En Foco

En Foco is a non-profit organization that nurtures contemporary fine art and documentary photographers of diverse cultures, primarily U.S. residents of Latino, African and Asian heritage, and native peoples of the Americas and the Pacific.

Founded in 1974 and inspired by the civil rights movement, it has been in the forefront of documenting the artistic journeys created by photographic artists often overlooked by the mainstream art world. In the words of Susana Torruella Leval (former Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio, New York City):

En Foco has actively promoted photographers of color according to the profound, simple and revolutionary premise that artists whose work reflected their ethnic roots were developing a unique iconography of high artistic and cultural significance. This premise, preceded “multiculturalism“ by two decades, and prepared the way for the recognition that different cultural and ethnic groups make an all-important contribution to the cultural and artistic life of the United States.Fact|date=July 2008

Through its visual arts programs, En Foco strives to balance the inequities of the art world by creating the 'missing pages' in art history. In 1984 it created the bilingual (English/Spanish) photographic magazine "Nueva Luz", which concentrates on works by U.S. based photographers of color.

History

Inspired by the 1973 traveling exhibition "Dos Mundos" (organized by the Institute of Contemporary Hispanic Art and exhibited in NYC, Los Angeles and Puerto Rico), a group of Puerto Rican photographers - Charles Biasiny-Rivera, Phil Dante, and Roger Cabán - banded together to form the core En Foco group and incorporated in 1974.

Although artist-initiated projects and alternative spaces begun in the 70s, individual artists and collectives garnered a substantial role in the development of a more personal, psychologically charged aesthetic, parallel to the rise of the museum as a more public, less exclusive institution. [Written in response to Arthur Danto's "Beyond the Brillo Box: Art of the Posthistorical Period" (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992), where he challenges the idea of institutional art and the issue of who comprises the art world.]

While the prevailing postmodernist theories were equally daunting, the positive effect of that thinking was a disruption of a hegemonous art world which, in some ways was a metaphor for increased tolerance and cultural understanding. But the postmodern issue of who is privileged and who is "other" still leaves the problem of who is in charge of figuring this all out.

En Foco, through its history, values, references and philosophy, engages that discourse, addressing issues such as the notion of institutional art, the acceptance of photography as a fine art form, the economic enfranchisement of artists, the accessibility of art to the public, the possibilities of diverse cultural references, and the significance of authenticity. [Excerpt from En Foco's "Nueva Luz Commemorative Issue," Volume 7#2 (En Foco, Bronx, NY: 1995), by Betty Wilde-Biasiny.] dubious

Notes

References

* Bonilla, Fred. " [http://www.photoinduced.com/archives/887 Calidad y Claridad: The Fine Work of En Foco] ". Photoinduced.com. March 9, 2008.
* Cotter, Holland. " [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE7DE113CF934A35756C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 Way Up in the Bronx a Hardy Spirit Blooms] ". "New York Times", May 7, 1999.
* Herrera, Monica. "Mujeres on the Move". "Latina", August 2007.
* "Seeing Differently: Photo Magazines with an Angle". "Utne Magazine", Sept-Oct 2003
* [http://www.moma.org/research/library/latinosurvey/index.html Survey of Archives of Latino and Latin American Art] , Museum of Modern Art, New York
* Swerdlin, Ilana. "En Foco Celebrates 30 Years". "Afterimage", Issue 33.1
* Fernandez, Enrique. "La Gran Passion: Work by Hispanic Photographers." The Village Voice, July 12, 1983.
* Guzman, Pablo Yoruba . "A Latin Sense of Family." The Daily News, September 30, 1979.
* Moser, Lida. " [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A1EF8355A1A7493C5A8178BD95F428785F9&scp=1&sq=A%20Photographer%27s%20Guide%20to%20Cooperative%20Galleries&st=cse A Photographer's Guide to Cooperative Galleries] ." Arts & Leisure section, New York Times, October 17, 1976.