In Conversation: Elia Alba & Yelaine Rodriguez
In conversation: elia alba & yelaine rodriguez
A dialog between artists presented by Samsøñ, Boston.
Elia Alba
La Joya (Yelaine Rodriguez)
2019
archival pigment print on Photo Rag Baryta
unframed 27 x 34 inches (one-inch white border around image) Edition 2 of 5
signed and numbered lower right verso
Courtesy of Samsøñ, Boston and the Artist.
The following text is a conversation between artists Yelaine Rodriguez and Elia Alba from May 2020. It is presented with Samsøñ, Boston in relation to the gallery’s Future Fair Online exhibition “FOR EVERY RIGHT, WITH ALL THY MIGHT.” MOTTO, BOSTON GUARDIAN.
ABOUT ELIA ALBA
Elia Alba, born in Brooklyn 1962, is a multidisciplinary artist, who works in photography, video and sculpture. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in 1994 and completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2001. She has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. Those include the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Science Museum, London; Smithsonian Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, ITAU Cultural Institute, São Paulo; National Museum of Art, Reina Sofía, Madrid and the 10th Havana Biennial. She is a recipient of numerous awards and residencies for example, the Studio Museum in Harlem Artist-in Residence Program in 1999; New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, Crafts 2002 and Photography 2008; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2002 and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant 2002 and 2008; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Workspace Program, 2009, and Recess Analog, 2012. Collections include the Smithsonian Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, Lowe Art Museum. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Art Forum, ArtNews, Cultured Magazine, New York Observer to name a few.
Her recent book, Elia Alba, The Supper Club, critically acclaimed by The New York Times, produced by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, published by Hirmer June 2019, brings together artists, scholars and performers of diasporic cultures, through photography, food and dialogue to examine race and culture in the United States. She is currently Artist-in-Residence at The Andrew Freeman Home in the Bronx and a recent recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman Award. She lives and works in the Bronx.
ABOUT YELAINE RODRIGUEZ
Bronx-born, Afro-Dominican American Yelaine Rodriguez received a BFA from Parsons the New School for Design (2013), and an MA from NYU (2021). Rodriguez conceptualizes wearable art and site-specific installations, drawing connections between black cultures in the Caribbean and the United States within fashion, video, and photography. Rodriguez's curatorial practice brings artists of the African Diaspora to the forefront curating shows like Afro Syncretic at NYU, Resistance, Roots, and Truth at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute and (under)REPRESENT(ed) at Parsons the New School for Design. Fellowships include The Bronx Museum AIM Program in (2020), The Latinx Project curatorial fellowship at NYU (2019), Wave Hill Van Lier Fellowship in (2018), and Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship from the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (2017). She exhibited at Longwood Art Gallery, American Museum of Natural History, Wave Hill, Rush Art Gallery, El Centro Cultural de España, and Centro León Biennial in the Dominican Republic. Currently teaches at Parsons the New School of Design and NYU.
Yelaine Rodriguez (left) and Elia Alba (right)
Yelaine Rodriguez:
The Supper Club dinner grew out of a necessity for a sanctuary place for black and brown people. How does that sentiment translate into your art photography?
Elia Alba:
The photographs evoke a variety of influences from art history and Afrofuturism to fashion photography and classical mythology to represent each person's unique artistic contributions and personality. It encourages us to think about race, gender, and the erotic embedded in the space of the portrait. The recognition of black and brown presence, culture, and identity in spaces of invisibility are the narratives that fuel black portraiture. The artists are archetypes that not only reflect something symbolic about that sitter but at the same time are biographical and metaphorical. While the dinners offered sanctuary spaces to discuss personal, political and cultural issues, the legacy lives on in the portraits.
Elia Alba
The Chairman of the Board (Derrick Adams), 2015
archival pigment print on photo rag baryta, unframed 20”x 30”
photographed at Maison Gerard, Greenwich Village
signed and numbered lower right verso, edition 3 of 5
Courtesy of Samsøñ, Boston and the Artist
Elia Alba
The Professor (Hank Willis Thomas), 2014
archival pigment print on photo rag baryta, unframed 20”x30”
photographed at Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn Heights
signed and numbered lower right verso, edition 3 of 5
Courtesy of Samsøñ, Boston and the Artist
Yelaine Rodriguez:
What is your approach and intent in archiving and documenting these black and brown cultural makers in a historical and personal context?
Elia Alba:
I wanted to expand the notions and methods by which we understand the black body and the black experience as something that is diasporic, intersectional and complex. For me, it is necessary to look at the portraits and the dinners together because it connects the multiplicity of experiences. It is important to look at the representations of subjects of color not only through the visual and discursive space of the photographs but through the conversation and gatherings at the dinners. The portraits and dinner conversations allow us to look beyond the visual for perceptions of blackness and at the same time it questions the idea that the essence and experience of blackness is fixed.
Yelaine Rodriguez
Ezili Dantor, Freedom and the African Diaspora
2018
Courtesy of the Artist.
Elia Alba:
Why is it important to consider afro syncretic religions in the understanding of contemporary diasporic cultures?
Yelaine Rodriguez:
Afro-syncretism reminds us that we are part of a collective and keeps us grounded. I view Afro-Syncretic religions as secret messages from our ancestors. Through their perseverance, they were able to protect some aspects of the traditions so that they may be passed down to future generations. Implementing Afro-Syncretism in my artistic and curatorial practices is my way of keeping traditions alive in contemporary diasporic cultures.
Yelaine Rodriguez
Ezili Dantor installation shot
2019
Courtesy of the Artist.
Elia Alba:
Your work draws from your personal history as an afro-Dominican woman; what can we learn from considering our shared African histories?
Yelaine Rodriguez:
I believe that there is nothing wrong about repping your country; the problem is when that act becomes nationalistic. When our similarities transcend our differences, and we begin to recognize that our issues are socially constructed, our collective is influential. By considering our shared African histories, we understand our kinship.
Yelaine Rodriguez
Ezili Dantor, Black Madonna
Solar plate etching print
2020
Courtesy of the Artist.