The Young Lords were a Puerto Rican nationalist group of grassroots activists initially founded by reformed gang members in Chicago in 1968, with a New York branch founded the following year. The issues they took up, like racial inequality, housing, healthcare and police violence, continue to resonate. A trio of coordinated exhibitions opening in New York this summer, entitled ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York, explores the group’s activities and legacy, both political and artistic, in the city.
The show at the Bronx Museum of the Arts opened on 2 July is a comprehensive look at the group, which includes a re-creation of the Young Lords’ New York office in the museum’s lobby, thematic sections like “Revolution within the Revolution” (on women’s issues and the movement), posters by group members like Denise Oliver and works by contemporary artists like Shepard Fairey that draw on Young Lords themes and imagery. The most striking piece on show is Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s Archaeological Find # 21, The Aftermath (1961), a sculptural piece made from a destroyed sofa that resembles a giant heart, “his way of excavating his psyche” according to the exhibition’s co-curator Yasmin Ramírez, and a reference to the major problem of garbage piling up in underserved Puerto Rican neighbourhoods.
Sanitation became the first issue tackled by the Young Lords, in their Garbage Offensive. The group’s political initiatives form the central theme of the show opened on 22 July in East Harlem at El Museo del Barrio, which was founded by Raphael Montañez Ortiz in 1969. In addition to archival materials like copies of the group’s weekly newspaper Palante, photographs, buttons and posters, new specially commissioned works by Coco Lopez, JC Ienochan, Miguel Luciano and Shelleyne Rodriguez will be exhibited.
The third show opened at Loisaida, Inc. on the Lower East Side on 30 July and will examine the New York Young Lords’ founding and influence in this neighbourhood. Photographs by Hiram Maristany of the group’s founding event in Tompkins Square Park on 26 July, 1969, most of which have never been exhibited, will be a highlight. While the show will mainly feature archival material, the New York-based artist Adrián “Viajero” Román is in the process of creating an installation for the event, which he compares to a “giant altar”. “My father was friends with a lot of Young Lords…. I had an early understanding of them,” Viajero says. “I think subconsciously they influenced my work because of what they stood for.”
