CROSSING BORDERS - The Wheel of Fortune (American Dream), returns to NYC after 24 years

The Wheel of Fortune (American Dream), on display as part of the exhibition, Ida y Vuelta: Experiencias de la migración en el arte puertorriqueño contemporáneo at the Hunter College East Harlem Gallery. La rueda de la fortuna was part of Hernández solo exhibition at the New Museum, Illegal Games (1999).

"Risk, anticipation, luck, walking on a tightrope, riddles and the fortuitous; these are the elements of life that are translated into the practice of games, in the act of rolling the dice and turning the wheel of fortune "- Anaida Hernández

Fragment of the essay  catalogue exhibition Ida y Vuelta (2018) by Laura Bravo, curator 

La ruleta de la fortuna: el sueño americano, 

1998 - 1999 

This game warns us, through the table in which we are invited to bet, that the desires of prosperity, freedom, fame, pleasure or success, also imply the risk of encountering a thorny outcome. This is the drama experienced by thousands of Puerto Ricans who, driven by the recession and the desire for a more promising future, left the island and faced problems of discrimination and even worse precariousness.

The risk and emotion of the game are star resources of this piece, where the public is invited to participate with the purpose of experiencing the sensation of venturing to reach an idealized life in a foreign space. The mythical dream of the protagonist country is recognizable through symbols such as the crown of the Statue of Liberty, the Capitol or the flag. Although the migration from Puerto Rico to the United States does not imply the crossing of a political border, the geographical transfer entails another type of difficulties.

Like a coin that is thrown into the air, this dream also has two faces, and to each glorified version of the emigrants' hopes, there is the hidden possibility of unpredictable misfortune that may befall them.

Artist Statement

ANAIDA HERNÁNDEZ

 Anaida Hernandez is a contemporary multimedia artist. Born and raised in Puerto Rico,                

Anaida's work is characterized by addressing human rights issues: femicide, migration, environment, identity and coloniality. Anaida Hernández's research-based practice investigates the intersections of history, material culture and politics through a wide range of media that include painting, sculpture, printmaking, installations and documentaries, among others. Anaida is considered by art critics as one of the pioneers in addressing the issue of violence against women  in contemporary Caribbean and Latin American art. ¹ Until death do us part, 1994, is a memorial installation, an icon of Hernández's work where the artist reminds us of the femicides in Puerto Rico, when Law 54 on Domestic Violence was signed in 1989. 

Anaida considers herself a builder and painter attracted by archaeology, mythology, dreams and symbols. The textures of Anaida's paintings exemplify the inventive technique found in her work. Hernández experiments with multiple materials to perfect her artistic creation techniques with unique results. These provide the basis for her to cover her canvases with a plaster that Hernández calls Concretexturas and with which she "empañeta" his canvases and creates light and resistant surfaces. This plaster is composed of multiple materials such as cement, sand, lime, marble powder, mineral and natural pigments, brick powder and fiberglass. 

Anaida Hernández challenges and seeks to break the limits of art, translating her experience and sensations through a variety of processes. Hernández is influenced by the Situationists and the art of ancient cultures. And in the creative process she uses fundamental concepts such as Chance, Drift and  Fortuitous Encounters which she calls  Anaida 's  ADEF (Azar Deriva Encuentro Fortuito)  .  

Hernández democratizes art with her pieces by looking for new approaches and tactics to break with the social and institutional divisions that separate art from everyday life. As an important component and strategy, Anaida invites the public to participate in a physical interaction with the work through the artistic activity of the game 2.

Anaida considers her work as Affective Conceptual Art, conceptual in idea and affective in image.

Anaida Hernández lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is currently working on a series of large-scale paintings and pictorial sculptures. In this series, Anaida considers nature and the landscape as a code to decipher the riddles of identity, power and colonialism that provoke a subtle but powerful visualization of the ecological crisis of the neocolonial landscape .

1  Quiñones Otal, Emilia (2015 ) , "Transversality between patriarchal violence and colonial violence inthe arts of Puerto Rico". Journal of the Puerto Rican Institute (111):162-169.p. 167.

2  Anaida Hernandez: Illegal games/Illegal games