet´s work will provide one lens to understand new geopolitical realities and new projects will continue. Don´t be surprised to come across Cruet´s works and feel more in an overlapped place that appears to the real as well as the imagined.
Jonas Albro
Excerpt from Lionel Cruet: Layers of place
Lionel Cruet´s series of paintings on blue plastic tarps depict stranded houses in a dark landscape after the effect of hurricanes and heavy floods. However, a soft yellow light inside the houses denotes human presence, resilience, and hope. In places like Puerto Rico, blue tarp was used as a temporary architectural solution to damaged homes but is has become part of the landscape and a symbol of the country´s low recovery and political chaos.
Natasha Becker
Excerpt from – A Perfect Storm
Lionel Cruet was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, He lives and works in New York City and San Juan. Cruet received a Bachelor in Fine Arts from La Escuela de Artes Plásticas en Puerto Rico and a Master in Fine Arts from CUNY - The City College of New York, and a Masters degree in Education from the College of Saint Rose. In 2013 was the recipient of the Juan Downey Audiovisual Award at the 11th Media Arts Biennale at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile and in 2018 he was a Fellow at the Socrates Sculpture Park, and The Laundromat Project both in New York City.
Cruet’s artworks use multiple mediums such as experimental digital printing, performance, and audiovisual installations that confront issues concerning ecological awareness, geopolitics, and technology. His artworks have been included in exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2017); Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse (2017); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (2013); and Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, Frederiksted, St. Croix (2014); and a solo exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center (2015).
He has exhibited in Australia, Ecuador, Germany, and his work has been reviewed at: Made in Mind Magazine, designboom, Daily Serving California College of the Arts, and Latinx Spaces. Cruet works with the New York City Department of Education, as well as multiple nonprofits that promote art and aesthetic education for immigrant youth.
Jonas Albro is a Brooklyn based curator, writer, and artist wrangler. His research and writing primarily focuses on the intersections of contemporary art and american politics, but he has been known to critique aesthetics as far back as the renaissance. He is the founder and director of "level ground," an itinerant curatorial project dedicated to increasing democratic access to the art world. Currently, he has a master's in art history at CUNY - Hunter College. In the past, he has worked for/collaborated with kurimanzutto, black ball projects, the irving penn foundation, yancey richardson gallery, and the smithsonian american art museum. In 2017 he received his BA in art history and museum studies from James Madison University.
Born and raised in Cape Town, Natasha Becker is an independent curator of contemporary art and the co-founder of Assembly Room (a platform and gallery space for women curators in New York City), and the Underline Shor (a new exhibition platform that nurtures curatorial talent in South Africa). She has notably spent the past decade advocating for, and working with, artists of African descent. Becker is passionate about imagining new ways for audiences to connect with art through her research, exhibitions, and a mentor to emerging artists and curators. Her recent projects include, “Radical Love” and “perilous Bodies” for the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice Art Gallery (New York, 2019), “Girls Girls Girls” at Assembly Room(New York, 2019), “The Underline Show” at the Museum of African Art and Design (Johannesburg, 2019), and “Present Passing” for the Osage Art Foundation (Hong Kong, 2019). She lives and works in New York.