E-Conversation: Cultural Brokers in Puerto Rican Art
From the El Cuarto del Quenepón Archive — Originally published 2002
Introduction
In 2002, El Cuarto del Quenepón hosted a series of e-conversations—online discussions among artists, curators, and critics about pressing issues in Puerto Rican culture. This conversation addressed the role of “cultural brokers”: the curators, gallerists, critics, and academics who mediate between Puerto Rican artists and international art markets and institutions.
The participants included artists, curators from island and mainland institutions, and cultural critics. The conversation, conducted over email, has been edited for clarity.
The Conversation
Moderator: Let’s start with a basic question: What is a cultural broker, and why does this role matter for Puerto Rican art?
Participant A (Curator, San Juan): A cultural broker is anyone who helps translate artistic work across cultural boundaries—from the island to the mainland, from Spanish to English, from local contexts to international ones. This could be a curator selecting work for a biennial, a critic writing for a New York publication, or a gallerist connecting artists with collectors.
Participant B (Artist, New York/San Juan): The problem is that these brokers often have more power than the artists themselves. They decide what gets seen, what gets explained, and how it gets framed. A Puerto Rican artist can make work about their own experience, but if a mainland curator decides it’s “too local” or “not universal enough,” that work won’t travel.
Participant C (Academic, Chicago): This is the colonial condition of Puerto Rican art. We’re always being translated, always being explained to an outside audience. The broker decides which parts of our culture are legible, marketable, interesting to outsiders.
On Authenticity and Exoticism
Moderator: Several of you have mentioned the pressure to produce “authentic” Puerto Rican art. Can you say more about this?
Participant B: There’s a constant demand for work that looks Caribbean—bright colors, tropical imagery, folkloric references. If you make conceptual work, abstract work, work that doesn’t immediately signal “Puerto Rican-ness,” you’re often told you’re not authentic enough. But if you do engage those signifiers, you risk being seen as exotic, as producing art for tourist consumption.
Participant A: This is the double bind. Artists are supposed to be authentically Puerto Rican, but in a way that’s palatable to international audiences who have very specific expectations about what Caribbean art should look like.
Participant D (Critic, San Juan): And those expectations are often based on outdated ideas. People want Puerto Rican art to look like it did in the 1950s—the DIVEDCO aesthetic, social realism, bright colors. But artists have moved on. Puerto Rican art is as diverse, experimental, and contemporary as art anywhere else.
Alternative Models
Moderator: Are there alternative models? Ways of presenting Puerto Rican art that avoid these traps?
Participant C: Artist-run spaces on the island have been crucial. Spaces like M&M Proyectos, Area, and others create contexts where Puerto Rican artists can show work to Puerto Rican audiences first, without the mediation of outside institutions.
Participant A: The internet is also changing things. Artists can reach audiences directly, build their own platforms, tell their own stories. They don’t need a New York gallery to validate them.
Participant B: But let’s be honest—economic realities matter. Puerto Rican artists need to sell work, need institutional support, need access to resources that are concentrated in places like New York. Self-determination is important, but it doesn’t pay the rent.
Participant D: This is why we need Puerto Rican critics, Puerto Rican publications, Puerto Rican institutions with resources. We need brokers who understand the work from the inside, not just outsiders who parachute in for biennials.
Conclusion
Moderator: Any final thoughts?
Participant A: The role of the broker isn’t inherently bad—translation, connection, contextualization are all valuable. The problem is when brokers have too much power, when they substitute their judgment for artists’ intentions, when they flatten complexity for easy consumption.
Participant B: We need more Puerto Rican brokers. More curators, more critics, more people in positions of power who understand what we’re doing and can advocate for us in institutional spaces.
Participant C: And we need to keep having conversations like this one—examining our own assumptions, questioning how art moves through the world, imagining alternatives.
This e-conversation was part of El Cuarto del Quenepón’s “PR02” series examining Puerto Rican culture at the turn of the millennium.