14 Nov 2011

Round Trip NY: Isidro Blasco, Anton Cabaleiro, Blanca de la Torre, David Maroto, Bruno Le Mieux

Round Trip NY is a blog about Spanish art in New York that contains interviews with artists, curators, art managers, critics and other professionals devoted to the visual arts, whose work is in some manner related to New York City.

We are quite well settled in the twenty-first century. We have substituted almost entirely the former analog technology with its digital successor in this new era based on binary codes and pixels. We find a phenomenon, however, that continues to be present nowadays, in spite of the socio-cultural transformations that have taken place in the last years.  This phenomenon is foreign-artist emigration.

Why are artists and other art professionals still choosing NY as one of their main destinations? In contrast with reasons for emigrating in the past- political, economic, etc. - nowadays, the causes of this migratory movement are much more diffuse and imprecise.

What is the role of Spanish culture in NY nowadays? Where is it going? How is this situation affecting the creation and administration fields in the present, and what repercussions will it have in the future?

The new interviewees are the visual artists Isidro Blasco, Anton Cabaleiro and David Maroto, the curator Blanca de la Torre, at this moment associated curator at Artium Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo; and Bruno Le Mieux Ruibal, art critic correspondent in the US for the Spanish International Magazine Lapiz.



Isidro Blasco moved from Madrid to New York in 1996, to investigate at the libraries and archives of MoMA and Columbia University for his doctoral thesis in architecture. Blasco has received significant support from prestigious American institutions, such as grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition, his work has been exhibited at the Roger Smith Gallery and in the streets of New York, as part of the public art project Public Art Fund Project.

Antón Cabaleiro moved to the United States in 2006 to undertake a Master in Computer Art at the School of Visual Arts, with a grant from the Barrie de la Maza Foundation. Later on, he studied a Master in Landscape Design at Columbia University. The artist, who is now preparing for a stay at the ISCP (International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York), has recently participated in the Biennial of the Bronx Museum, being the only Spanish artist in the show. In addition, his work has been exhibited at various locations in New York, such as the Armory Show, PS1. Studio Visit MoMA, King Juan Carlos Center at New York University, MAD (Museum of Art and Design), Under the Bridge Festival (Dumbo, Brooklyn), Visual Arts Gallery, Times Square Alliance, The Drawing Center Viewing Program, Jen Beckman Gallery and the Anthology Film Archive, among others.

Bruno Le Mieux Ruibal moved to New York in 2004. He is the art critic correspondent for the Spanish International Magazine Lapiz.

Blanca de la Torre lived and worked as a curator in New York from 2006 to 2009. She currently works as an associated conservationist in the Artium Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo de Vitoria-Gasteiz.

David Maroto came to New York as a result of a residency he earned at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn (ISCP). Maroto's stay in New York has been sponsored by two organizations from Holland.