Monday January 2, 2023; 8:12 AM EST
- On a wall in a museum in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I read a list of things artists try to accomplish in their works. I didn't write down the list, but from memory I'd say it included things like making something beautiful or capturing the spirit of a people in their time and place. But one word stood out and I am sure I remember it precisely: Denunciations. Before visiting San Juan, I had read that the museums were more political than we often see up north, and this turned out to be true, I'd say. When there are things worthy of being denounced in the history of a people, some artists will take on the role, along with the other roles of the artist from the more expected parts of that list. On three brief first visits to two small and one medium-sized museum, I saw quite a number of historically conscious and critical works. Many works were beautiful, fresh, sometimes shocking, and in literal content and in moods and styles and other quieter ways, it felt like a great cultural silence was (for me, the naive visitor) being ended. This felt good and challenging and implied personally having operated for long periods in a too-narrowly imagined cultural, artistic, and spiritual realm. And there was a lot of beauty that was inflected in fresh ways that seemed deeply connected to the region of the Caribbean. #