Paul Camacho: El Ritmo y La Unidad at MoCA Westport

Still Life with Wine Bottle

MoCA Westport and the Westport Public Art Collections Committee announce Paul Camacho: El Ritmo y La Unidad (Rhythm and Unity), a new exhibition featuring selected works by Paul Camacho (1929-1989), on view January 13 – February 26, 2023.

The exhibition was curated by Alexandra M. Thomas, an art historian, critic, curator, and PhD candidate at Yale in History of Art and African American Studies, with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Woman with Sun Rays

Paul Camacho: El Ritmo y La Unidad (Rhythm and Unity) is a monographic exhibition of the late artist’s formal experiments with portraiture, geometric abstraction, and still life. As a Puerto Rican artist active within the mid to late 20th century, his work must be understood within the context of industrialization and modernist abstraction as it flourished in the global 1960s.

“The show is titled El Ritmo y La Unidad because Camacho instills each painting with a vibrant sense of color and movement, ultimately creating unified representations of everyday life and eccentric designs,” stated Thomas.

This year’s annual collaboration between MoCA Westport and WestPAC will once again enable audiences to enjoy selections from WestPAC holdings of more than 2,000 artworks at a public venue. Most of these works are housed in public schools and municipal buildings, not always accessible to the public. The exhibition will also include a “Learning Gallery” with approximately 20 works of abstract art from WestPAC’s collection, curated by WestPAC Committee Chair Ive Covaci, PhD.

Pablo (later anglicized to Paul) Camacho was born in Morovis, Puerto Rico in 1929. As a child he moved stateside, living in New York City and then Fairfield County (Bridgeport and Weston). The experience of Puerto Ricans in New York is a well-documented migration pattern and cultural milieu, especially in the Bronx where Camacho lived, yet our own local histories of Puerto Rican art and life in Connecticut remains relatively underexplored.

Camacho maintained a practice of dynamic brushwork, exuberant colorwork, and innovative representations of his everyday life and cultural environment throughout his career. Before his death in San Juan in 1989, Camacho exhibited his paintings all throughout the 1970s in Puerto Rico, mainland United States, and Europe.

Iris

For more information, please visit mocawestport.org or contact Liz Leggett, Director of Exhibitions at liz@mocawestport.org. MoCA Westport’s winter hours are Wed 12 – 4PM | Thursday 12 – 7 PM | Friday – Sunday 12 – 4 PM. MoCA Westport is located at 19 Newtown Turnpike in Westport, Connecticut. MoCA Westport believes the arts should be accessible to all; if you need financial assistance with admissions, classes, or event registration, please contact the Museum at info@mocawestport.org.