May 21, 2021
The exhibition Sustaining Home: The Art of Alberto Rey presents a collaborative, online exhibition, hosted by the Art Museum of the Americas, under the leadership of its Officer in Charge, Adriana Ospina, for which a group of students at the State University of New York at Geneseo became curators and wrote essays focused on the life and work of Alberto Rey. Sustaining Home was organized by Lynette M.F. Bosch, who led the students in a seminar, which studied Rey’s paintings and environmental projects. The students involved in the class were able to interview Rey over the course of two meetings of the seminar about his environmental work and his artistic development. In fourteen essays, the teacher and students, who became the curators of Sustaining Home, explored theirs and Rey’s engagement with his identity as a Cuban-American; his establishment of a home for his family in Western New York State; and his developing involvement with environmental sustainability, as expressed in his work and his active involvement with community projects. In these projects, Rey works predominantly with groups engaged in the restoration and preservation of waterways. Inspired by Rey’s art and by his activities as an environmentalist, the students in the seminar selected the paintings included in this exhibition and wrote interpretive essays, wherein each student conveyed their understanding of the significance of Rey’s work from their personal perspective. Each essay presents an approach, an argument and a connection to the themes that emerge in Rey’s work, which take Rey from his first Cuban home to his current life in Western New York State, where he is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of Art, at the State University of New York at Fredonia, where he lives with his family.
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