Carlos Franco Maldonado: ay. ai. aí.
Carlos Franco Maldonado: ay. ai. aí. 2020, installation view, The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art. Photo: Nando Alvarez-Perez.
January 24 — March 28, 2020
“Humor is a way to counteract feeling helpless, no?”
Carlos Franco Maldonado: ay. ai. aí. is a playful look into the complexities, recurring motifs, and paradoxes of Puerto Rico–an island in constant struggle for agency in a post-colonial world. In a carefully choreographed multimedia installation, Maldonado explores the convergence of nature and culture into a media landscape by mapping the improbable connections between the internet memes of the North American alt-right, the rise of cryptocurrencies in the Caribbean, and the climate change-induced disappearance and migration of the Puerto Rican-native coquí frog.
An artist who works across disciplines, Maldonado considers the components of this installation as an “archipelago” that creates a complex system of interrelations, resembling a deconstructed landscape of the Caribbean region, that takes into consideration the infrastructure, economies, climate, and media that shape it. The installation includes a live banana tree, a functional waterworks sculpture, and choreographed video projections sourced from mass and social media.
Together the works act as a model that reflects the delicate balance of stability and fluidity that define the Caribbean region, the spooky interconnected logic of contemporary life, and the artist’s own connection to and migration from Puerto Rico.
Video
Exhibition Images
About the Artist
Carlos Franco Maldonado is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Maldonado holds a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Visual Art from the University of Puerto Rico and a master’s in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. His works and projects have been presented at the Lab, SOMArt’s Cultural Center, and The Thing Quarterly in San Francisco; at Lvl3 Gallery in Chicago; Nikolaj Kunshal, Copenhagen, DK; Quinta del Sordo, Madrid, SP; and Universidad de Medellín, Medellín, CO among others. He’s currently a resident at ISCP in Brooklyn, NY. cfrancomaldonado.com
Supported By:
The series Humor as a Tool is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; administered by Arts Services Initiative of Western New York. Further support is provided by Give for Greatness.
