Philadelphia’s Taller Puertorriqueño 30th Anniversary.

Taller Puertorriqueño, a Puerto Rican arts center in Philadelphia, will commemorate its 30th anniversary with a new exhibit called Isla del Burén: The Taíno and their Predecessors in Puerto Rico. This is the first art exhibition of the Puerto Rican Taíno (The Taíno were the dominant culture in the Caribbean in pre-Columbian times) to be shown in North America. The installation runs from December 10, 2004, through April 20, 2005, and will be housed at Taller Puertorriqueño’s Galería Lorenzo Homar on 2721 North 5th Street in Philadelphia.

Exhibition Background

The decision to focus on the Puerto Rican Taíno archaeological material is an effort to recognize the roots and memories of Philadelphia’s Latino community. The artistic legacy of the Taíno provides a context for present day Puerto Rican and Caribbean artistic expression. This exhibition will trace some of the cultural influences of an ancient civilization that has molded today’s cultural and artistic practices in the Latino community.

The exhibition includes tangible artifacts from ball games which were important to the pre-Columbian people. The ball game and its surrounding mythology were central to community life as they reflected the Taíno concept of the universe and the perpetuation of the natural cycles of nature. Similarly, large, elaborately carved three-pointers made of stone, hallmarks of Puerto Rican Taíno art are an important component of the show. Elaborately decorated ceramics demonstrate the Taíno exploitation of the plasticity of wet clay and the addition of complex handles and detailed fine designs.

Isla del Burén is made up of a selection of approximately 100 archaeological pieces, including significant loans from:

— The Museo de Historia Antropología y Arte of the University of Puerto Rico

— The Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP), Ponce, Puerto Rico

— The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Phila, PA

The installation was coordinated by Anabelle Rodríguez, visual arts curator at Taller Puertorriqueño, and Guest Curator, Dicey Taylor, Ph.D., who previously curated Taíno exhibitions in 1997 and 2000 at El Museo del Barrio (EMB) in New York City.