Shellyne Rodriguez and Danielle De Jesus: Siempre en la calle [REVIEW]
Danielle De Jesus, Knickerbocker Park, 2021. Oil on linen. 32 x 48, 81.3 x 121.9. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York.
*Please note “Siempre en la calle” has been extended and will be on view on January 29, 2022. Visit https://calderon-ny.com/ for more information.
How does a particular place privilege the stories and experiences of one group over another? Do images and stories inevitably fade over time, guided by monied interests? How does this uneven prioritization appear in everyday moments: on the job, hanging out at the park, or even at home, in the comforts of one’s own private space? Siempre en la calle features new works by Shellyne Rodriguez and Danielle De Jesus, two New York-based artists who use representational portraiture to document and investigate the legacies of imperial violence that appear in everyday life and their corresponding moments of resistance.
In a series of striking large-scale, figurative works, Shellyne Rodriguez considers the social intricacies of the colloquial moment in the present day. The colored pencil drawings quiver with life, slowly beating like a pulse while bearing the passage of time—they reveal people hanging out, laughing together, and going to work. This is daily life: the collective memory we perhaps lost temporarily during the first year of the pandemic, but increasingly seem to be rebuilding together.
Most of Rodriguez’s drawings on view, with the exception of two, utilize a sharp black background which allows the vibrancy of color to shine through. In one drawing, titled India and Bangladesh on Pugsley Avenue (Two women and a baby), Rodriguez cleverly juxtaposes three neighbors who all live in the same vicinity and share similar socioeconomic realities. The woman on the left is named India, although she is Puerto Rican, and the woman on the right carrying the child is from Bangladesh. In this scene, all three subjects occupy the same plane. There isn’t a clear division between their likenesses because in reality, although they may come from different cultural backgrounds, they all form part of the unique social fabric that is the Soundview neighborhood in the Bronx, where Shellyne Rodriguez is from.
Shellyne Rodriguez, India and Bangladesh on Pugsley Avenue (Two women and a baby), 2021. Color pencil on paper. 54 x 40 1/2, 137.2 x 102.9. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
Shellyne Rodriguez, We Took the Kids Outside, 2021. Color pencil on paper. 42 x 48, 106.7 x 121.9. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
In another drawing titled We Took the Kids Outside, Rodriguez highlights two women and a young girl enjoying a moment outdoors. The intimacy of the scene draws the viewer in as if they were about to join them in the park and share some chips and Arizona iced tea. Struck by the profoundness of this casual encounter, I recognize my younger self in the barefoot child safeguarding her pretzels and looking off into the distance, perhaps daydreaming about tomorrow. Rodriguez’s attention to detail is evident here in the way she manipulates colored pencil to create an exceptionally life-like texture, applied throughout to skin, hair, plastic, and clothing. Against the black background, the scene glows and a seemingly ordinary moment is illuminated in a grandiose way. I remember how precious social interactions are, how important public space is, and how everyday mundanity should be celebrated as a feat of survival, especially at the “periphery of an empire,” as Rodriguez recounted in a recent phone call. Against all odds, in 2021, we are somehow, in fact, still alive.
Material realities often trump cultural differences and even language barriers, and this is part of the history of New York City, as documented in two epically-scaled side-by-side drawings by Rodriguez, BX Third World Liberation Mixtape No. 1 (Wretched Freak to the Beat) and BX Third World Liberation Mixtape No. 2 (Esquire Strikes Empire). In these drawings, portraits of people and various design elements are assembled in a busy landscape that is unfixed and mimics the effervescence of a city block, or a neighborhood constellation. Poetic phrases like “my eyes were two cockroaches frightened on a rainy day” and “how I keep from going under” are positioned on the same plane, evoking a free kind of associative poetry, like the sampling and remixing methods of hip hop. The former quote is borrowed from a powerful 1941 poem by Aimé Cesaire that outlines a surreal moment of liberation written in the context of Admiral Robert’s occupation of Martinique. The extended quote reads:
“The master’s bedroom was wide open. The master’s bedroom was brilliantly lit, and the master was there, very calm... and all of us stopped… he was the master… I entered. It’s you, he said, very calmly… It was me, it was indeed me, I told him, the good slave, the faithful slave, the slave slave, and suddenly my eyes were two cockroaches frightened on a rainy day… I struck, the blood spurted: it is the only baptism that today I remember.”
Shellyne Rodriguez, BX Third World Liberation Mixtape No. 2 ( Esquire Strikes Empire ), 2021. Color pencil on paper. 61 x 46, 154.9 x 116.8. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
Shellyne Rodriguez, BX Third World Liberation Mixtape No. 1 (Wretched Freak to the Beat), 2021. Color pencil on paper. 58 x 43, 1/2 147.3 x 110.5. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
In colliding this type of revolutionary literature with hip hop references and indigenous names with contemporary global struggles for liberation, Rodriguez presents a dynamic portrait of a place with many, many histories that underscore a collective revolutionary mindset of perseverance and survival. At the center of this struggle is the people, and it has always been this way.
Alluding to the graphic flyers of Buddy Esquire, the stylistic designs of the fonts surprised me at first, because they have a different visual feel than the tender portraits that occupy the same picture plane. Instead of the softness of flesh, the phrases are sharp and graphic. Beyond the references embedded in these drawings, I think about how design has been used to implement violence in very specific ways. Displacement occurs by design: profit-seeking developers are supported by city officials and tax credits gerrymandered into the pockets of a wealthy elite. Media, public relations, and advertisements for new developments are couched in glossy rhetorical flourishes and hollow symbolisms vaguely related to prosperity, arts, and culture. In Rodriguez’s drawings, we are reminded that resistance has also been designed, implemented, experimental, and consistent. Communities are resilient and proud, reflecting diversity and collective struggles for freedom.
Shellyne Rodriguez. Cuchifrito Ladies, 2021. Color pencil on paper. 22 x 30 inches, 55.9 x 76.2 cm. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
Danielle De Jesus’ oil paintings are in conversation with many of the themes explored by Rodriguez. They allude to everyday life, but linger on its moments of intensity: pride, sorrow, alienation. They point to the many actors that permeate the landscape of New York’s rapidly-changing neighborhoods (specifically, in De Jesus’ case, Bushwick, Brooklyn, where she is from), and how these actors may sometimes be in conflict with each other.
One of the first paintings you encounter in the gallery is titled I never got to ask you: ‘Why Borinqueneers?’ and features the bedroom of a former neighbor of De Jesus named Carmelo. De Jesus explains the tragic circumstances of his displacement and ultimately, death. Carmelo was offered $5,000 by real estate developers to leave his apartment, and although he resisted, the building was eventually padlocked and his belongings thrown away. Without any other alternative, he moved into the basement of the building De Jesus’ mother lived in, which was not equipped with heat or a bathroom. He would spend nine months of his life squatting in that basement and growing vegetables in the backyard. When he was finally offered an apartment suitable to meet basic living needs, he died shortly thereafter. This story is devastating, and unfortunately, common. The painting provides other salient and unsettling information: Carmelo was perhaps a US war veteran, specifically of the 65th Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as “The Borinqueneers.” The painting is titled as such because De Jesus never had an opportunity to discuss it with Carmelo. It is possible that despite his sacrifice, in the end he was neglected by the government he once committed himself to. In this portrait, his personal belongings are sparse—there are bottles, jars, and papers accumulated on shelves. The overbearing presence of the US flag becomes the focal point instead. Superimposed on the flag is the portrait of Carmelo himself, although his lower body seems to dissolve, as if he were a ghost subsumed by an empire’s insatiable need for bodies, capital, and obedience.
Danielle De Jesus. I never got to ask you 'why Borinqueneers?, 2021. Oil on linen, plexiglass. 72 x 48, 182.9 x 121.9. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
In this painting, De Jesus deftly illustrates the layers of a life affected by brutal US imperialism. It is ironic that this regiment is named after Puerto Rico’s Taíno name “Borinquen” when the US military has maintained its chokehold on the island since the 19th century. It is also ironic that the Borinqueneers were lauded years after their participation in the Korean War, when the US catapulted itself into Asia to stop the spread of communism. Carmelo’s story of poverty and displacement is unfortunately all too common for veterans, and illuminates the concentric, oppressive forces that operate on micro and macro levels in the US.
In painting Carmelo’s portrait, De Jesus documents a life that might otherwise be underappreciated. Her works memorialize the people and places that have disappeared before her very eyes, in the neighborhood she has always called home. This process is excruciating and painful, but necessary, as she recounts on her Instagram: “These works made me very emotional while making them. I cried many times alone in my studio. [...] Gentrification may have erased these places and many of these people, but through my work I will make sure they are forever embedded in the history and conversation of Bushwick.”
Another site documented beautifully through De Jesus’ painting is the corner of Knickerbocker Ave and Suydam Street in Bushwick, across the street from María Hernandez Park. The scene in this painting was at first unrecognizable to me. On that corner, there is now a Citibike docking station, Noha Pharmacy no longer exists, and the men playing dominoes on the sidewalk are gone. The dynamic movement of paint and light and shadow saturates the scene with an otherworldly glow, perhaps signaling that it is a memory of the past, with traces of what once was visible in the graffitied architecture, or the looming shadows of tree branches splicing the sidewalk. The underlying motif here (also present in De Jesus’ other paintings) is that people who were once allowed to exist publicly, enjoying themselves in certain public spaces, do not do so anymore. Instead, new housing developments and luxury businesses pop up, which most long-time residents cannot afford. Speculation and greed dictate the neighborhood’s newest residents, bulldozing any vestiges of real community and collective care.
These memories are not all shrouded in melancholy, however, as illustrated in Loyalty like this doesn’t exist anymore, a painting of a person showing off a prominent arm tattoo of the word “Bushwick.” Their shirt is bright red and features an image of an indigenous man wearing a headpiece, punctuated by the word “BOSS.” The image is striking, and points to the many indigenous people thriving today, negating that indigeneity is only situated in the past. Evoking pride, the bodily gesture both shows off the tattoo and also a wound by the elbow. I spent a lot of time observing this wound, as it is painted in a different style than the rest of the painting. A textural quality makes the injury stand out in its depth of color and complexity, as if to say, “I am proud of this wound because I survived it and it makes me who I am.”
Danielle De Jesus. Loyalty like this doesn't exist anymore, 2021. Oil on linen. 83 x 67, 210.8 x 170.2. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
Danielle De Jesus. There is no such thing as East Williamsburg, 2021. Oil on linen. 59 1/2 x 59 1/2, 151.1 x 151.1. Photo by Dario Lasagni. Courtesy of Calderón, New York
It is De Jesus’ painting There is no such thing as East Williamsburg that best encapsulates the contradictions of gentrification as they appear within the landscape. The undeniable focal point of the painting is two subjects walking along the foreground carrying items of play and leisure: a yoga mat and a balloon. I am captivated by what is less visible in the background, however: a building construction site and a dumpster, guarded by a fence and barbed wire. To the left of this painting is a drawing by Rodriguez depicting a street vendor selling balloons out of a shopping cart. This pairing is striking because it begs the question: who is being protected by the city? It is certainly not the street vendor, who is regularly subject to harassment and fines by the NYPD. Instead, the construction zone is protected through barriers and surveillance, which always feels unsettling. The illusion and promise of new development is clearly of highest priority for those with decision-making power, even more so than any human being. In many cases, new units are built and remain empty, serving as ghost shells for shady foreign capital, and these empty spaces illuminate the city’s vast economic disparities and misguided resource allocation.
Both De Jesus’ paintings and Rodriguez’s drawings underscore the very real, devastating phenomena enacted by an endless lust for capital in our neoliberal present. The violence of gentrification is often obscured by blinding shine after years of bureaucratic neglect: the gloss of a new high-rise, the hope for investment in public spaces and resources, the promise of a job opportunity, the vision of tomorrow, miraculously undeterred by the problems of today. There is power in challenging these empty promises that in actuality enact violence. By capturing everyday moments of survival, De Jesus and Rodriguez remind us of the need to document and record things in the face of hyper-accelerated capitalism that begs us to ignore and forget. If these artworks were never made, highlighting salient moments affecting people’s lives, then how else would these particular stories be recorded? How can a representational image encapsulate a state of duress, or perhaps more importantly, a true moment of decolonization at the forefront of a dying empire?
Alex Santana is a new member to the Intervenxions team, joining in November 2021. Santana is a writer and curator with an interest in conceptual art, political intervention, and public participation. Currently based in New York, she has held research positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Newcomb Art Museum, and Mana Contemporary. Her interviews and essays have been published by CUE Art Foundation, Hamam Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Precog Magazine, Artsy, and The Latinx Project.