Coming soon

Puerto Rico returns to the global art scene with the Collateral
Event Baile, Botella y Baraja – José Ruiz between the Bottle and the Canvas and his
Naïf Narrative of Puerto Rico, a major exhibition dedicated to the work of Puerto
Rican painter José Ruiz. Official Collateral Event of the 61st International Art
Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia (Biennale Arte 2026), organized by Consolato
REM Brega. The project is curated by REM Escobar, who once again positions
Puerto Rican art within the most prestigious international cultural circuits.
Consolato REM Brega, following its first participation in Biennale Arte 2024 with
the Collateral Event titled “Desde San Juan Bautista…”, commissioned by Roberto
Escobar Molina —who selected the participating artists and defined the curatorial
framework, assembling a team that included two curators who contributed to the
project— returns for Biennale Arte 2026 with the Collateral Event Baile, Botella y
Baraja. The exhibition focuses exclusively on the artist José Ruiz and marks a new
chapter highlighting REM Escobar’s curatorial vision and his constant commitment
to expanding Puerto Rico’s visibility on the international art scene.
Baile, Botella y Baraja – José Ruiz between the Bottle and the Canvas and his Naïf
Narrative of Puerto Rico presents José Ruiz not only as a naïf painter but also as a
historical narrator whose work functions as a living archive of Puerto Rico’s colonial
and contemporary realities. Through a deliberately non-academic aesthetic, Ruiz
has constructed, over more than six decades, a visual chronicle of the island,
where carnivals, plazas, card games, bottles, and community gatherings become
repositories of collective memory, highlighting the role of women in resistance
and historical memory, including the clinical trials of the contraceptive pill Enovid
in the 1950s and the mass sterilizations of Puerto Rican women between 1930 and
1970, as well as their effects on cultural identity.