INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3723,2,'2015-06-02 16:05:01','2015-06-02 20:05:01','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\n\nAs part of citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\n\nJosé Luis Cortés is a native Philadelphian whose known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 90’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of Gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\n\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\n\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\n\nby Rafael Damast\n\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\n\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\n\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\n\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\n\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\n\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibit and cycle are supported by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','En Blanco Y Negro: Gay & Boricua','','inherit','closed','closed','','3703-revision-v1','','','2015-06-02 16:05:01','2015-06-02 20:05:01','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\r\nAs part of citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\r\n\r\nJosé Luis Cortés is a native Philadelphian whose known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 90’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of Gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibit and cycle are supported by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3703,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/3703-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3724,2,'2015-06-02 16:24:34','2015-06-02 20:24:34','<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3517 size-large\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Gay-Latino-1024x394.png\" alt=\"Gay &amp; Latino Panel Discussion\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>When</strong>: June 20 @ 3PM to 5PM\n\n<strong>Where:</strong> Taller Puertorriqueño, 2721 N. 5<sup>th</sup> St\n\nAs part of <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\"><strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong></a>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present a panel discussion on important issues affecting the LGBTQ Latino community. The panel will examine, from different perspectives, their past, and the current and future paths. The topics addressed will include the discussions of the intersectionalities of insider/outsider, invisibility, homophobia, resilience, migration, ethnicity, race, class, and gender, the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the social and political organization of LGBTQ Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. This will be a public and open forum.\n\nPanel participants include: José Luis Cortés, artist; Elicia Gonzales, Executive Director of GALAEI; Erika Guadalupe Núñes, artist and community organizer; Emmanuel Coreano, a youth member at GALAEI; Bella,a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community; and Louie A. Ortiz from <a href=\"http://thegranvarones.com/\">The Gran Varones Project</a>.  David Acosta, AIDS activist, writer, cultural worker and current artistic director for <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/\">Casa de Duende</a>, will moderate the discussion.\n\nThis is part of the citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations in Philadelphia. For more information on the celebration go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nFor more information on the panel contact Rafael Damast at <a href=\"mailto:rdamast@tallerpr.org\">rdamast@tallerpr.org</a> or by phone at 215-426-3311.\n\n<strong>About the panelists</strong>\n\n<strong>David Acosta</strong> is an AIDS activist, poet writer, cultural worker and the Artistic Director for Casa De Duende. His writings have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He will be included in the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico to be published by University of Texas Press in September of 2015. He is the recipient of many awards for his long time-work on LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He was the founder and Executive Director of the GALAEI Project from 1987-1997. From 1997 to 2015 he was the Coordinator of HIV Prevention Programs for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office; he has stepped down in 2015 to focus on community arts and his own writing.\n\nValentina also known as <strong>Bella</strong>, has been a part of Galaei for 4 yrs. She is a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community. Bella has numerous dreams and goals - from starting a home for Trans identifying youth to opening a LGBTQ &amp; Ally Charter school in Philadelphia.\n\n<strong>Emmanuel Coreano</strong> is a native Philadelphian and published writer. Being a bisexual person of color, he faced many challenges, however with music, writing, and other creative outlets he found himself. Coreano is truly an artistic and creative person.\n\n<strong>José Luis Cortés</strong>’<strong>s</strong> work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country and as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia\n\n&nbsp;\n\nSince 2009<strong>, Elicia Gonzales</strong> has enthusiastically served as Executive Director for GALAEI: A queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization where she leads a team of dedicated, hard-working, and passionate individuals. Gonzales serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, on the Community Advisory Board for the UPENN Mental Health and AIDS Research Center, and on the Leadership Council for the National Latino AIDS Action Network. She has worked in the social justice field for more than 16 years in various capacities ranging from reproductive justice to queer Latino social justice. Gonzales moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to get a Masters degrees in Social Work and Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is originally from Denver, Colorado where all of her beloved family resides.\n\n<strong>Louie A. Ortiz</strong> is a facilitator who uses both his passion for working disenfranchised communities to promote team building and organizational development. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with influential nationally recognized agencies and has been a part of HIV prevention and youth development programming in Philadelphia. Ortiz understands first hand the impact of the intersecting oppressions of poverty, homophobia, AIDS phobia and racism. These experiences continue to inspire Ortiz to work with marginalized communities in Philadelphia.\n\nOrtiz is also a published spoken word artist and photographer. His current project, “The Gran Varones” is a documentary and photo essay highlighting the experiences of Latino Gay and Queer* Men in Philadelphia.\n\n<strong>Erika Guadalupe Núñez</strong> is a queer artist and activist who works with Migrant Power Movement, National Immigrant Youth Alliance, and Juntos focusing on topics on racial justice and immigrant rights. She came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a young child and was undocumented until she received her green card in 2013. Most recently, Núñez\'s part in the movement involved working on NIYA\'s \"Bring Them Home\" campaign where she helped ease the return of five people who were deported. She was also part of a civil disobedience action that ended a private prison contract between Immigration &amp; Custom\'s Enforcement and Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Her other work includes working on ending deportation cases, creating art for rallies and campaigns, and holding workshops for the community. Erika also serves on the board of Juntos and is a member of their LGBT Committee.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2572\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Andy &amp; Peco Logos\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />','Gay & Latino Panel','','inherit','closed','closed','','3685-revision-v1','','','2015-06-02 16:24:34','2015-06-02 20:24:34','<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3517 size-large\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Gay-Latino-1024x394.png\" alt=\"Gay &amp; Latino Panel Discussion\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>When</strong>: June 20 @ 3PM to 5PM\r\n\r\n<strong>Where:</strong> Taller Puertorriqueño, 2721 N. 5<sup>th</sup> St\r\n\r\nAs part of <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\"><strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong></a>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present a panel discussion on important issues affecting the LGBTQ Latino community. The panel will examine, from different perspectives, their past, and the current and future paths. The topics addressed will include the discussions of the intersectionalities of insider/outsider, invisibility, homophobia, resilience, migration, ethnicity, race, class, and gender, the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the social and political organization of LGBTQ Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. This will be a public and open forum.\r\n\r\nPanel participants include: José Luis Cortés, artist; Elicia Gonzales, Executive Director of GALAEI; Erika Guadalupe Núñes, artist and community organizer; Emmanuel Coreano, a youth member at GALAEI; Bella,a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community; and Louie A. Ortiz from <a href=\"http://thegranvarones.com/\">The Gran Varones Project</a>.  David Acosta, AIDS activist, writer, cultural worker and current artistic director for <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/\">Casa de Duende</a>, will moderate the discussion.\r\n\r\nThis is part of the citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations in Philadelphia. For more information on the celebration go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel contact Rafael Damast at <a href=\"mailto:rdamast@tallerpr.org\">rdamast@tallerpr.org</a> or by phone at 215-426-3311.\r\n\r\n<strong>About the panelists</strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>David Acosta</strong> is an AIDS activist, poet writer, cultural worker and the Artistic Director for Casa De Duende. His writings have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He will be included in the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico to be published by University of Texas Press in September of 2015. He is the recipient of many awards for his long time-work on LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He was the founder and Executive Director of the GALAEI Project from 1987-1997. From 1997 to 2015 he was the Coordinator of HIV Prevention Programs for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office; he has stepped down in 2015 to focus on community arts and his own writing.\r\n\r\nValentina also known as <strong>Bella</strong>, has been a part of Galaei for 4 yrs. She is a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community. Bella has numerous dreams and goals - from starting a home for Trans identifying youth to opening a LGBTQ &amp; Ally Charter school in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\n<strong>Emmanuel Coreano</strong> is a native Philadelphian and published writer. Being a bisexual person of color, he faced many challenges, however with music, writing, and other creative outlets he found himself. Coreano is truly an artistic and creative person.\r\n\r\n<strong>José Luis Cortés</strong>’<strong>s</strong> work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country and as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSince 2009<strong>, Elicia Gonzales</strong> has enthusiastically served as Executive Director for GALAEI: A queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization where she leads a team of dedicated, hard-working, and passionate individuals. Gonzales serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, on the Community Advisory Board for the UPENN Mental Health and AIDS Research Center, and on the Leadership Council for the National Latino AIDS Action Network. She has worked in the social justice field for more than 16 years in various capacities ranging from reproductive justice to queer Latino social justice. Gonzales moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to get a Masters degrees in Social Work and Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is originally from Denver, Colorado where all of her beloved family resides.\r\n\r\n<strong>Louie A. Ortiz</strong> is a facilitator who uses both his passion for working disenfranchised communities to promote team building and organizational development. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with influential nationally recognized agencies and has been a part of HIV prevention and youth development programming in Philadelphia. Ortiz understands first hand the impact of the intersecting oppressions of poverty, homophobia, AIDS phobia and racism. These experiences continue to inspire Ortiz to work with marginalized communities in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nOrtiz is also a published spoken word artist and photographer. His current project, “The Gran Varones” is a documentary and photo essay highlighting the experiences of Latino Gay and Queer* Men in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\n<strong>Erika Guadalupe Núñez</strong> is a queer artist and activist who works with Migrant Power Movement, National Immigrant Youth Alliance, and Juntos focusing on topics on racial justice and immigrant rights. She came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a young child and was undocumented until she received her green card in 2013. Most recently, Núñez\'s part in the movement involved working on NIYA\'s \"Bring Them Home\" campaign where she helped ease the return of five people who were deported. She was also part of a civil disobedience action that ended a private prison contract between Immigration &amp; Custom\'s Enforcement and Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Her other work includes working on ending deportation cases, creating art for rallies and campaigns, and holding workshops for the community. Erika also serves on the board of Juntos and is a member of their LGBT Committee.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2572\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Andy &amp; Peco Logos\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />',3685,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/3685-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3725,2,'2015-06-02 16:25:45','2015-06-02 20:25:45','<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3517 size-large\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Gay-Latino-1024x394.png\" alt=\"Gay &amp; Latino Panel Discussion\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>When</strong>: June 20 @ 3PM to 5PM\n\n<strong>Where:</strong> Taller Puertorriqueño, 2721 N. 5<sup>th</sup> St\n\nAs part of <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\"><strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong></a>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present a panel discussion on important issues affecting the LGBTQ Latino community. The panel will examine, from different perspectives, their past, and the current and future paths. The topics addressed will include the discussions of the intersectionalities of insider/outsider, invisibility, homophobia, resilience, migration, ethnicity, race, class, and gender, the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the social and political organization of LGBTQ Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. This will be a public and open forum.\n\nPanel participants include: José Luis Cortés, artist; Elicia Gonzales, Executive Director of GALAEI; Erika Guadalupe Núñes, artist and community organizer; Emmanuel Coreano, a youth member at GALAEI; Bella,a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community; and Louie A. Ortiz from <a href=\"http://thegranvarones.com/\">The Gran Varones Project</a>.  David Acosta, AIDS activist, writer, cultural worker and current artistic director for <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/\">Casa de Duende</a>, will moderate the discussion.\n\nThis is part of the citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations in Philadelphia. For more information on the celebration go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nFor more information on the panel contact Rafael Damast at <a href=\"mailto:rdamast@tallerpr.org\">rdamast@tallerpr.org</a> or by phone at 215-426-3311.\n\n<h3><strong>About the panelists</strong></h3>\n\n<strong>•David Acosta</strong> is an AIDS activist, poet writer, cultural worker and the Artistic Director for Casa De Duende. His writings have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He will be included in the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico to be published by University of Texas Press in September of 2015. He is the recipient of many awards for his long time-work on LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He was the founder and Executive Director of the GALAEI Project from 1987-1997. From 1997 to 2015 he was the Coordinator of HIV Prevention Programs for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office; he has stepped down in 2015 to focus on community arts and his own writing.\n\n•Valentina also known as <strong>Bella</strong>, has been a part of Galaei for 4 yrs. She is a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community. Bella has numerous dreams and goals - from starting a home for Trans identifying youth to opening a LGBTQ &amp; Ally Charter school in Philadelphia.\n\n<strong>•Emmanuel Coreano</strong> is a native Philadelphian and published writer. Being a bisexual person of color, he faced many challenges, however with music, writing, and other creative outlets he found himself. Coreano is truly an artistic and creative person.\n\n<strong>•José Luis Cortés</strong>’<strong>s</strong> work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country and as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia\n\n•Since 2009<strong>, Elicia Gonzales</strong> has enthusiastically served as Executive Director for GALAEI: A queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization where she leads a team of dedicated, hard-working, and passionate individuals. Gonzales serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, on the Community Advisory Board for the UPENN Mental Health and AIDS Research Center, and on the Leadership Council for the National Latino AIDS Action Network. She has worked in the social justice field for more than 16 years in various capacities ranging from reproductive justice to queer Latino social justice. Gonzales moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to get a Masters degrees in Social Work and Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is originally from Denver, Colorado where all of her beloved family resides.\n\n<strong>•Louie A. Ortiz</strong> is a facilitator who uses both his passion for working disenfranchised communities to promote team building and organizational development. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with influential nationally recognized agencies and has been a part of HIV prevention and youth development programming in Philadelphia. Ortiz understands first hand the impact of the intersecting oppressions of poverty, homophobia, AIDS phobia and racism. These experiences continue to inspire Ortiz to work with marginalized communities in Philadelphia.\n\nOrtiz is also a published spoken word artist and photographer. His current project, “The Gran Varones” is a documentary and photo essay highlighting the experiences of Latino Gay and Queer* Men in Philadelphia.\n\n<strong>•Erika Guadalupe Núñez</strong> is a queer artist and activist who works with Migrant Power Movement, National Immigrant Youth Alliance, and Juntos focusing on topics on racial justice and immigrant rights. She came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a young child and was undocumented until she received her green card in 2013. Most recently, Núñez\'s part in the movement involved working on NIYA\'s \"Bring Them Home\" campaign where she helped ease the return of five people who were deported. She was also part of a civil disobedience action that ended a private prison contract between Immigration &amp; Custom\'s Enforcement and Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Her other work includes working on ending deportation cases, creating art for rallies and campaigns, and holding workshops for the community. Erika also serves on the board of Juntos and is a member of their LGBT Committee.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2572\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Andy &amp; Peco Logos\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />','Gay & Latino Panel','','inherit','closed','closed','','3685-revision-v1','','','2015-06-02 16:25:45','2015-06-02 20:25:45','<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3517 size-large\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Gay-Latino-1024x394.png\" alt=\"Gay &amp; Latino Panel Discussion\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>When</strong>: June 20 @ 3PM to 5PM\r\n\r\n<strong>Where:</strong> Taller Puertorriqueño, 2721 N. 5<sup>th</sup> St\r\n\r\nAs part of <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\"><strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong></a>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present a panel discussion on important issues affecting the LGBTQ Latino community. The panel will examine, from different perspectives, their past, and the current and future paths. The topics addressed will include the discussions of the intersectionalities of insider/outsider, invisibility, homophobia, resilience, migration, ethnicity, race, class, and gender, the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the social and political organization of LGBTQ Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. This will be a public and open forum.\r\n\r\nPanel participants include: José Luis Cortés, artist; Elicia Gonzales, Executive Director of GALAEI; Erika Guadalupe Núñes, artist and community organizer; Emmanuel Coreano, a youth member at GALAEI; Bella,a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community; and Louie A. Ortiz from <a href=\"http://thegranvarones.com/\">The Gran Varones Project</a>.  David Acosta, AIDS activist, writer, cultural worker and current artistic director for <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/\">Casa de Duende</a>, will moderate the discussion.\r\n\r\nThis is part of the citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations in Philadelphia. For more information on the celebration go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel contact Rafael Damast at <a href=\"mailto:rdamast@tallerpr.org\">rdamast@tallerpr.org</a> or by phone at 215-426-3311.\r\n<h3><strong>About the panelists</strong></h3>\r\n<strong>•David Acosta</strong> is an AIDS activist, poet writer, cultural worker and the Artistic Director for Casa De Duende. His writings have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He will be included in the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico to be published by University of Texas Press in September of 2015. He is the recipient of many awards for his long time-work on LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He was the founder and Executive Director of the GALAEI Project from 1987-1997. From 1997 to 2015 he was the Coordinator of HIV Prevention Programs for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office; he has stepped down in 2015 to focus on community arts and his own writing.\r\n\r\n•Valentina also known as <strong>Bella</strong>, has been a part of Galaei for 4 yrs. She is a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community. Bella has numerous dreams and goals - from starting a home for Trans identifying youth to opening a LGBTQ &amp; Ally Charter school in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\n<strong>•Emmanuel Coreano</strong> is a native Philadelphian and published writer. Being a bisexual person of color, he faced many challenges, however with music, writing, and other creative outlets he found himself. Coreano is truly an artistic and creative person.\r\n\r\n<strong>•José Luis Cortés</strong>’<strong>s</strong> work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country and as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia\r\n\r\n•Since 2009<strong>, Elicia Gonzales</strong> has enthusiastically served as Executive Director for GALAEI: A queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization where she leads a team of dedicated, hard-working, and passionate individuals. Gonzales serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, on the Community Advisory Board for the UPENN Mental Health and AIDS Research Center, and on the Leadership Council for the National Latino AIDS Action Network. She has worked in the social justice field for more than 16 years in various capacities ranging from reproductive justice to queer Latino social justice. Gonzales moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to get a Masters degrees in Social Work and Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is originally from Denver, Colorado where all of her beloved family resides.\r\n\r\n<strong>•Louie A. Ortiz</strong> is a facilitator who uses both his passion for working disenfranchised communities to promote team building and organizational development. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with influential nationally recognized agencies and has been a part of HIV prevention and youth development programming in Philadelphia. Ortiz understands first hand the impact of the intersecting oppressions of poverty, homophobia, AIDS phobia and racism. These experiences continue to inspire Ortiz to work with marginalized communities in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nOrtiz is also a published spoken word artist and photographer. His current project, “The Gran Varones” is a documentary and photo essay highlighting the experiences of Latino Gay and Queer* Men in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\n<strong>•Erika Guadalupe Núñez</strong> is a queer artist and activist who works with Migrant Power Movement, National Immigrant Youth Alliance, and Juntos focusing on topics on racial justice and immigrant rights. She came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a young child and was undocumented until she received her green card in 2013. Most recently, Núñez\'s part in the movement involved working on NIYA\'s \"Bring Them Home\" campaign where she helped ease the return of five people who were deported. She was also part of a civil disobedience action that ended a private prison contract between Immigration &amp; Custom\'s Enforcement and Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Her other work includes working on ending deportation cases, creating art for rallies and campaigns, and holding workshops for the community. Erika also serves on the board of Juntos and is a member of their LGBT Committee.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2572\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Andy &amp; Peco Logos\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />',3685,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/3685-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3726,2,'2015-06-02 16:31:21','2015-06-02 20:31:21','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\n\nAs part of citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\n\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 90’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of Gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\n\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\n\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\n\nby Rafael Damast\n\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\n\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\n\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\n\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\n\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\n\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibit and cycle are supported by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','En Blanco Y Negro: Gay & Boricua','','inherit','closed','closed','','3703-revision-v1','','','2015-06-02 16:31:21','2015-06-02 20:31:21','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\r\nAs part of citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\r\n\r\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 90’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of Gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibit and cycle are supported by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3703,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/3703-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3727,2,'2015-06-03 09:17:15','2015-06-03 13:17:15','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\n\nAs part of a citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\n\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\n\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\n\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\n\nby Rafael Damast\n\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\n\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\n\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\n\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\n\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\n\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','En Blanco Y Negro: Gay & Boricua','','inherit','closed','closed','','3703-revision-v1','','','2015-06-03 09:17:15','2015-06-03 13:17:15','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\r\nAs part of a citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\r\n\r\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3703,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/03/3703-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3728,2,'2015-06-03 09:28:20','2015-06-03 13:28:20','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On view:  June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reception with artist</strong>: June 12 @ 5:30PM to 8PM</p>\n\nAs part of a citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\n\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\n\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\n\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\n\nby Rafael Damast\n\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\n\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\n\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\n\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\n\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\n\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','En Blanco Y Negro: Gay & Boricua','','inherit','closed','closed','','3703-revision-v1','','','2015-06-03 09:28:20','2015-06-03 13:28:20','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On view:  June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reception with artist</strong>: June 12 @ 5:30PM to 8PM</p>\r\nAs part of a citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\r\n\r\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3703,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/03/3703-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3729,2,'2015-06-03 10:05:00','2015-06-03 14:05:00','<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3517 size-large\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Gay-Latino-1024x394.png\" alt=\"Gay &amp; Latino Panel Discussion\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>When</strong>: June 20 @ 3PM to 5PM\n\n<strong>Where:</strong> Taller Puertorriqueño, 2721 N. 5<sup>th</sup> St\n\nAs part of <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\"><strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong></a>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present a panel discussion on important issues affecting the LGBTQ Latino community.\n\nThe panel will examine, from different perspectives, their past, and the current and future paths. The topics addressed will include the discussions of the intersectionalities of insider/outsider, invisibility, homophobia, resilience, migration, ethnicity, race, class, and gender, the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the social and political organization of LGBTQ Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. This will be a public and open forum.\n\nPanel participants include: José Luis Cortés, artist; Elicia Gonzales, Executive Director of GALAEI; Erika Guadalupe Núñes, artist and community organizer; Emmanuel Coreano, a youth member at GALAEI; Bella,a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community; and Louie A. Ortiz from <a href=\"http://thegranvarones.com/\">The Gran Varones Project</a>.  David Acosta, AIDS activist, writer, cultural worker and current artistic director for <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/\">Casa de Duende</a>, will moderate the discussion.\n\nThis is part of the citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations in Philadelphia. For more information on the celebration go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nFor more information on the panel contact Rafael Damast at <a href=\"mailto:rdamast@tallerpr.org\">rdamast@tallerpr.org</a> or by phone at 215-426-3311.\n\n<h3><strong>About the panelists</strong></h3>\n\n<strong>•David Acosta</strong> is an AIDS activist, poet writer, cultural worker and the Artistic Director for Casa De Duende. His writings have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He will be included in the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico to be published by University of Texas Press in September of 2015. He is the recipient of many awards for his long time-work on LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He was the founder and Executive Director of the GALAEI Project from 1987-1997. From 1997 to 2015 he was the Coordinator of HIV Prevention Programs for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office; he has stepped down in 2015 to focus on community arts and his own writing.\n\n•Valentina also known as <strong>Bella</strong>, has been a part of Galaei for 4 yrs. She is a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community. Bella has numerous dreams and goals - from starting a home for Trans identifying youth to opening a LGBTQ &amp; Ally Charter school in Philadelphia.\n\n<strong>•Emmanuel Coreano</strong> is a native Philadelphian and published writer. Being a bisexual person of color, he faced many challenges, however with music, writing, and other creative outlets he found himself. Coreano is truly an artistic and creative person.\n\n<strong>•José Luis Cortés</strong>’<strong>s</strong> work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country and as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia\n\n•Since 2009<strong>, Elicia Gonzales</strong> has enthusiastically served as Executive Director for GALAEI: A queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization where she leads a team of dedicated, hard-working, and passionate individuals. Gonzales serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, on the Community Advisory Board for the UPENN Mental Health and AIDS Research Center, and on the Leadership Council for the National Latino AIDS Action Network. She has worked in the social justice field for more than 16 years in various capacities ranging from reproductive justice to queer Latino social justice. Gonzales moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to get a Masters degrees in Social Work and Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is originally from Denver, Colorado where all of her beloved family resides.\n\n<strong>•Louie A. Ortiz</strong> is a facilitator who uses both his passion for working disenfranchised communities to promote team building and organizational development. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with influential nationally recognized agencies and has been a part of HIV prevention and youth development programming in Philadelphia. Ortiz understands first hand the impact of the intersecting oppressions of poverty, homophobia, AIDS phobia and racism. These experiences continue to inspire Ortiz to work with marginalized communities in Philadelphia.\n\nOrtiz is also a published spoken word artist and photographer. His current project, “The Gran Varones” is a documentary and photo essay highlighting the experiences of Latino Gay and Queer* Men in Philadelphia.\n\n<strong>•Erika Guadalupe Núñez</strong> is a queer artist and activist who works with Migrant Power Movement, National Immigrant Youth Alliance, and Juntos focusing on topics on racial justice and immigrant rights. She came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a young child and was undocumented until she received her green card in 2013. Most recently, Núñez\'s part in the movement involved working on NIYA\'s \"Bring Them Home\" campaign where she helped ease the return of five people who were deported. She was also part of a civil disobedience action that ended a private prison contract between Immigration &amp; Custom\'s Enforcement and Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Her other work includes working on ending deportation cases, creating art for rallies and campaigns, and holding workshops for the community. Erika also serves on the board of Juntos and is a member of their LGBT Committee.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2572\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Andy &amp; Peco Logos\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />','Gay & Latino Panel','','inherit','closed','closed','','3685-revision-v1','','','2015-06-03 10:05:00','2015-06-03 14:05:00','<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3517 size-large\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Gay-Latino-1024x394.png\" alt=\"Gay &amp; Latino Panel Discussion\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>When</strong>: June 20 @ 3PM to 5PM\r\n\r\n<strong>Where:</strong> Taller Puertorriqueño, 2721 N. 5<sup>th</sup> St\r\n\r\nAs part of <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\"><strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong></a>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present a panel discussion on important issues affecting the LGBTQ Latino community.\r\n\r\nThe panel will examine, from different perspectives, their past, and the current and future paths. The topics addressed will include the discussions of the intersectionalities of insider/outsider, invisibility, homophobia, resilience, migration, ethnicity, race, class, and gender, the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the social and political organization of LGBTQ Latinos in the United States and Puerto Rico. This will be a public and open forum.\r\n\r\nPanel participants include: José Luis Cortés, artist; Elicia Gonzales, Executive Director of GALAEI; Erika Guadalupe Núñes, artist and community organizer; Emmanuel Coreano, a youth member at GALAEI; Bella,a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community; and Louie A. Ortiz from <a href=\"http://thegranvarones.com/\">The Gran Varones Project</a>.  David Acosta, AIDS activist, writer, cultural worker and current artistic director for <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/\">Casa de Duende</a>, will moderate the discussion.\r\n\r\nThis is part of the citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations in Philadelphia. For more information on the celebration go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel contact Rafael Damast at <a href=\"mailto:rdamast@tallerpr.org\">rdamast@tallerpr.org</a> or by phone at 215-426-3311.\r\n<h3><strong>About the panelists</strong></h3>\r\n<strong>•David Acosta</strong> is an AIDS activist, poet writer, cultural worker and the Artistic Director for Casa De Duende. His writings have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990), The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He will be included in the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico to be published by University of Texas Press in September of 2015. He is the recipient of many awards for his long time-work on LGBT civil rights and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He was the founder and Executive Director of the GALAEI Project from 1987-1997. From 1997 to 2015 he was the Coordinator of HIV Prevention Programs for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office; he has stepped down in 2015 to focus on community arts and his own writing.\r\n\r\n•Valentina also known as <strong>Bella</strong>, has been a part of Galaei for 4 yrs. She is a trans* identifying youth who is passionate about the Queer community. Bella has numerous dreams and goals - from starting a home for Trans identifying youth to opening a LGBTQ &amp; Ally Charter school in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\n<strong>•Emmanuel Coreano</strong> is a native Philadelphian and published writer. Being a bisexual person of color, he faced many challenges, however with music, writing, and other creative outlets he found himself. Coreano is truly an artistic and creative person.\r\n\r\n<strong>•José Luis Cortés</strong>’<strong>s</strong> work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country and as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, and <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in VIAL, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia\r\n\r\n•Since 2009<strong>, Elicia Gonzales</strong> has enthusiastically served as Executive Director for GALAEI: A queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization where she leads a team of dedicated, hard-working, and passionate individuals. Gonzales serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, on the Community Advisory Board for the UPENN Mental Health and AIDS Research Center, and on the Leadership Council for the National Latino AIDS Action Network. She has worked in the social justice field for more than 16 years in various capacities ranging from reproductive justice to queer Latino social justice. Gonzales moved to Philadelphia in 2004 to get a Masters degrees in Social Work and Human Sexuality Education from Widener University. She is originally from Denver, Colorado where all of her beloved family resides.\r\n\r\n<strong>•Louie A. Ortiz</strong> is a facilitator who uses both his passion for working disenfranchised communities to promote team building and organizational development. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with influential nationally recognized agencies and has been a part of HIV prevention and youth development programming in Philadelphia. Ortiz understands first hand the impact of the intersecting oppressions of poverty, homophobia, AIDS phobia and racism. These experiences continue to inspire Ortiz to work with marginalized communities in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nOrtiz is also a published spoken word artist and photographer. His current project, “The Gran Varones” is a documentary and photo essay highlighting the experiences of Latino Gay and Queer* Men in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\n<strong>•Erika Guadalupe Núñez</strong> is a queer artist and activist who works with Migrant Power Movement, National Immigrant Youth Alliance, and Juntos focusing on topics on racial justice and immigrant rights. She came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a young child and was undocumented until she received her green card in 2013. Most recently, Núñez\'s part in the movement involved working on NIYA\'s \"Bring Them Home\" campaign where she helped ease the return of five people who were deported. She was also part of a civil disobedience action that ended a private prison contract between Immigration &amp; Custom\'s Enforcement and Montgomery County Correctional Facility. Her other work includes working on ending deportation cases, creating art for rallies and campaigns, and holding workshops for the community. Erika also serves on the board of Juntos and is a member of their LGBT Committee.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2572\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Andy &amp; Peco Logos\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />',3685,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/03/3685-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3731,0,'2015-06-04 03:08:35','2015-06-04 07:08:35','','Javier Espinoza','','abandoned','closed','closed','','javier-espinoza-2','','','2015-06-14 18:21:26','2015-06-14 22:21:26','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3731',0,'edd_payment','',1);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3732,2,'2015-06-04 13:19:39','2015-06-04 17:19:39','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On view:  June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reception with artist</strong>: June 12 @ 5:30PM to 8PM</p>\n\nAs part of the citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\n\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\n\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\n\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\n\nby Rafael Damast\n\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\n\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\n\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\n\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\n\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\n\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','En Blanco Y Negro: Gay & Boricua','','inherit','closed','closed','','3703-revision-v1','','','2015-06-04 13:19:39','2015-06-04 17:19:39','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On view:  June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reception with artist</strong>: June 12 @ 5:30PM to 8PM</p>\r\nAs part of the citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\r\n\r\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://joselcortes.blogspot.com/\">joselcortes.blogspot.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\n<strong>Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés </strong>\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3703,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/04/3703-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3734,641,'2015-06-05 10:48:49','2015-06-05 14:48:49','<div></div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">S</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">ummer Camp is an all-day, six-week summer camp for children ages 7–15 that offers bilingual visual and performing arts programming with a Puerto Rican/Latino focus. Each summer session focuses on particular themes relating to Latino culture, like the </span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><i>fiestas</i></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> and traditional celebrations that make us unique and proud to be Latinos.</span></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Each day, kids spend the morning in art classes, including ceramics, drawing and painting, theater, and dance, all taught</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8087\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Summer-Camp-15-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> by experienced and caring teaching artists. In the afternoons, they participate in fun recreational activities, like water wars.</span></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly cooked nutritious foods prepared by our Latino food specialist.</span></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">At the end of the summer, we host performances and present children’s work for parents and supporters to enjoy.</span></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div>\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Our affordable </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">s</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">ummer </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">c</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">amp runs for </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">six-</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">weeks starting the day </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">after </span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">July 4th,</span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\"> from Monday</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> through Friday, 8 am–3 pm. Aftercare is available until 5:30 pm for an additional fee. Fees are on a sliding scale and assessed by need. Funding for low-income families is available.</span></div>\n</div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div>\n<div><span class=\"ace-all-bold-hthree\"><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b>Starting right after July 4</b></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b><sup>th</sup></b></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b> and running for six weeks to mid-August</b></span></span></div>\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Monday through Friday, 8 am–3 pm</span></div>\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">(Aftercare available)</span></div>\n<div></div>\n</div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Camp takes place in El Corazón Cultural Center, 2600 N. 5</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><sup>th</sup></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19133.</span></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Taller is a CCIS provider.</span></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at </span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b>215-423-6320</b></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> for more information and to register your children.</span></div>','Summer Camp','','publish','closed','closed','','summer-camp','','','2017-12-06 11:56:45','2017-12-06 16:56:45','<div></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">S</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">ummer Camp is an all-day, six-week summer camp for children ages 7–15 that offers bilingual visual and performing arts programming with a Puerto Rican/Latino focus. Each summer session focuses on particular themes relating to Latino culture, like the </span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><i>fiestas</i></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> and traditional celebrations that make us unique and proud to be Latinos.</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Each day, kids spend the morning in art classes, including ceramics, drawing and painting, theater, and dance, all taught</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8087\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Summer-Camp-15-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> by experienced and caring teaching artists. In the afternoons, they participate in fun recreational activities, like water wars.</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly cooked nutritious foods prepared by our Latino food specialist.</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">At the end of the summer, we host performances and present children’s work for parents and supporters to enjoy.</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Our affordable </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">s</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">ummer </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">c</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">amp runs for </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">six-</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">weeks starting the day </span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\">after </span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">July 4th,</span><span class=\" author-d-4z65zz66zl57z75zyiz66zfr2fz87zwz89znuiz88zis4z67zprz77z2z86zkuz81z5gm9z66zz88zvz85zz68zz75zz85zz84z0z69zz65zu\"> from Monday</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> through Friday, 8 am–3 pm. Aftercare is available until 5:30 pm for an additional fee. Fees are on a sliding scale and assessed by need. Funding for low-income families is available.</span></div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div><span class=\"ace-all-bold-hthree\"><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b>Starting right after July 4</b></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b><sup>th</sup></b></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b> and running for six weeks to mid-August</b></span></span></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Monday through Friday, 8 am–3 pm</span></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">(Aftercare available)</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n</div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Camp takes place in El Corazón Cultural Center, 2600 N. 5</span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><sup>th</sup></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19133.</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Taller is a CCIS provider.</span></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\">Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at </span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"><b>215-423-6320</b></span><span class=\" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90z956rz75zqz87zz65zdk4ukgz81zi8oz84z3tsz86zz122zz66zz65zz71zcsz65zz75z\"> for more information and to register your children.</span></div>',24,'http://tallerpr.org/?page_id=3734',0,'page','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3735,641,'2015-06-04 16:51:07','2015-06-04 20:51:07','','','','inherit','closed','closed','','2013-07-26-13-41-51-copy','','','2015-06-04 16:51:23','2015-06-04 20:51:23','',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-13.41.51-copy.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3736,641,'2015-06-04 16:51:40','2015-06-04 20:51:40','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\n\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-13.41.51-copy.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3735\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-13.41.51-copy-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\n\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\n\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. <strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','3734-revision-v1','','','2015-06-04 16:51:40','2015-06-04 20:51:40','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-13.41.51-copy.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3735\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-13.41.51-copy-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\r\n\r\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. <strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/04/3734-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3737,641,'2015-06-04 16:53:44','2015-06-04 20:53:44','','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','summer-camp-slider-2015','','','2016-05-27 09:59:21','2016-05-27 13:59:21','',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Summer-Camp-Slider-2015.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3741,641,'2015-06-04 17:01:23','2015-06-04 21:01:23','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\n\nThrough mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\n\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\n\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. <strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','3734-revision-v1','','','2015-06-04 17:01:23','2015-06-04 21:01:23','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\r\n\r\nThrough mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\r\n\r\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. <strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/04/3734-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3742,641,'2015-06-05 10:30:22','2015-06-05 14:30:22','','','','inherit','closed','closed','','2013-07-26-11-25-04','','','2015-06-05 10:32:15','2015-06-05 14:32:15','',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3743,641,'2015-06-05 10:32:20','2015-06-05 14:32:20','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\n\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\n\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\n\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. <strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','3734-revision-v1','','','2015-06-05 10:32:20','2015-06-05 14:32:20','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\r\n\r\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. <strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/05/3734-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3744,641,'2015-06-05 10:38:50','2015-06-05 14:38:50','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\n\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\n\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\n\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. Camp is at our Education Building, 2557-59 N. 5th St. (5th and Huntingdon), Philadelphia, PA  19133.\n\n<strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','3734-revision-v1','','','2015-06-05 10:38:50','2015-06-05 14:38:50','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\r\n\r\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. Camp is at our Education Building, 2557-59 N. 5th St. (5th and Huntingdon), Philadelphia, PA  19133.\r\n\r\n<strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/05/3734-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3745,641,'2015-06-05 10:46:53','2015-06-05 14:46:53','','','','inherit','closed','closed','','dsc05900','','','2015-06-05 10:47:30','2015-06-05 14:47:30','',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3746,641,'2015-06-05 10:47:44','2015-06-05 14:47:44','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\n\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\n\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\n\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3745\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Kids in Art Class\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Our affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. Camp is at our Education Building, 2557-59 N. 5th St. (5th and Huntingdon), Philadelphia, PA  19133.\n\n<strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','3734-revision-v1','','','2015-06-05 10:47:44','2015-06-05 14:47:44','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents and supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3745\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Kids in Art Class\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>Our affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. Camp is at our Education Building, 2557-59 N. 5th St. (5th and Huntingdon), Philadelphia, PA  19133.\r\n\r\n<strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/05/3734-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3747,641,'2015-06-05 10:48:16','2015-06-05 14:48:16','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\n\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\n\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents a<img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3745\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Kids in Art Class\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" />nd supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\n\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. Camp is at our Education Building, 2557-59 N. 5th St. (5th and Huntingdon), Philadelphia, PA  19133.\n\n<strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.','Summer Camp','','inherit','closed','closed','','3734-revision-v1','','','2015-06-05 10:48:16','2015-06-05 14:48:16','Your child’s education doesn’t end when school lets out for summer break. Our fun, lively arts-based Summer Camp embraces the fact that children grow, learn and develop <strong>every</strong> day of the year.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3742\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2013-07-26-11.25.04-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Kids playing outside\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" /></a>Through mornings of visual- and performing-arts classes and afternoons of field trips, swimming, playing in the park, and other activities, your child will enjoy self-expression, new experiences, socialization, and recreation. Arts classes and recreational activities are led by caring, positive Teaching Artists and Camp Counselors. Camp also includes breakfast, snacks, and boxed lunches supplemented by freshly-cooked nutritious foods prepared by our food specialist.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the summer, the Camp hosts a culminating performance and presentation of participants’ work for parents a<img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3745\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/DSC05900-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Kids in Art Class\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" />nd supporters to enjoy. We also hold a special month-long exhibition of participants’ artwork in our Lorenzo Homar Gallery.\r\n\r\nOur affordable six-week Summer Camp runs July 6th through August 14th, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Aftercare is available until 6:00 p.m. for an additional fee. Low-income opportunities are also available. Summer Camp is for children ages 7-15. Camp is at our Education Building, 2557-59 N. 5th St. (5th and Huntingdon), Philadelphia, PA  19133.\r\n\r\n<strong>Space is limited- enroll today!</strong> Call Adela Rivera-Rodriguez at <strong>215-423-6320</strong> to register and for more information.',3734,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/05/3734-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3748,641,'2015-06-05 10:50:16','2015-06-05 14:50:16','','Summer Camp Slider 2015','','inherit','closed','closed','','summer-camp-slider-2015-2','','','2016-12-20 09:20:42','2016-12-20 14:20:42','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Summer-Camp-Slider-20151.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3749,641,'2015-06-05 11:49:43','2015-06-05 15:49:43',' ','','','publish','closed','closed','','3749','','','2017-07-21 15:31:38','2017-07-21 19:31:38','',24,'http://tallerpr.org/?p=3749',6,'nav_menu_item','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3750,0,'2015-06-05 13:41:22','2015-06-05 17:41:22','','Paola Pinedo','','abandoned','closed','closed','','paola-pinedo-8','','','2015-06-14 18:21:26','2015-06-14 22:21:26','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3750',0,'edd_payment','',1);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3751,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','','Paola Pinedo','','publish','closed','closed','','paola-pinedo-5','','','2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3751',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3752,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3752','','','2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3752',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3753,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3753','','','2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3753',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3754,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3754','','','2015-06-05 13:46:05','2015-06-05 17:46:05','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3754',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3755,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','','3751 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3751-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3755',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3756,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','','3751 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3751-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3756',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3757,0,'2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','','3751 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 3','','publish','closed','closed','','3751-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-3','','','2015-06-05 13:46:59','2015-06-05 17:46:59','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3757',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3758,0,'2015-06-05 15:13:30','2015-06-05 19:13:30','','Javier Espinoza','','publish','closed','closed','','javier-espinoza','','','2015-06-05 15:17:18','2015-06-05 19:17:18','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3758',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3759,0,'2015-06-05 15:16:04','2015-06-05 19:16:04','','Jose Romero','','publish','closed','closed','','jose-romero','','','2015-06-05 15:29:54','2015-06-05 19:29:54','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3759',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3760,0,'2015-06-05 15:13:30','2015-06-05 19:13:30','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3760','','','2015-06-05 15:13:30','2015-06-05 19:13:30','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3760',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3761,0,'2015-06-05 15:13:30','2015-06-05 19:13:30','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3761','','','2015-06-05 15:13:30','2015-06-05 19:13:30','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3761',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3762,0,'2015-06-05 15:17:18','2015-06-05 19:17:18','','3758 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3758-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 15:17:18','2015-06-05 19:17:18','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3762',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3763,0,'2015-06-05 15:17:18','2015-06-05 19:17:18','','3758 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3758-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-05 15:17:18','2015-06-05 19:17:18','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3763',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3764,0,'2015-06-05 15:17:27','2015-06-05 19:17:27','','Paola Pinedo','','publish','closed','closed','','paola-pinedo-6','','','2015-06-05 15:19:44','2015-06-05 19:19:44','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3764',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3765,0,'2015-06-05 15:17:27','2015-06-05 19:17:27','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3765','','','2015-06-05 15:17:27','2015-06-05 19:17:27','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3765',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3766,0,'2015-06-05 15:17:27','2015-06-05 19:17:27','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3766','','','2015-06-05 15:17:27','2015-06-05 19:17:27','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3766',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3767,0,'2015-06-05 15:19:44','2015-06-05 19:19:44','','3764 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3764-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 15:19:44','2015-06-05 19:19:44','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3767',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3768,0,'2015-06-05 15:19:44','2015-06-05 19:19:44','','3764 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3764-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-05 15:19:44','2015-06-05 19:19:44','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3768',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3769,0,'2015-06-05 15:16:04','2015-06-05 19:16:04','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3769','','','2015-06-05 15:16:04','2015-06-05 19:16:04','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3769',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3770,0,'2015-06-05 15:16:04','2015-06-05 19:16:04','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3770','','','2015-06-05 15:16:04','2015-06-05 19:16:04','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3770',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3771,0,'2015-06-05 15:29:54','2015-06-05 19:29:54','','3759 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3759-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 15:29:54','2015-06-05 19:29:54','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3771',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3772,0,'2015-06-05 15:29:54','2015-06-05 19:29:54','','3759 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3759-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-05 15:29:54','2015-06-05 19:29:54','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3772',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3773,0,'2015-06-05 15:40:08','2015-06-05 19:40:08','','Paola Pinedo','','publish','closed','closed','','paola-pinedo-7','','','2015-06-05 15:41:46','2015-06-05 19:41:46','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3773',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3774,0,'2015-06-05 15:40:08','2015-06-05 19:40:08','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3774','','','2015-06-05 15:40:08','2015-06-05 19:40:08','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3774',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3775,0,'2015-06-05 15:41:47','2015-06-05 19:41:47','','3773 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3773-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 15:41:47','2015-06-05 19:41:47','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3775',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3776,0,'2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','','Maria Negron','','publish','closed','closed','','maria-negron','','','2015-06-05 22:08:39','2015-06-06 02:08:39','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3776',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3777,0,'2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3777','','','2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3777',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3778,0,'2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3778','','','2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3778',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3779,0,'2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3779','','','2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3779',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3780,0,'2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3780','','','2015-06-05 22:04:36','2015-06-06 02:04:36','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3780',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3781,0,'2015-06-05 22:08:39','2015-06-06 02:08:39','','3776 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3776-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 22:08:39','2015-06-06 02:08:39','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3781',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3782,0,'2015-06-05 22:08:40','2015-06-06 02:08:40','','3776 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3776-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-05 22:08:40','2015-06-06 02:08:40','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3782',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3783,0,'2015-06-05 22:08:40','2015-06-06 02:08:40','','3776 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 3','','publish','closed','closed','','3776-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-3','','','2015-06-05 22:08:40','2015-06-06 02:08:40','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3783',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3784,0,'2015-06-05 22:08:40','2015-06-06 02:08:40','','3776 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 4','','publish','closed','closed','','3776-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-4','','','2015-06-05 22:08:40','2015-06-06 02:08:40','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3784',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3785,0,'2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','','Maria Negron','','publish','closed','closed','','maria-negron-2','','','2015-06-05 22:20:10','2015-06-06 02:20:10','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3785',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3786,0,'2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3786','','','2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3786',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3787,0,'2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3787','','','2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3787',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3788,0,'2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3788','','','2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3788',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3789,0,'2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3789','','','2015-06-05 22:15:52','2015-06-06 02:15:52','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3789',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3790,0,'2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','','3785 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3785-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3790',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3791,0,'2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','','3785 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3785-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3791',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3792,0,'2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','','3785 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 3','','publish','closed','closed','','3785-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-3','','','2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3792',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3793,0,'2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','','3785 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 4','','publish','closed','closed','','3785-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-4','','','2015-06-05 22:20:11','2015-06-06 02:20:11','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3793',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3795,2,'2015-06-12 11:48:44','2015-06-12 15:48:44','&nbsp;\n\nDirections to take the 47 bus to Taller are <a title=\"Bus directions.\" href=\"http://goo.gl/qPocNR\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<h2 style=\"-webkit-transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out; background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: \'Helvetica Neue\', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; line-height: 32px; margin: 10px 0px; text-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px; transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out;\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1349\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Taller-Building-Circle-150x150.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Bulding\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" />Taller Puertorriqueño</span></h2>\n\n<div><strong>Gift Shop, Gallery, La Finca Café, and Administrative Offices</strong></div>\n\n<div>Get Google Map directions &gt;&gt; <a title=\"Taller\'s Admin Building\" href=\"https://www.google.com/maps?t=m&amp;sll=39.9903454,-75.1402954&amp;sspn=0.0063129,0.0109864&amp;q=2721+N+5th+St,+Philadelphia,+PA+19133&amp;output=classic\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\n2721 North 5th Street\nPhiladelphia, PA 19133\nPhone (215) 426-3311\nFax (215) 426-5682</div>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>HOURS:</strong></span></div>\n\nMonday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.\nSaturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.\nClosed daily 12 noon to 1 p.m. and on Sundays\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div></div>\n\n<div>\n<h2 style=\"-webkit-transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out; background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: \'Helvetica Neue\', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; line-height: 32px; margin: 10px 0px; text-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px; transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out;\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1351\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ed.-Building-Circle-150x150.png\" alt=\"Education Building\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" />Education Building</span></h2>\n<span style=\"color: #0000ee;\"><strong style=\"color: #5a5a5a;\">and Roberto P. Hernández Theater</strong></span>\nGet Google Map directions &gt;&gt;  <a href=\"https://goo.gl/maps/ps2zP\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\nLearn more about the program <a title=\"Education\" href=\"http://tallerpr.org/education/\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\n2557 North 5th Street\nPhiladelphia, PA 19133\nPhone (215) 423-6320\nFax (215) 423-6248\n\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>HOURS:</strong></span>\nMonday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.\nClosed Saturday and Sunday\n\n&nbsp;\n\n</div>\n\n<h4><strong>We can also be found through the web on these sites</strong></h4>\n\n<h4>  <a title=\"Yelp\" href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/taller-puertorriqueno-inc-philadelphia-2\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Yelp-Logo1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/taller-puertorriqueno-inc-philadelphia-2\" width=\"54\" height=\"54\" /></a>  <a title=\"Taller Puertorriqueño\'s Events Pages\" href=\"http://tallerpr.eventbrite.com\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Eventbrite-Logo-300x101.jpeg\" alt=\"http://tallerpr.eventbrite.com\" width=\"108\" height=\"37\" /></a>  <a title=\"Gift Shop Online Store\" href=\"https://squareup.com/market/taller-puertorriqueno-inc\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Square_Logo_Portrait-150x150.png\" alt=\"Square_Logo_Portrait\" width=\"54\" height=\"54\" /></a>      <a title=\"Foursquare\" href=\"https://foursquare.com/tallerpr\" target=\"_blank\"><img class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1406\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/foursquare-logo.png\" alt=\"foursquare-logo\" width=\"111\" height=\"30\" /></a>  <a href=\"http://instagram.com/tallerpr2721\">  </a></h4>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<h4><strong>Staff Recommendations for Lunch around Taller:</strong></h4>\n\n<strong>La Finca Café</strong>, 2721 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 200-4202</em>\n\n<a href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-bohio-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>El Bohio</strong></a>,<strong> </strong>2746 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 425-5991</em>\n\n<a href=\"http://www.tierracolombianarestaurant.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Tierra Colombiana</strong></a>, 4535 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19140  <em>(215) 324-6086</em>\n\n<a title=\"Taqueria la Raza\" href=\"http:/www.yelp.com/biz/taqueria-la-raza-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Taqueria La Raza</strong></a>, 227 W. Allegheny Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 291-2941</em>\n\n<a title=\"Buzz Café\" href=\"http://www.buzzcafephilly.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Buzz Café</strong></a>, 1800 N. Howard St., Philadelphia, PA 19122  <em>(267) 455-0498</em>\n\n<strong>Jr. Grocery Store</strong>, 430 Huntingdon St. (across from Fairhill Park)  <em>(215) 739-0716</em>\n\n<a title=\"Shinning Star\" href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/shining-star-restaurant-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Shining Star</strong></a>, 2460 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 423-8506</em>\n\n<a title=\"Vivaldi Restaurant\" href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/vivaldi-restaurant-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Vivaldi Restaurant</strong></a>, 2959 N 5th S., <span style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Philadelphia</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">PA</span> <span style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">1913<span style=\"color: #333333;\">3 <em>(215) 291-9388</em></span></span>','Visit Us','','inherit','closed','closed','','33-revision-v1','','','2015-06-12 11:48:44','2015-06-12 15:48:44','&nbsp;\r\n\r\nDirections to take the 47 bus to Taller are <a title=\"Bus directions.\" href=\"http://goo.gl/qPocNR\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h2 style=\"-webkit-transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out; background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: \'Helvetica Neue\', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; line-height: 32px; margin: 10px 0px; text-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px; transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out;\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1349\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Taller-Building-Circle-150x150.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Bulding\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" />Taller Puertorriqueño</span></h2>\r\n<div><strong>Gift Shop, Gallery, La Finca Café, and Administrative Offices</strong></div>\r\n<div>Get Google Map directions &gt;&gt; <a title=\"Taller\'s Admin Building\" href=\"https://www.google.com/maps?t=m&amp;sll=39.9903454,-75.1402954&amp;sspn=0.0063129,0.0109864&amp;q=2721+N+5th+St,+Philadelphia,+PA+19133&amp;output=classic\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\r\n2721 North 5th Street\r\nPhiladelphia, PA 19133\r\nPhone (215) 426-3311\r\nFax (215) 426-5682</div>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>HOURS:</strong></span></div>\r\nMonday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.\r\nSaturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.\r\nClosed daily 12 noon to 1 p.m. and on Sundays\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div>\r\n<h2 style=\"-webkit-transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out; background-color: #fafafa; color: #5a5a5a; font-family: \'Helvetica Neue\', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; line-height: 32px; margin: 10px 0px; text-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px; transition: font-size 0.5s ease-in-out, left 0.7s ease-in-out, right 0.7s ease-in-out;\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1351\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ed.-Building-Circle-150x150.png\" alt=\"Education Building\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" />Education Building</span></h2>\r\n<span style=\"color: #0000ee;\"><strong style=\"color: #5a5a5a;\">and Roberto P. Hernández Theater</strong></span>\r\nGet Google Map directions &gt;&gt;  <a href=\"https://goo.gl/maps/ps2zP\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\r\nLearn more about the program <a title=\"Education\" href=\"http://tallerpr.org/education/\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\r\n2557 North 5th Street\r\nPhiladelphia, PA 19133\r\nPhone (215) 423-6320\r\nFax (215) 423-6248\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>HOURS:</strong></span>\r\nMonday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.\r\nClosed Saturday and Sunday\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<h4><strong>We can also be found through the web on these sites</strong></h4>\r\n<h4>  <a title=\"Yelp\" href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/taller-puertorriqueno-inc-philadelphia-2\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Yelp-Logo1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/taller-puertorriqueno-inc-philadelphia-2\" width=\"54\" height=\"54\" /></a>  <a title=\"Taller Puertorriqueño\'s Events Pages\" href=\"http://tallerpr.eventbrite.com\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Eventbrite-Logo-300x101.jpeg\" alt=\"http://tallerpr.eventbrite.com\" width=\"108\" height=\"37\" /></a>  <a title=\"Gift Shop Online Store\" href=\"https://squareup.com/market/taller-puertorriqueno-inc\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Square_Logo_Portrait-150x150.png\" alt=\"Square_Logo_Portrait\" width=\"54\" height=\"54\" /></a>      <a title=\"Foursquare\" href=\"https://foursquare.com/tallerpr\" target=\"_blank\"><img class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1406\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/foursquare-logo.png\" alt=\"foursquare-logo\" width=\"111\" height=\"30\" /></a>  <a href=\"http://instagram.com/tallerpr2721\">  </a></h4>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h4><strong>Staff Recommendations for Lunch around Taller:</strong></h4>\r\n<strong>La Finca Café</strong>, 2721 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 200-4202</em>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-bohio-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>El Bohio</strong></a>,<strong> </strong>2746 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 425-5991</em>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.tierracolombianarestaurant.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Tierra Colombiana</strong></a>, 4535 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19140  <em>(215) 324-6086</em>\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Taqueria la Raza\" href=\"http:/www.yelp.com/biz/taqueria-la-raza-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Taqueria La Raza</strong></a>, 227 W. Allegheny Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 291-2941</em>\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Buzz Café\" href=\"http://www.buzzcafephilly.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Buzz Café</strong></a>, 1800 N. Howard St., Philadelphia, PA 19122  <em>(267) 455-0498</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>Jr. Grocery Store</strong>, 430 Huntingdon St. (across from Fairhill Park)  <em>(215) 739-0716</em>\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Shinning Star\" href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/shining-star-restaurant-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Shining Star</strong></a>, 2460 N. 5th St., Philadelphia, PA 19133  <em>(215) 423-8506</em>\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Vivaldi Restaurant\" href=\"http://www.yelp.com/biz/vivaldi-restaurant-philadelphia\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Vivaldi Restaurant</strong></a>, 2959 N 5th S., <span style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Philadelphia</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">PA</span> <span style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">1913<span style=\"color: #333333;\">3 <em>(215) 291-9388</em></span></span>',33,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/12/33-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3796,2,'2015-06-12 12:01:06','2015-06-12 16:01:06','<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3818\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Eros-1-En-Blanco-Slider-1024x401.png\" alt=\"Eros 1 En Blanco Slider\" width=\"1024\" height=\"401\" /></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\n\nEssay by  <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/David-Acosta\" target=\"_blank\">David Acosta</a>\n\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\n\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\n\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\n\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\n\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3827\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"239\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3827 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Jose-Luis-Cortes-Photograph-Scan-2015-239x300.jpg\" alt=\"Old Sex District\" width=\"239\" height=\"300\" /> Old Sex District NYC 1997, Photograph of Time Square, NY[/caption]\n\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3813\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3813 size-medium\" title=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-11-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /> Eros 1 (1999) Acrylic on newsprint[/caption]\n\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3814\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"192\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3814 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_29_28_Pro-e1434636975422-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint \" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" /> For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in F<em>or Those Who Tired of Glory and Richess, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3816\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"174\"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-3816\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_34_17_Pro-174x300.jpg\" alt=\"Christies  (2010)\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" /> Christies (2010)<br />Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as <em>Latin Beercan</em>, or in <em>Christie</em>’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\" target=\"_blank\">En Blanco Y Negro</a>, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\n\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\n\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\n\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\n\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\n\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\n\n<em> </em>\n\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Impermanence (On the Work of José Luis Cortés)','','publish','closed','closed','','impermanence-on-the-work-of-jose-luis-cortes','','','2017-01-18 08:33:19','2017-01-18 13:33:19','<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3818\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Eros-1-En-Blanco-Slider-1024x401.png\" alt=\"Eros 1 En Blanco Slider\" width=\"1024\" height=\"401\" /></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\n\nEssay by  <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/David-Acosta\" target=\"_blank\">David Acosta</a>\n\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\n\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\n\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\n\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\n\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3827\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"239\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3827 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Jose-Luis-Cortes-Photograph-Scan-2015-239x300.jpg\" alt=\"Old Sex District\" width=\"239\" height=\"300\" /> Old Sex District NYC 1997, Photograph of Time Square, NY[/caption]\n\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3813\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3813 size-medium\" title=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-11-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /> Eros 1 (1999) Acrylic on newsprint[/caption]\n\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3814\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"192\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3814 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_29_28_Pro-e1434636975422-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint \" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" /> For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in F<em>or Those Who Tired of Glory and Richess, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3816\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"174\"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-3816\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_34_17_Pro-174x300.jpg\" alt=\"Christies  (2010)\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" /> Christies (2010)<br />Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as <em>Latin Beercan</em>, or in <em>Christie</em>’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\" target=\"_blank\">En Blanco Y Negro</a>, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\n\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\n\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\n\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\n\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\n\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\n\n<em> </em>\n\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?p=3796',0,'post','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3797,2,'2015-06-12 12:01:06','2015-06-12 16:01:06','<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Impermanence</h2>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">(On the Work of José Luis Cortés)</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"> by David Acosta</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\n\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\n\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities. In his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in <em>for those who tired of glory and richness, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as Latin Beer Can in a Pack, or in Christie’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show en Blanco Y Negro, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\n\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\n\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\n\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\n\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\n\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\n\n<em> </em>\n\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Impermanence (On the Work of José Luis Cortés)','','inherit','closed','closed','','3796-revision-v1','','','2015-06-12 12:01:06','2015-06-12 16:01:06','<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Impermanence</h2>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">(On the Work of José Luis Cortés)</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"> by David Acosta</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\r\n\r\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\r\n\r\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities. In his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in <em>for those who tired of glory and richness, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as Latin Beer Can in a Pack, or in Christie’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show en Blanco Y Negro, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\r\n\r\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\r\n\r\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\r\n\r\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\r\n\r\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\r\n\r\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\r\n\r\n<em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/12/3796-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3798,641,'2015-06-12 12:29:56','2015-06-12 16:29:56','[caption id=\"attachment_315\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"129\"]<img class=\"wp-image-315 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPPHeart-Logo129pixsAppleTouch.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Heart Logo- Who We Are\" width=\"129\" height=\"129\" /> Taller is known as El Corazón Cultural del Barrio,<br /> The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia[/caption]\n\n<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> </span>Taller Puertorriqueño (Taller) has been “Building Community through Art Since 1974”. Known as “The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia,” Taller is a community-based multidisciplinary arts organization whose work bridges European, African, Caribbean and Latino societies and cultures. Taller’s programs work at the nexus of arts, culture, human rights, and social advocacy to catalyze social change towards community advancement. We offer programs for youth and adults, operate art galleries featuring Latin@ artists, the region’s only bilingual bookstore, sponsor musical and theater events, and organize a range of engaging cultural art education programs. Our education programs for at-risk inner city children and youth offer unique art and educational experiences as an effective vehicle to build creative and competent community members. Taller has thrived in a community struggling with high unemployment and dropout rates, drugs, prejudice, and violence. This stands as a testament to the role Taller plays in celebrating this community’s strength, resilience, diversity and cultural richness.\n\n<h3></h3>\n\n<h3></h3>\n\n<h4> The Director and Our Staff</h4>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_2820\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/about/a-message-from-the-director/\"><img class=\"wp-image-2820 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Carmen-Febo-San-Miguel-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen Febo San Miguel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a> Carmen Febo San Miguel, Executive Director[/caption]\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em> *Click on a photo for staff profile information </em>\n\n[gallery columns=\"4\" ids=\"1703,2172,1705,1630,3198,1706,2173,3259,3649,1629,3652\"]\n\n<h3>Board of Directors</h3>\n\n<strong>Edgardo González, Board Chair </strong>\n\n<strong>Elena Marie Dilapi, Vice Chair</strong>\nMSW, QCSW\n\n<strong>Wilma Guzmán-Pérez\n</strong>Human Resources Management\n\n<strong>Ma</strong><strong>rí</strong><strong>a E. Mills-Torres, Board Secretary</strong>\nRetired Educator, Philadelphia School District\n\n<strong>Deborah A. Finley PhD., Chair, Arts Advisory Committee</strong>\nCEO, Interactive Communications, Inc.\n\n<strong>Ileana M. Helwig, MA., Treasurer</strong><strong>\n</strong>Chief Operating Officer\nChildren Crisis Treatment Center\n\n<strong>Rafaela Colón, Chair Individual Solicitation Committee</strong>\nSpecial Assistant to the President/CEO, ASPIRA of PA\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<strong>Ariel Arnau, PhD Candidate, CUNY</strong>\nAdjunct Faculty, Latin American Studies Program at Temple University\n\n<strong>Magna M. Diaz, MLS\n</strong>Retired Bilingual School Librarian, Bilingual Storyteller','What we do & Who we are','','inherit','closed','closed','','2171-revision-v1','','','2015-06-12 12:29:56','2015-06-12 16:29:56','[caption id=\"attachment_315\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"129\"]<img class=\"wp-image-315 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPPHeart-Logo129pixsAppleTouch.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Heart Logo- Who We Are\" width=\"129\" height=\"129\" /> Taller is known as El Corazón Cultural del Barrio,<br /> The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia[/caption]\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> </span>Taller Puertorriqueño (Taller) has been “Building Community through Art Since 1974”. Known as “The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia,” Taller is a community-based multidisciplinary arts organization whose work bridges European, African, Caribbean and Latino societies and cultures. Taller’s programs work at the nexus of arts, culture, human rights, and social advocacy to catalyze social change towards community advancement. We offer programs for youth and adults, operate art galleries featuring Latin@ artists, the region’s only bilingual bookstore, sponsor musical and theater events, and organize a range of engaging cultural art education programs. Our education programs for at-risk inner city children and youth offer unique art and educational experiences as an effective vehicle to build creative and competent community members. Taller has thrived in a community struggling with high unemployment and dropout rates, drugs, prejudice, and violence. This stands as a testament to the role Taller plays in celebrating this community’s strength, resilience, diversity and cultural richness.\r\n<h3></h3>\r\n<h3></h3>\r\n<h4> The Director and Our Staff</h4>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2820\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/about/a-message-from-the-director/\"><img class=\"wp-image-2820 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Carmen-Febo-San-Miguel-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen Febo San Miguel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a> Carmen Febo San Miguel, Executive Director[/caption]\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em> *Click on a photo for staff profile information </em>\r\n\r\n[gallery columns=\"4\" ids=\"1703,2172,1705,1630,3198,1706,2173,3259,3649,1629,3652\"]\r\n<h3>Board of Directors</h3>\r\n<strong>Edgardo González, Board Chair </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Elena Marie Dilapi, Vice Chair</strong>\r\nMSW, QCSW\r\n\r\n<strong>Wilma Guzmán-Pérez\r\n</strong>Human Resources Management\r\n\r\n<strong>Ma</strong><strong>rí</strong><strong>a E. Mills-Torres, Board Secretary</strong>\r\nRetired Educator, Philadelphia School District\r\n\r\n<strong>Deborah A. Finley PhD., Chair, Arts Advisory Committee</strong>\r\nCEO, Interactive Communications, Inc.\r\n\r\n<strong>Ileana M. Helwig, MA., Treasurer</strong><strong>\r\n</strong>Chief Operating Officer\r\nChildren Crisis Treatment Center\r\n\r\n<strong>Rafaela Colón, Chair Individual Solicitation Committee</strong>\r\nSpecial Assistant to the President/CEO, ASPIRA of PA\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>Ariel Arnau, PhD Candidate, CUNY</strong>\r\nAdjunct Faculty, Latin American Studies Program at Temple University\r\n\r\n<strong>Magna M. Diaz, MLS\r\n</strong>Retired Bilingual School Librarian, Bilingual Storyteller',2171,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/12/2171-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3799,641,'2015-06-12 12:30:35','2015-06-12 16:30:35','[caption id=\"attachment_315\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"129\"]<img class=\"wp-image-315 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPPHeart-Logo129pixsAppleTouch.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Heart Logo- Who We Are\" width=\"129\" height=\"129\" /> Taller is known as El Corazón Cultural del Barrio,<br /> The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia[/caption]\n\n<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> </span>Taller Puertorriqueño (Taller) has been “Building Community through Art Since 1974”. Known as “The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia,” Taller is a community-based multidisciplinary arts organization whose work bridges European, African, Caribbean and Latino societies and cultures. Taller’s programs work at the nexus of arts, culture, human rights, and social advocacy to catalyze social change towards community advancement. We offer programs for youth and adults, operate art galleries featuring Latin@ artists, the region’s only bilingual bookstore, sponsor musical and theater events, and organize a range of engaging cultural art education programs. Our education programs for at-risk inner city children and youth offer unique art and educational experiences as an effective vehicle to build creative and competent community members. Taller has thrived in a community struggling with high unemployment and dropout rates, drugs, prejudice, and violence. This stands as a testament to the role Taller plays in celebrating this community’s strength, resilience, diversity and cultural richness.\n\n<h3></h3>\n\n<h3></h3>\n\n<h4> The Director and Our Staff</h4>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_2820\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/about/a-message-from-the-director/\"><img class=\"wp-image-2820 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Carmen-Febo-San-Miguel-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen Febo San Miguel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a> Carmen Febo San Miguel, Executive Director[/caption]\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em> *Click on a photo for staff profile information </em>\n\n[gallery columns=\"4\" ids=\"1703,2172,1705,1630,3198,1706,2173,3259,3649,1629,3652\"]\n\n<h3>Board of Directors</h3>\n\n<strong>Edgardo González, Board Chair </strong>\n\n<strong>Elena Marie Dilapi, Vice Chair</strong>\nMSW, QCSW\n\n<strong>Wilma Guzmán-Pérez\n</strong>Human Resources Management\n\n<strong>Ma</strong><strong>rí</strong><strong>a E. Mills-Torres, Board Secretary</strong>\nRetired Educator, Philadelphia School District\n\n<strong>Deborah A. Finley PhD., Chair, Arts Advisory Committee</strong>\nCEO, Interactive Communications, Inc.\n\n<strong>Ileana M. Helwig, MA., Treasurer</strong><strong>\n</strong>Chief Operating Officer\nChildren Crisis Treatment Center\n\n<strong>Rafaela Colón, Chair Individual Solicitation Committee</strong>\nSpecial Assistant to the President/CEO, ASPIRA of PA\n\n<strong>Ariel Arnau, PhD Candidate, CUNY</strong>\nAdjunct Faculty, Latin American Studies Program at Temple University\n\n<strong>Magna M. Diaz, MLS\n</strong>Retired Bilingual School Librarian, Bilingual Storyteller','What we do & Who we are','','inherit','closed','closed','','2171-revision-v1','','','2015-06-12 12:30:35','2015-06-12 16:30:35','[caption id=\"attachment_315\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"129\"]<img class=\"wp-image-315 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPPHeart-Logo129pixsAppleTouch.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Heart Logo- Who We Are\" width=\"129\" height=\"129\" /> Taller is known as El Corazón Cultural del Barrio,<br /> The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia[/caption]\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> </span>Taller Puertorriqueño (Taller) has been “Building Community through Art Since 1974”. Known as “The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia,” Taller is a community-based multidisciplinary arts organization whose work bridges European, African, Caribbean and Latino societies and cultures. Taller’s programs work at the nexus of arts, culture, human rights, and social advocacy to catalyze social change towards community advancement. We offer programs for youth and adults, operate art galleries featuring Latin@ artists, the region’s only bilingual bookstore, sponsor musical and theater events, and organize a range of engaging cultural art education programs. Our education programs for at-risk inner city children and youth offer unique art and educational experiences as an effective vehicle to build creative and competent community members. Taller has thrived in a community struggling with high unemployment and dropout rates, drugs, prejudice, and violence. This stands as a testament to the role Taller plays in celebrating this community’s strength, resilience, diversity and cultural richness.\r\n<h3></h3>\r\n<h3></h3>\r\n<h4> The Director and Our Staff</h4>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2820\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/about/a-message-from-the-director/\"><img class=\"wp-image-2820 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Carmen-Febo-San-Miguel-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen Febo San Miguel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a> Carmen Febo San Miguel, Executive Director[/caption]\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em> *Click on a photo for staff profile information </em>\r\n\r\n[gallery columns=\"4\" ids=\"1703,2172,1705,1630,3198,1706,2173,3259,3649,1629,3652\"]\r\n<h3>Board of Directors</h3>\r\n<strong>Edgardo González, Board Chair </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Elena Marie Dilapi, Vice Chair</strong>\r\nMSW, QCSW\r\n\r\n<strong>Wilma Guzmán-Pérez\r\n</strong>Human Resources Management\r\n\r\n<strong>Ma</strong><strong>rí</strong><strong>a E. Mills-Torres, Board Secretary</strong>\r\nRetired Educator, Philadelphia School District\r\n\r\n<strong>Deborah A. Finley PhD., Chair, Arts Advisory Committee</strong>\r\nCEO, Interactive Communications, Inc.\r\n\r\n<strong>Ileana M. Helwig, MA., Treasurer</strong><strong>\r\n</strong>Chief Operating Officer\r\nChildren Crisis Treatment Center\r\n\r\n<strong>Rafaela Colón, Chair Individual Solicitation Committee</strong>\r\nSpecial Assistant to the President/CEO, ASPIRA of PA\r\n\r\n<strong>Ariel Arnau, PhD Candidate, CUNY</strong>\r\nAdjunct Faculty, Latin American Studies Program at Temple University\r\n\r\n<strong>Magna M. Diaz, MLS\r\n</strong>Retired Bilingual School Librarian, Bilingual Storyteller',2171,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/12/2171-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3800,641,'2015-06-12 12:32:12','2015-06-12 16:32:12','[caption id=\"attachment_315\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"129\"]<img class=\"wp-image-315 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPPHeart-Logo129pixsAppleTouch.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Heart Logo- Who We Are\" width=\"129\" height=\"129\" /> Taller is known as El Corazón Cultural del Barrio,<br /> The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia[/caption]\n\n<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> </span>Taller Puertorriqueño (Taller) has been “Building Community through Art Since 1974”. Known as “The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia,” Taller is a community-based multidisciplinary arts organization whose work bridges European, African, Caribbean and Latino societies and cultures. Taller’s programs work at the nexus of arts, culture, human rights, and social advocacy to catalyze social change towards community advancement. We offer programs for youth and adults, operate art galleries featuring Latin@ artists, the region’s only bilingual bookstore, sponsor musical and theater events, and organize a range of engaging cultural art education programs. Our education programs for at-risk inner city children and youth offer unique art and educational experiences as an effective vehicle to build creative and competent community members. Taller has thrived in a community struggling with high unemployment and dropout rates, drugs, prejudice, and violence. This stands as a testament to the role Taller plays in celebrating this community’s strength, resilience, diversity and cultural richness.\n\n<h3></h3>\n\n<h3></h3>\n\n<h4> The Director and Our Staff</h4>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_2820\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/about/a-message-from-the-director/\"><img class=\"wp-image-2820 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Carmen-Febo-San-Miguel-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen Febo San Miguel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a> Carmen Febo San Miguel, Executive Director[/caption]\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em> *Click on a photo for staff profile information </em>\n\n[gallery columns=\"4\" ids=\"1703,2172,1705,1630,3198,1706,2173,3259,3649,1629,3652\"]\n\n<h3>Board of Directors</h3>\n\n<strong>Edgardo González, Board Chair\n</strong>Legislative Assistant to PA State Representative J.P. Miranda\n\n<strong>Elena Marie Dilapi, Vice Chair</strong>\nMSW, QCSW\n\n<strong>Wilma Guzmán-Pérez\n</strong>Human Resources Management\n\n<strong>Ma</strong><strong>rí</strong><strong>a E. Mills-Torres, Board Secretary</strong>\nRetired Educator, Philadelphia School District\n\n<strong>Deborah A. Finley PhD., Chair, Arts Advisory Committee</strong>\nCEO, Interactive Communications, Inc.\n\n<strong>Ileana M. Helwig, MA., Treasurer</strong><strong>\n</strong>Chief Operating Officer\nChildren Crisis Treatment Center\n\n<strong>Rafaela Colón, Chair Individual Solicitation Committee</strong>\nSpecial Assistant to the President/CEO, ASPIRA of PA\n\n<strong>Ariel Arnau, PhD Candidate, CUNY</strong>\nAdjunct Faculty, Latin American Studies Program at Temple University\n\n<strong>Magna M. Diaz, MLS\n</strong>Retired Bilingual School Librarian, Bilingual Storyteller','What we do & Who we are','','inherit','closed','closed','','2171-revision-v1','','','2015-06-12 12:32:12','2015-06-12 16:32:12','[caption id=\"attachment_315\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"129\"]<img class=\"wp-image-315 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPPHeart-Logo129pixsAppleTouch.png\" alt=\"Taller\'s Heart Logo- Who We Are\" width=\"129\" height=\"129\" /> Taller is known as El Corazón Cultural del Barrio,<br /> The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia[/caption]\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: small;\"> </span>Taller Puertorriqueño (Taller) has been “Building Community through Art Since 1974”. Known as “The Cultural Heart of Latino Philadelphia,” Taller is a community-based multidisciplinary arts organization whose work bridges European, African, Caribbean and Latino societies and cultures. Taller’s programs work at the nexus of arts, culture, human rights, and social advocacy to catalyze social change towards community advancement. We offer programs for youth and adults, operate art galleries featuring Latin@ artists, the region’s only bilingual bookstore, sponsor musical and theater events, and organize a range of engaging cultural art education programs. Our education programs for at-risk inner city children and youth offer unique art and educational experiences as an effective vehicle to build creative and competent community members. Taller has thrived in a community struggling with high unemployment and dropout rates, drugs, prejudice, and violence. This stands as a testament to the role Taller plays in celebrating this community’s strength, resilience, diversity and cultural richness.\r\n<h3></h3>\r\n<h3></h3>\r\n<h4> The Director and Our Staff</h4>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2820\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/about/a-message-from-the-director/\"><img class=\"wp-image-2820 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Carmen-Febo-San-Miguel-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Carmen Febo San Miguel\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a> Carmen Febo San Miguel, Executive Director[/caption]\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em> *Click on a photo for staff profile information </em>\r\n\r\n[gallery columns=\"4\" ids=\"1703,2172,1705,1630,3198,1706,2173,3259,3649,1629,3652\"]\r\n<h3>Board of Directors</h3>\r\n<strong>Edgardo González, Board Chair\r\n</strong>Legislative Assistant to PA State Representative J.P. Miranda\r\n\r\n<strong>Elena Marie Dilapi, Vice Chair</strong>\r\nMSW, QCSW\r\n\r\n<strong>Wilma Guzmán-Pérez\r\n</strong>Human Resources Management\r\n\r\n<strong>Ma</strong><strong>rí</strong><strong>a E. Mills-Torres, Board Secretary</strong>\r\nRetired Educator, Philadelphia School District\r\n\r\n<strong>Deborah A. Finley PhD., Chair, Arts Advisory Committee</strong>\r\nCEO, Interactive Communications, Inc.\r\n\r\n<strong>Ileana M. Helwig, MA., Treasurer</strong><strong>\r\n</strong>Chief Operating Officer\r\nChildren Crisis Treatment Center\r\n\r\n<strong>Rafaela Colón, Chair Individual Solicitation Committee</strong>\r\nSpecial Assistant to the President/CEO, ASPIRA of PA\r\n\r\n<strong>Ariel Arnau, PhD Candidate, CUNY</strong>\r\nAdjunct Faculty, Latin American Studies Program at Temple University\r\n\r\n<strong>Magna M. Diaz, MLS\r\n</strong>Retired Bilingual School Librarian, Bilingual Storyteller',2171,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/12/2171-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3801,2,'2015-06-12 18:02:26','2015-06-12 22:02:26','&nbsp;\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-full\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"465\" height=\"85\" />','Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés','','publish','closed','closed','','black-and-white-gay-and-boricua-the-art-of-jose-luis-cortes','','','2017-02-07 14:39:16','2017-02-07 19:39:16','&nbsp;\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?p=3801',0,'post','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3802,2,'2015-06-12 18:02:26','2015-06-12 22:02:26','&nbsp;\n\nby Rafael Damast\n\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\n\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\n\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\n\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\n\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\n\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','Black and White, Gay and Boricua the Art of José Luis Cortés','','inherit','closed','closed','','3801-revision-v1','','','2015-06-12 18:02:26','2015-06-12 22:02:26','&nbsp;\r\n\r\nby Rafael Damast\r\n\r\nThe process of creating art for José Luis Cortés is very personal.  It combines his experiences, his memories and his state of mind, and it is a manifestation of his passions, his hopes, and his fears. It is the means that validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés is not a political artist or activist, but he does acknowledge that his tastes tend toward the provocative: to a place of rough sex, sex workers, and drugs.   His work is filled with pain but also with beauty, pleasure and love.  In his curatorial essay for his online VisualAIDS exhibition, “It Feels Like Love But It’s the Drugs”, he starts with the admission that his sexual awakening came at fifteen - and with that the recognition of a new identity as a gay man.\r\n\r\nCortés was born in Philadelphia to Puerto-Rican parents.  His father, an avid newspaper reader, instilled in him his love for papers, and in New York City he fell in love with The New York Times – the Grey Lady.  He appreciated the paper not only for its power to convey information, but also its structure, the layout and juxtaposition of ads, and its history and presence.  For Cortés, the columns and the grids of that newspaper, with its photos and headlines, were the beginning of a dialogue; a dialogue he recorded in paint.\r\n\r\nIn the pages of The New York Times, he saw his life mirrored, his career, his loves, and the places he frequented. In his work, he shows us plainly and honestly his desires and frailties, with inside jokes about gay identity and addiction (see the work Crystal Favors with double entendres as an example - “put yourself in a better position”).  With paint, masking and highlighting, he guides the viewer’s eyes.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3706\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"178\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3706\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stairway-to-Eros-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés, Stairway to Eros (1996)\" width=\"178\" height=\"208\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Stairway to Eros\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his 1996 work Stairway to <em>Eros</em>, he depicts, in stark black and white, the stairwell that led to the stage of that famous gay club.  On the side of the paper reads the headline \"Exquisite Beauty\"; below is a scenic image of a beautiful bay and sea town. He knows he is far from that place, and he contrasts this in thick brushstrokes depicting the stairwell. The space is shown as confining, absorbing, and filled with expectant tension. You may ask yourself if this is the point where you enter the stage, become the center of attention – the great “exquisite beauty”.  The answer may not be clear to you, but the tension, and, dare I say, excitement is there - emotions that he must have felt when he worked there as a young man.\r\n\r\nFor Cortés, his arrival in New York City in the 1990s was liberating.  He found work where his looks and body were appreciated, and to him this was akin to finding a rare drug.  He was intoxicated by it. In the flashing ads and billboards of the city, he read the subliminal messages calling for hedonistic pleasures.  It came to him plainly and clearly as black type on newsprint.\r\n\r\nIn his work <em>Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money</em> (1996), he bluntly presents to us the image of his groin\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3708\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"211\"]<a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-3708 \" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-17-300x244.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money&quot; (1996)\" width=\"211\" height=\"172\" /></a> José Luis Cortés,<br /> \"Self Portrait with G-string Full of Money\" (1996), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nin underwear stuffed with dollar bills. In the margins of the paper reads \"Liberty Travel\", and through these play on words, he shows us what supported him and gave him freedom. This was in the time of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s New York City, when the gay clubs were closing and Disney was moving into Times Square.  Cortés’ friends were dying from AIDS, and the city with which he fell in love was beginning to feel like it was leaving him behind.  He also saw the effects of crystal meth take a stranglehold on him and his friends.  He recognized then that there was a cost for desire.\r\n\r\nIn José Luis Cortés’ art, we see his love for architecture and place.  In the portraits he created of his friends, family and strangers, we see the important connections he has made.  Throughout his work, he has been honest about his sexuality.  In his newspaper series, and later in his performance and video work, he asks us to engage fully in who he is without judgment or regret.  In doing so, he starts a conversation with the public about identity and acceptance that is base, raw and framed by urgency.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3801,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/12/3801-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3803,1,'2015-06-16 16:25:35','2015-06-16 20:25:35','','2015-06-16 16:25:35','','publish','closed','closed','','2015-06-16-162535','','','2015-06-16 16:25:35','2015-06-16 20:25:35','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/16/2015-06-16-162535/',0,'donation','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3804,0,'2015-06-16 20:14:06','2015-06-17 00:14:06','','','','private','closed','closed','','3804','','','2015-06-16 20:14:06','2015-06-17 00:14:06','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&p=3804',0,'edd_payment','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3805,0,'2015-06-18 07:27:21','2015-06-18 11:27:21','','Judith Landeros','','publish','closed','closed','','judith-landeros-2','','','2015-06-18 07:28:50','2015-06-18 11:28:50','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_payment&#038;p=3805',0,'edd_payment','',2);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3806,0,'2015-06-18 07:27:21','2015-06-18 11:27:21','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3806','','','2015-06-18 07:27:21','2015-06-18 11:27:21','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3806',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3807,0,'2015-06-18 07:27:21','2015-06-18 11:27:21','','','','publish','closed','closed','','3807','','','2015-06-18 07:27:21','2015-06-18 11:27:21','',2908,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=edd_log&p=3807',0,'edd_log','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3808,0,'2015-06-18 07:28:51','2015-06-18 11:28:51','','3805 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 1','','publish','closed','closed','','3805-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-1','','','2015-06-18 07:28:51','2015-06-18 11:28:51','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3808',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3809,0,'2015-06-18 07:28:51','2015-06-18 11:28:51','','3805 | Southwest Airline Ticket Voucher | 2','','publish','closed','closed','','3805-southwest-airline-ticket-voucher-2','','','2015-06-18 07:28:51','2015-06-18 11:28:51','',0,'http://tallerpr.org/?post_type=tribe_eddticket&p=3809',0,'tribe_eddticket','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3810,2,'2015-06-18 09:50:28','2015-06-18 13:50:28','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\n\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\n\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On view:  June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reception with artist</strong>: June 12 @ 5:30PM to 8PM</p>\n\nAs part of the citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\n\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\n\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://jlcortes.com\" target=\"_blank\">jlcortes.com</a>.\n\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\n\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\n\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\n\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\n\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\n\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />','En Blanco Y Negro: Gay & Boricua','','inherit','closed','closed','','3703-revision-v1','','','2015-06-18 09:50:28','2015-06-18 13:50:28','<img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3715\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Playpen-1024x394.png\" alt=\"The Playpen\" width=\"1024\" height=\"394\" />\r\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">José Luis Cortés</h4>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">EN BLANCO Y NEGRO</h3>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gay &amp; Boricua</h3>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On view:  June 12 to July 25, 2015</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reception with artist</strong>: June 12 @ 5:30PM to 8PM</p>\r\nAs part of the citywide celebration of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations, <a href=\"http://www.galaei.org/\">GALAEI </a>and Taller Puertorriqueño are pleased to present in June, <strong>En Blanco y Negro: Gay &amp; Boricua</strong>, an exhibition of the artwork of José Luis Cortés.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3720\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3720 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/En-Blanco-Headshot-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"José Luis Cortés photo by ADAL\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /> Photograph of<br /> José Luis Cortés<br /> ADÁL, 2014[/caption]\r\n\r\nJosé Luis Cortés a native Philadelphian, is a painter, performance and video artist, who is known for his artwork inspired by his time in New York City in the early 1990’s.  Cortés’ very personal work reflects the underbelly of gay life – documenting a life on the fringes of society:  of sex workers, addiction, and of a rapidly-changing landscape.   He is an artist who, with his work, validates his world and voices his identity as both a gay man and as a Puerto Rican.\r\n\r\nCortés’ work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the country as well as in Europe. His work has been reviewed in <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>Art in America</em>, <em>Out Magazine</em> and many other publications. You can see more of his work at the <a href=\"http://www.visualaids.org/artists/detail/jose-luis-cortes\">Visual AIDS Online Registry</a>, and learn more about him at <a href=\"http://jlcortes.com\" target=\"_blank\">jlcortes.com</a>.\r\n\r\nCortés is also a founding member of The Archive Project, and was included in the landmark exhibition<em>, The First Ten</em> (1995), which showcased the work of artists living with HIV. Currently he works with urban youth in Puerto Rico, teaching them about art, and how it can become a part of their daily lives. In 2013, Cortés participated in <a href=\"http://www.mapr.org/es/visita/calendario/vial-exposicion-y-certamen-internacional-de-creacion-e-interpretacion-digital\" target=\"_blank\">VIAL</a>, an exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR).  The exhibition in Taller Puertorriqueño will be his first in Philadelphia.\r\n\r\nFollowing the exhibition, on June 20<sup>th</sup> at 3PM, there will be a panel discussion at Taller Puertorriqueño on gay and Latino issues led by the writer and AIDS activist, David Acosta.\r\n\r\nFor more information on the panel go to: <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion\">http://tallerpr.org/event/gay-latino-panel-discussion</a>\r\n\r\nFor more information on the 50th anniversary of the Reminder Day demonstrations go to <a href=\"http://waygay.org/reminder2015\">http://waygay.org/reminder2015</a>.\r\n\r\nThis exhibition and cycle was made possible by grants from PECO and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2572 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Andy-Peco-Logos-300x54.jpg\" alt=\"Peco and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts\" width=\"300\" height=\"54\" />',3703,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/18/3703-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3811,2,'2015-06-18 09:56:00','2015-06-18 13:56:00','<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"></h2>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\n\nEssay by  David Acosta\n\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\n\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\n\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities. In his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in <em>for those who tired of glory and richness, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as Latin Beer Can in a Pack, or in Christie’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show en Blanco Y Negro, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\n\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\n\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\n\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\n\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\n\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\n\n<em> </em>\n\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Impermanence (On the Work of José Luis Cortés)','','inherit','closed','closed','','3796-revision-v1','','','2015-06-18 09:56:00','2015-06-18 13:56:00','<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"></h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\r\nEssay by  David Acosta\r\n\r\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\r\n\r\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\r\n\r\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities. In his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in <em>for those who tired of glory and richness, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as Latin Beer Can in a Pack, or in Christie’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show en Blanco Y Negro, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\r\n\r\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\r\n\r\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\r\n\r\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\r\n\r\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\r\n\r\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\r\n\r\n<em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/18/3796-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3812,2,'2015-06-18 12:01:58','2015-06-18 16:01:58','<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3818\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Eros-1-En-Blanco-Slider-1024x401.png\" alt=\"Eros 1 En Blanco Slider\" width=\"1024\" height=\"401\" /></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\n\nEssay by  <a href=\"http://www.casadeduende.com/David-Acosta\" target=\"_blank\">David Acosta</a>\n\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\n\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\n\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\n\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\n\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it<img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3827\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Jose-Luis-Cortes-Photograph-Scan-2015-239x300.jpg\" alt=\"Old Sex District\" width=\"239\" height=\"300\" /> became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3813\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3813 size-medium\" title=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-11-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /> Eros 1 (1999) Acrylic on newsprint[/caption]\n\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3814\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"192\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3814 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_29_28_Pro-e1434636975422-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint \" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" /> For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in F<em>or Those Who Tired of Glory and Richess, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3816\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"174\"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-3816\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_34_17_Pro-174x300.jpg\" alt=\"Christies  (2010)\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" /> Christies (2010)<br />Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as <em>Latin Beercan</em>, or in <em>Christie</em>’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show <a href=\"http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/02/en-blanco-y-negro-gay-boricua/\" target=\"_blank\">En Blanco Y Negro</a>, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\n\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\n\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\n\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\n\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\n\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\n\n<em> </em>\n\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Impermanence (On the Work of José Luis Cortés)','','inherit','closed','closed','','3796-autosave-v1','','','2015-06-18 12:01:58','2015-06-18 16:01:58','',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/18/3796-autosave-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3813,2,'2015-06-18 09:58:09','2015-06-18 13:58:09','Acrylic on newsprint','Eros 1 (1999)','','inherit','closed','closed','','unnamed-11','','','2015-06-18 10:02:33','2015-06-18 14:02:33','',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-11.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3814,2,'2015-06-18 10:14:57','2015-06-18 14:14:57','','For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006)','For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint\n','inherit','closed','closed','','wp_20150414_16_29_28_pro','','','2015-06-18 10:15:47','2015-06-18 14:15:47','',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_29_28_Pro.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3815,2,'2015-06-18 10:21:55','2015-06-18 14:21:55','','Latin Beercan (2010)','Latin Beercan (2010), Gouache on newsprint','inherit','closed','closed','','wp_20150414_16_33_49_pro','','','2015-06-18 10:22:32','2015-06-18 14:22:32','',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_33_49_Pro.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3816,2,'2015-06-18 10:23:57','2015-06-18 14:23:57','Christies  (2010)\nGouache on newsprint','Christies  (2010)','Christies  (2010)\nGouache on newsprint','inherit','closed','closed','','wp_20150414_16_34_17_pro','','','2015-06-18 10:24:37','2015-06-18 14:24:37','',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_34_17_Pro.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES (3817,2,'2015-06-18 10:59:30','2015-06-18 14:59:30','<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\n\nEssay by  David Acosta\n\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\n\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\n\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\n\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\n\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3813\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3813 size-medium\" title=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-11-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /> Eros 1 (1999) Acrylic on newsprint[/caption]\n\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3814\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"192\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3814 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_29_28_Pro-e1434636975422-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint \" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" /> For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nIn his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in F<em>or Those Who Tired of Glory and Richess, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3816\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"174\"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-3816\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_34_17_Pro-174x300.jpg\" alt=\"Christies  (2010)\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" /> Christies (2010)<br />Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\n\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as <em>Latin Beercan</em>, or in <em>Christie</em>’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show en Blanco Y Negro, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\n\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\n\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\n\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\n\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\n\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\n\n<em> </em>\n\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\n\n&nbsp;\n\n&nbsp;','Impermanence (On the Work of José Luis Cortés)','','inherit','closed','closed','','3796-revision-v1','','','2015-06-18 10:59:30','2015-06-18 14:59:30','<p style=\"text-align: center;\">…Éramos todo eso y mucho más:</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">el eco de un espíritu sincero que cambió brisa</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">por humo, fuego de sol por ceniza, gente de carne</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">y hueso por máscaras anónimas, hombres de la</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ciudad que en el amor volvieron a sus islas infinitas.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Manuel Ramos Otero, Invitacion Al Polvo</em></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">We were that and much more</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The echo of a sincere spirit that traded the breeze</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For smoke, the fire of the sun for ash, people of flesh</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">and bone for anonymous masks, men of the</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">city who in loving returned to their infinite islands.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>(Translation my own) </em></p>\r\nEssay by  David Acosta\r\n\r\nThe above lines from the title poem of <em>Invitation Al Polvo</em>, (Invitation to Dust) a poetry collection by the great Puerto Rican Poet Manuel Ramos Otero embodies, I believe, an important facet of Jose Luis Cortés’s work which personally resonates for me as a locus for the physical, geographical (and textual elements that suffuse his work). The artist made flesh: memory, desire, anonymity, the ever changing and evolving physical spaces of the body and the city, the geography of both, the use and importance of text as critical to the narrative not only of 20<sup>th</sup> century art, but also to the political art of AIDS and queer activism that marked the last quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and of course, newspapers. Then there is migration, as anchored between two important islands (Puerto Rico and Manhattan.) I believe these elements all deeply connected and interdependent of one another have come to, in many ways, define certain elements of Jose Luis Cortés’s work for me, or at least bear a strong and heavy influence on it.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’s use of newspaper, a cheap and somewhat unstable medium that will inevitably change with time; it will yellow and wrinkle, and fade, like our bodies, like the cities ever changing, or like the buildings he paints. Cortés is aware of the instability of newspapers as a medium on which his work rests, of their transient nature, in a 2003 interview in Out Magazine he states, “Newspaper is not the best quality paper…but its like life - transient, temporary, its like skin, changing color over the years.” Newspapers so used, also help to capture the day, the year, perhaps the time and what was happening on that day, (depending on the section of the paper being used), the front page for example, the sports or travel section, or the ads, they inform, and document in a very specific way the artist’s intent. Cortés also makes great use of the text already on the page some of which he blurs or cuts off, or leaves just visible enough so it is in a sense rewritten, re-appropriated and made into something new, something the artist wants you to see, to read, to intuit and to understand. The text is as integral to the work as the images he wants you to see. You have to pay attention to what you are reading, to the images he’s painted or altered; to how he has appropriated and transformed the page or to how he has barely altered it.  But it is not the same page now, he has changed the story, its his story, they are his memories and in some sense ours as well, and these stories like the newspapers themselves will change, and fade, and be rewritten, but they will not vanish.\r\n\r\nIn this respect, Jose Luis Cortes’s work is intimately autobiographical and shares a long and rich historical tradition, situating it among important, homosexual narratives on the geography of cities, desire and the body: John Rechy, Jean Genet, Constantine Cavafy, Andre Gide, Xavier Villaurrutia, Reinaldo Arenas and of course, David Wojnarowicks, among many others. The work of these writers and artists concerns itself with the geographical spaces inhabited by men in the erotic pursuit of the stranger. The anonymity of encounters where the physical public spaces of the city: alleys, parks, train-yards, public toilets, wharves, and abandoned buildings are as important and as erotically charged as the fear that grips you when approaching a stranger, the risks of a violent or tender encounter, breaking the law, and doing it in public, the parting of ways to perhaps meet again, or never.\r\n\r\n<em>I never found them again - all lost so quickly...</em>\r\n\r\n<em>the poetic eyes, the pale face...</em>\r\n\r\n<em>in the darkening street... –Cavafy-</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThese are sacred spaces, richly immortalized in homosexual literature. Spaces which have become even more important in the romantic and idealized memories of men who came of age before the AIDS epidemic. A landscape forever changed but intertwined erotically and historically with the locus of memory, desire and belonging. They are cultural spaces mined for meaning within the context of shifting perspectives and inevitable historical transitions, helped along as much by time as by the vicissitudes of an epidemic, and the ever changing and inevitable political, social and economic realities of a new century and the concentric circles of generations of gay communities who also move in and out of them, and shift.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAn example of this can be found in Cortés’s paintings and photographs documenting Times Square (before it became Disney) and the NYC of the 1990’s. This work is personally resonant for me as they are places that exist in my formative memory as a gay man. Cortés would document the surrounding buildings and neighborhood through photographs he took during breaks from his erotic dancing at the old Eros (an all gay adult theater and male go-go bar where he worked). One such photograph <em>Old Sex District NYC 1997, </em>captures it perfectly, it records an image easily recognizable in the work of John Rechy’s City of Night:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n“<em>Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard — jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.”</em>‎\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3813\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3813 size-medium\" title=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unnamed-11-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"Eros 1 (1999)\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" /> Eros 1 (1999) Acrylic on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe photograph is important in other ways as well, it is evocative of other paintings of buildings that would follow it. This photograph becomes the study he uses in his paintings Eros 1 and Eros 2. In the photographs and paintings from this period, Cortés seems aware of the ephemerality of the changing landscape. In capturing the images of that Times Square, Cortés was honoring the transitionality of the city, the inevitable disappearance of things, how cities change, how neighborhoods change, and how he himself would change. Paradise, a latter painting of an abandoned movie theater in Rio Piedras (also known for showing porn) creates continuity between NYC and Puerto Rico, two very different places (but for the theater), a theater in any place America, where many of us met the strangers of night and had some of our first sexual encounters. These spaces became part of the mythology of how we would remember and in latter years reconstruct sexual desire. Today, many of these buildings, parks, and streets, housed in gay ghettos across America have disappeared and or are fast disappearing (and with them many say, gay culture as we knew it,) not just the sex theaters or the cruising areas and porn book stores) but literary bookstores, boutiques, coffee shops, and bars.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nCortés’ interest in buildings and houses also attests to his deep interest in architecture, especially that of cities.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3814\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"192\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3814 size-medium\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_29_28_Pro-e1434636975422-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint \" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" /> For Those Who\'ve Tired of Glory and Riches (2006), Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nIn his renderings of these, (many of them in Puerto Rico where he currently lives) the palette is mostly black and white and the inevitable gray that comes from using both. Color is retained however, in the sky, the clouds or the vegetation, or in the people one can see through them. These buildings convey their sense of self-awareness, some seem abandoned as in Little Town Big Vistas, (2006) others are clearly inhabited, they are alive, as in F<em>or Those Who Tired of Glory and Richess, </em>(2006)<em> or Casas De Cemento </em>also from 2006<em>. </em>People or objects or parts of the body inhabit these houses and buildings; torsos, eyes, legs, (as in Train Station Berlin 2003). These renderings transform the buildings from mere objects in a painting, to that of living things and the color he uses when breaking away from the black and white is important in depicting the life and movement within them.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3816\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"174\"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-3816\" src=\"http://tallerpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/WP_20150414_16_34_17_Pro-174x300.jpg\" alt=\"Christies  (2010)\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" /> Christies (2010)<br />Gouache on newsprint[/caption]\r\n\r\nCortés’s series of paintings titled “Sex Ads” are another dimension of self-reference in his work. The series makes use of text: (both purposely written into the work, while also using the text which is already part of the printed page). The Sex Ad Series are a series of paintings where men advertise their services including their sexual preferences, their ethnicity, their size, and their price. The paintings reference the commercial side of desire, that which can be bought or sold for a price. Size matters in these ads, as does the fetishizing of race and the sexual currency of the top versus the bottom. Works such as <em>Latin Beercan</em>, or in <em>Christie</em>’s (2010); using the page of the NYT where the famous auction house is advertising the sale of art work by Mark Rothko, which Jose transforms into a sex ad for <em>Andy</em>, (appropriating and repurposing not only the ad but Rothko’s work), while making a statement on the commercialization of art and sex.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe Sex Series ads are evocative as well of a specific period when such ads were commonplace in most gay newspapers and could be found in some of the earliest gay publications such as <em>One Magazine</em>. These ads were in many ways the mainstay of these papers and in today’s social media world, these ads have moved onto electronic format, shrinking the market and forcing many of these publications to cease publishing, so in a sense these too are fast disappearing (and with advertising revenue shrinking daily,) many gay publications like the gay neighborhoods are vanishing.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn Jose Luis Cortés’s work there is honesty to the biographical references he chooses to convey. He is after all telling us his story, the story of his family, his Puerto Rico, his neighborhoods, and of his father’s memory. A memory that lives on in the newspapers that he continues to use as the canvass for his work. This is not new to art or artists as there is always in art, a biographical reference. It is however in his celebration of sex and desire, in his telling us what turns him on sexually, what he finds erotic that makes his work as an out Latino gay artist, and a Puerto Rican one significant. In the name for the current show en Blanco Y Negro, Jose Luis Cortés is aware that he moves from the margins to the center and back out again like the men and the cities of night so celebrated in the literary traditions that connect his work to an erotic past. A past he believes is worth celebrating and remembering.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>If, at a given moment, everyone would say</em>\r\n\r\n<em>With one word what he is thinking,</em>\r\n\r\n<em>the six letters of DESIRE would form an enormous luminous scar,</em>\r\n\r\n<em>a constellation more ancient, more dazzling than any other,</em>\r\n\r\n<em> and that constellation would be like a burning sex</em>\r\n\r\n<em>in the deep body of night,….</em>\r\n\r\n<em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>From L. A. Nocturne: The Angels , Xavier Villaurrutia, translated by Elliot Weinberger &amp; Esther Allen. </em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;',3796,'http://tallerpr.org/2015/06/18/3796-revision-v1/',0,'revision','',0);
