Saturday, January 19, 2013, was the night that the South Bronx came home. Seis Del Sur opened their first ever exhibition as a collective at the Bronx Documentary Center. The opening night and subsequent 6 weeks of programming was record-breaking for these 6 Nuyorican photographers from the South Bronx. It was an event filled with, laughter, tears of both joy and sadness.
Now, 18 months later, join Seis Del Sur at The Bronx Musical Heritage Center this Friday July 25th as they launch their latest exhibition, this time showing contemporary work.
From Los Seis:
Following the groundbreaking show of 1980’s South Bronx at the Bronx Documentary Center, Seis Del Sur is back, this time with an exhibit of contemporary work. Join us for a collective follow up of our journeys through today’s New York and beyond, to Puerto Rico and Latin America. Opening July 25, 2014 at the Bronx Music Heritage Center, the exhibit will also feature several panels and artists’ talks. The show will be up at through September 6, 2014.
Featuring contemporary work from Los Seis, ranging from Cisco’s “Invisible Man” series and Franco’s Bolivian mining town where effigies warn would-robbers to Conzo’s hip-hop scenes and González’s portraits from his Side Street column in The New York Times. Also included is Flores’ images of various arts groups in the Bronx and Pagán’s showing life in El Barrio.
The show opens on the anniversary of the Unite States invasion of Puerto Rico. In commemoration, there will be one photo from each photographer engaging the island.
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INTRO TO PROGRAM:
Seis del Sur: Sin Límites is as much about a state of mind as it is a place. We came of age photographing devastation, though we were just as attuned to the quiet moments and steady rhythms that sustained us then. Just as our first show at the Bronx Documentary Center was a homecoming, this also resonates with some of our personal histories.
Edwin learned photography at the Hoe Avenue Boys and Girls Club, the same venue were Joe photographed many of the early concerts of the Legendary Cold Crush Brothers. David taught photography at CS 61, which lay several devastated blocks north of the BMHC.
Since then, we’ve grown up, moved around and seen the world. We went into journalism, labor activism, arts administration and film.
Through it all, we’ve kept taking pictures. And rather than let ourselves be defined by what others expect – either of us or our communities – we have turned our cameras to the things that fascinate us. But we still find our muse on the streets – even if those streets are far from the Bronx – whether it is music, art, the struggles and triumphs of daily life, or even a search for the invisible.
Since we’re opening on July 25 – the 116th anniversary of when United States troops landed in Puerto Rico – we have decided to mark that event in our own way: with a photo. In some, the flag is evident, as it stakes out and lifts up. It surrounds and outnumbers the American flag that flies over East 105 Street. It stands bravely in the night, like a sentinel over the emergency village that sprouted up under the Park Avenue tracks after a gas explosion destroyed two nearby apartment buildings. In others, a person embodies the Puerto Rican spirit, like the poet Pedro Pietri, or a self-portrait that places Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in Puerto Rico.
Forty years after we started venturing out into the streets of the South Bronx with cameras, we’ve seen a lot. But best of all, we’ve come back – as always – to share it. Here, in the Bronx.
Joe Conzo, Jr. Ricky Flores Ángel Franco
David Gonzalez Francisco Molina Reyes II Edwin Pagán
Bronx Musical Heritage Center is located at: 1303 Louis 9 Blvd, Bronx, NY 10459
