Bibliography

Category: About Marcos Dimas
Hits: 6204
  "Alternative Histories", Exit Art N.Y.C., 2013
  • Julie Ault
"Alternative Art N.Y..1965-1985", 2002
  • Marcos Dimas
"30th Year Exhibition Catalogue; Taller Boricua", 2001
  • Javier Martinez de Pizon
"Una Pintura que Ahonda en las Raíces", Médico Interamerican, 1999
  • Veerle Poupeye
"Caribbean Art", 1998
  • Susana Torruella Leval
"Identity and Freedom" A Challenge for the Ninenties Decade, 1990
  • Lucy R. Lippard
"Mixed Blessings" New Art in a Multicultural América, 1990
  • Marcos Dimas
"Taller Boricua", 1989
  • Carlos Carrillo
"Marcos Dimas' Exhibit at the Bronx Museum", El Diario, 1986
  • Lucy R. Lippard
"Out of Sight Out of Mind" Asian and Hispanic Artists, UP Front, 1984
  • Catalina Parra
"El Museo del Barrio un Museo Hispano en la Quinta Avenida", Cartellera#6, 1982
  • Grace Gruek
New York Times, February 5, 1982
  • Juan Bujan
La Voz Hispana, March 17, 1982
  • Ruben Rosario
Daily News, December 6, 1981
  • David Hershkovitz
Village Voice, February, 1978
  • New York Reviews
Arts News, October, 1978
  • "Art in the Barrio"
New York Magazine, August 7, 1972
  • "Taller Boricua Art and Fraternity"
El Diario, July 4, 1972
  • "New York Artists at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture"
El Nuevo Día, July 7, 1970
  • Olivia Delgado
"Una Fecunda Veta de Artistas Desconocidos", LIFE, May 19, 1969

 

 

 

Selected Fine Arts Exhibitions

Category: About Marcos Dimas
Hits: 6084
  • 2008
"Creando Fuerza, Cambio y Pertenencia", Mexic Arte Museum- Austin, Texas.USA
  • 2008
"Painterly Graphics", Sidney Mishkin Gallery at Baruch College, N.Y.C Silkaqutint Prints
  • 2007
"Remix", Clemente Soto Velez, Cultural Center N.Y.C Design Concepts for a Parade
  • 2006
"CIRCA Puerto Rico 06", S.J. First International ART Digital Prints Fair
  • 2006
"Prints", Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk Connecticut Silkaqutint Prints
  • 2006
"Nuestra Cultura Artística", Lubeznick Center for the Arts, Michigan City, Indiana Prints
  • 2005
"Sculture in Progress", Bronx Art Now, Bronx River Art Center, N.Y.C. Constructions, Assemblages
  • 2005
"12th Seoul International Art Festival", Chosunilbo Art Museum, Seoul, Korea Digital Prints
  • 2005
"Upside", Taller Boricua Galleries, N.Y.C. Selection of Combine Paintings
  • 2004
"Off the Main", Contemporary African, Caribbean and Latin American Art, N.Y.C. Prints
  • 2003
"National Exhibition of the Plastic Arts", San Juan, P.R. Paintings from Digital
  • 2003
"13th Seoul International Art Festival", Seoul, Korea Alternative and Environmental Art, Prints
  • 2000 - 2001
"9th San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Printmakers", P.R. Prints
  • 2000
"Pedro Albizu Campos", Taller Boricua Gallery, N.Y.C Mixed Media Works on Paper
  • 1999
"Pressing the Point", Museo del Barrio N.Y.C Movement Graphic Arts
  • 1998
"Invested Vision", The National Arts Club, N.Y.C. The Celestial Warrior
  • 1998
"Printmaking from Puerto Rico to East Harlem", Rutgers University, N.J. Prints from 1970 & 1980
  • 1998
"12th San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Printmakers", P.R. Bradway Boogie Woogie con SALSA
  • 1995
"Reaffirming Spirituality", Museo del Barrio, N.Y.C. Spirit Traps
  • 1994
"Yslas / Art in Transit", Hostos College, N.Y.C. Amertrinity Paintings
  • 1994
"El Puerto Rican Embassy", Kenkeleba Gallery, N.Y.C. La Mancha Paintings
  • 1994
"Reclaiming History: 25th Anniversary Exhibition", Museo del Barrio, N.Y.C. Assemblages
  • 1993 - 1994
"El Tema del Indio en el Arte Puertorriqueño", Museo de las Américas, San Juan, P.R. Taino Inspired Paintings
  • 1993
"Carnaval Mitos, Magia y Tradiciones", Galería Normandie, San Juan, P.R. Arawanily Painting
  • 1993
"500th Anniversary Exhibition at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture / Muestra de Arte Puertorriqueño Quinto Centenario", Instituto de Cultura, San Juan, P.R. Paintings
  • 1993
"Home Away From Home", Latin American Artists, The Art Museum at Story Brook, N.Y.C Paintings
  • 1992
"Crossection", Arts and Events at the World Financial Center, N.Y.C Constructions
  • 1991
"A New Season", Taller Boricua at the Museum of the City of New York, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1990
"P.S. 39 and the Longwood Community", N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1989-1990
"Taller Alma Boricua", 20 Years Exhibit at El Museo del Barrio, N.Y.C. Mixed Media Work
  • 1988
"Huellas", La Galería el Bohio, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1988
"Homage: Duet for Huelsenbek", Museo del Barrio, N.Y.C. Participant in piano destruction performance with Rafael Montañez Ortíz
  • 1986
"Segunda Bienal de La Habana/Second Biennial", La Habana, Cuba Acrylic Paintings
  • 1986
"Transculture Transmedia", Exit Art, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1986
"South Bronx Show", Bronx Council on the Arts, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1986
"Caribbean Art/African Currents", Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Arts, N.Y.C. Assemblages, Combines
  • 1986
"Democracy at Work", Longwood Arts Project,N.Y.C. Movement Graphics
  • 1985
"Art Works in City Spaces", The Tweed Courthouse Gallery, N.Y.C Paintings
  • 1985
"Hispanic Art Tour", (traveled till 1987), N.Y.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Houston, Miami Paintings
  • 1985
"Surplus Art", Exit Art, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1984
"Cuarteto", Hostos Community College, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings with Photography
  • 1983
"Roots", Ollantay Gallery, N.Y.C. Assemblage Drawings
  • 1983
"The Other America (Das Andere Amerika)", Berlin West Germany Movement Graphics
  • 1982
"Made in NY", City Gallery, N.Y.C. Paintings
  • 1982
"Octopus", collaborative project with Papo Colo, Museo del Barrio, N.Y.C. Echo Has Its Own House
  • 1981
"Hispanic Artists in New Ypork City", City Gallery, N.Y.C. The Voyager Construction
  • 1981
"Taller Boricua at Rutgers University", N.J. Prints and Paintings
  • 1981
"Events", The New Museum of Contemporary Art, N.Y.C. Constructions and Paintings
  • 1981
"Starngers", Collective Ambience, Taller Boricua, N.Y.C. Installation
  • 1980
Housotonic University Museum, N.Y.C. Paintings and Graphics
  • 1979
"Artists 79", United Nations, N.Y.C. Assemblage Drawings
  • 1979
"Private Icon", Bronx Museum, N.Y.C. Assemblages
  • 1978
"Bridge Between Islands", traveled to the Museo del Barrio, Bronx Museum, and Henry Street Settlement, N.Y.C.Paintings and Prints
  • 1977
"Confrontacion: Ambiente y Espacio", Museo del Barrio Installations, N.Y.C. Installation, Mixed Media
  • 1977
"Soho - Whitney Counterweight", Cayman Gallery, N.Y.C. Prints
  • 1976
"NAM", Brooklyn Museum, N.Y.C. Drawings and Paintings
  • 1976
"Spirit of Independence", Cayman Gallery, N.Y.C. Prints
  • 1976
"IMAN", Center for Inter American Relations, N.Y.C. traveled to the Institute if Puerto Rican Culture, and the Ponce Museum, P.R. Assemblage Drawings
  • 1974
"Paintings and Assemblages", Forum's Gallery, N.Y.C.
  • 1973
"First Festival of Third World Arts", Hunter College, N.Y.C. Paintings
  • 1971
Taller Boricua at Automation House, N.Y.C. Paintings
  • 1970
"New York Artists", Institute of Puert Rican Culture, P.R. Paintings
  • 1969
"Contemporary Puerto Rican Artists", Brooklyn Museum, N.Y.C. Paintings and Assemblage

 

 

 

Solo Fine Arts Exhibitions

Category: About Marcos Dimas
Hits: 6252
  • 2010
"Spirit in Time", The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, N.Y.C
  • 2008
"Marcos Dimas a Restrospective 35 Years Selected Works", Taller Boricua Galleries, N.Y.C Selected Paintings
  • 2007 - 2008
"The Glorious Monster", Taller Boricua Galleries, N.Y.C Constructions, Assemblages, Prints
  • 2007
"Paintings", Global Link Gallery, N.Y.C.
  • 2006
"The Art of Marcos Dimas", Centro Gallery, Hunter College, N.Y.C. Paintings
  • 2004
"The Last Paintings", Philosophy Box Gallery, N.Y.C.
  • 2001
"Sights and Sounds", Bronx River Arts Center and Gallery, N.Y.C. Multimedia Collaboration with Jazz composer Papo Vásquez Music Composition and Visual Art.
  • 1986
"Recent", Bronx Museum, N.Y.C. Combine Paintings
  • 1981
"The Voyager and Other Works a Decade of Art", Museo del Barrio, N.Y.C. Constructions, Assemblages, Paintings, Drawings, Installations
  • 1979
"The Imaginist", Association of Hispanic Arts, N.Y.C. Drawings, Assemblages
  • 1978 - 1979
"Paintings and Drawings", Cayman Gallery, Soho N.Y.C.
  • 1973
"Marcos Dimas Ramirez, Soul Capture", Galleria Barrio, N.Y.C. Paintings, Prints
  • 1971
"Solo", Taller Boricua Galleries N.Y.C. Paintings

 

 

 

More about me

Category: About Marcos Dimas
Hits: 6254

Education

  • 1976
WNET Film and Televition School, graduate
  • 1973
Post Graduate Studies at the School of Visual Arts
  • 1970
School of Visual Arts, graduate

Grants and Awards

  • 2009-2010
Public Art Installation Project. Harlem River Park Walk. N.Y.C.
  • 2008
Community Works Latin Roots Living History Award
  • 2005
21th Century International Creative Artists. 12th International Art Festival - Invited Artist
  • 2003
21th Century International Creative Artists. 9th International Art Festival - Invited Artist
  • 2000-2001
Longwood Art Center's Cyber Gallery Residency and Exhibition Program
  • 2001
BRAC Artist Space Program Fellowship
  • 1999
BRIO Painting Fellowship
  • 1995
BRIO Painting Fellowship
  • 1986
Artist in Residency Fellowship-Bronx Council on the Arts. P.S. 39 Longwood Arts Project
  • 1977
C.A.P.S NYFA Filmmaking Fellowship

Organizations

  • 1969 to present
Artist-Founder/Director of the Puerto Rican Workshop, Inc (A.K.A. Taller Boricua)

 

 

 

Autobiography

Category: About Marcos Dimas
Hits: 8166

Marcos Dimas



F ollowing my involvement with the art workers coalition during the late 60’s and then co-founding the Taller Boricua, an artists’ collective in 1970, I decided to forsake my early training of modern art, to begin a quest for alternative sources. This led me to embrace the art of the extinct Taino Indian peoples of my homeland Puerto Rico. My mission would be to pay homage to, and encourage, the revival of the art of my spiritual ancestors.

I was born on a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico, where I was raised, until the age of nine. During my childhood explorations, I discovered shards of pottery carved with images created by the Taino Indians. I also experienced European contributions to art through the religious pictures and sculptures displayed in the churches. In 1952, my family moved to the United States and settled in New York City. Soon after graduating from the High School of Fashion Industries in 1963, I was drafted into the Vietnam war and released in 1967 with an honorable discharge.

The culture of the Asian people was a wonderful visual experience. While serving in Korea, I learned to make rubbings from stone carvings onto delicate rice paper. I later used this technique to collect images from petroglyphs in Puerto Rico. After my tour of duty, I returned to the United States and decided to become a professional artist and I enrolled at the School of Visual Arts S.V.A.) in New York City.

During my years at S.V.A, I joined the Art Workers Coalition, an advocacy organization. The goal of the coalition was to decentralize the art displayed by museums and re-distribute them throughout the local communities. In that period, my art was a hybrid of hard-edge techniques, surreal and pop-art images. I had studied extensively with Malcolm Morley, Chuck Close, Richard Artshwagger and Steve Gionakos and others. In 1970, I graduated from the School of Visual Arts’ Fine Arts program.

Later that year, I co-founded Taller Boricua (Puerto Rican Workshop). A community based art group that served to create artists’ spaces, a creative support forum for ideas and a center for education. In 1971, I married and my first child was born. That same year, I exhibited my surreal/pop art work in the Institute of Culture in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Using petroglyphic images from the caves and stone styles of the Taino Indian and incorporating them into automatic drawing exercises, these images and compositions turned into a series of drawings and paintings assimilating the power and intensity of the root of carribean culture. That year marked my departure from European influenced aesthetic, as strongly evident in my first solo exhibit at the Museo del Barrio in 1973.

Following this exhibit, I began a series of three-dimensional assemblages and found-object “combine” paintings. This series, titled “Spirit Traps,” made use of a mixed selection of materials such as feathers, rope, discarded furniture parts, mirrors and umbrellas. All of these were shown at the Forum’s Gallery “Paintings and Assemblages exhibit in 1974.

My second child was born in 1977, the same year I exhibited in the “Soho Whitney Counterweight” in New York City.

 In 1979, two important exhibitions featured my revival and rebirth aesthetic. The first exhibit entitled “Private Icon,” at the Bronx Museum in New York City, debuted the Voyager assemblage; a primitive vessel which I presented as an allegory to the modern spacecraft and to a primitive spiritual voyage. The other exhibit entitled “The Imagist” featured a selection of ritual assemblage drawings. These exhibitions were presented at the Association of Hispanic Arts and the Cayman Gallery, both in New York City.

During these years, I also studied filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts, and later at the W.N.E.T. film television school. In 1977, I produced and directed a documentary on six contemporary Puerto Rican painters (including myself) that was aired on P.B.S. Channel 13, and for which I received a Creative Artists Filmmaking Fellowship (C.A.P.S.)

Between the 1970’s and 1980’s, El Taller Boricua maintained its philosophy of helping artists find a true initiative aesthetic and self-empowerment. To this day,  I have maintained my participation as a founding member of Taller Boricua-as director, teacher, advocate and mentor. In 1981, myself and other artists from Taller Boricua were invited to exhibit “Events” at the New Museum of Contempoary Art in NYC and “Das Andere Amerika: (The Other America) that was exhibited in West Germany and traveled throughout Europe.

In 1981, in a retrospective exhibit at the Museo Del Barrio, I showed a decade of my Urban archeology and transmorphic work. This show was titled “The Voyager’” and other work,” and consisted of paintings, drawings, assemblages , prints and environmental works.

In 1986, I received an Artist-In-Residence Fellowship from te Bronx Council on the Arts. This same year, I had a solo exhibition of recent works at The Bronx Museum of the Arts.

From 1986 through 1994, I’ve had a steady output of work that I exhibited in a constant flow of shows. Including the “Carribean Art/African Currents” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Arts, 1986; the “Transcultural Exhibit” at Exit Art, 1986; the “Second Biannual” in Havana, Cuba, 1986; the Taller Alma Boricua” 20th anniversary exhibition at Museo del Barrio, 1989/90; the “500 Year Anniversary Celebration”exhibition  in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1993; the “Indigenous Image in Puerto Rican Art” exhibit at the Museum of the Americas in San Juan, Puerto Rico 1993-94; the “Reclaiming History/25th Anniversary Exhinition” at Museo del Barrio, NYC 1994; the “El Puerto Rican Embassy Show” at Kenkeleba Gallery, NYC  1994; and “Yslas”  exposition at Hostos Community College, Bronx, NYC 1994. The second of the “Reaffirming Spirituality” exhibits at the Museo del Barrio 1995, featured a work of mine called “Spirit Trap” as the signature piece and title exhibition.

Marcos Dimas is a painter, printer, filmmaker and sculptor.