Metro: plataformaorganizada presents two solo exhibitions: Norma Vila Rivero’s “Desaforados” and Javier Bosques’ “Metonimia.” These two exhibitions opened on May 25 and will be on view at Metro until June 16, 2012. Founded in 2011, Metro: plataformaorganizada is a space that gathers local artists, with the common goal of creating a collective base to help promote, disseminate, and facilitate art projects. This creative space is located at 174 O’Neill Street (parallel to Roosevelt Avenue) in Hato Rey, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Norma Vila Rivero (San Juan, Puerto Rico; 1982) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work combines various media, including installation, photography, and other “interventions.” She holds a BA in visual arts from the University of the Sacred Heart and an MA in business administration from the University of Turabo, and is a co-founder of Metro: plataformaorganizada.

Her 2012 project “Desaforados” [which may be translated in many ways, including outrageous, excessive, extravagant, unbridled, out of control, or violated and transgressed, among many other meanings] includes objects, installations, and “ready-mades.” In this new project, by using highly symbolic objects, Vila Rivero comments on the division of power within the government, as well as abuse of power and its consequences. During all stages of humanity, people have suffered from abuse of authority by their rulers, which has caused given way to significant movements against abusive government actions; often, humans are protected against other humans, but not against the State itself, which may at times oppress with impunity, due to the coercive powers given to it by the community itself. “Desaforados” explores abuses of power, state protection for “insiders,” reaping profit, corruption, embezzlement, and the act of “getting away with it,” while escaping the appropriate penalties.

Javier Bosques (San Juan, Puerto Rico; 1985) lives in Los Angeles, California, where he is currently completing an MFA in film direction at UCLA. He holds a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

His show, “Metonimia” [Metonymy] comprises multiple objects, images, and videos, conceptualized by the artist and presented strategically in space, so that the pieces inform a dialogue of social/local domesticity. Thus, he presents a discussion of collective identity and aestheticization that subverts some of its autonomous elements. The exhibition begins with a series of sculptures made of welded steel bars. Used repetitively, this design is iconographic in its role as of placing limits on the vertical space of private property. It is also representative of an architectural decision that responds to a sense of collective insecurity. This ornamental division of space is a telling element that speaks of how the Puerto Rican community understands and experiences the concepts of property and home. The selection of pieces contains signifiers that reassign identity and infer functionality, leading the exhibition into subjective narratives, informed by the materials explored—in the realms of home and construction—and by the poetic aesthetics of the visual game.

To arrange visits to Metro, please call (787) 607-7151 or send an email to metroplataformaorganizada@gmail.com

For more information visit www.metroplataformaorganizada.com

For full description (in Spanish) see, http://www.conboca.org/2012/05/19/desaforados-de-norma-vila-rivero-y-metonimia-javier-bosques-en-metro/