Whitney Biennial 2017
Mar 17–June 11, 2017
Beatriz Santiago Muñoz
37
Floor 3
Born 1972 in San Juan, PR
Lives in San Juan, PR
Beatriz Santiago Muñoz examines postcolonial experiences in the Caribbean, considering how perceptions of authenticity and artifice have historically worked to inform identity. Filmed in Haiti, Marché Salomon (2015) reimagines the titular bustling local market as a cosmic system. Black Beach / Horse / Camp / The Dead / Forces (2016) entwines images from Vieques, Puerto Rico, which for sixty years was the site of a U.S. Navy training and bombing range. In both works Santiago Muñoz films people using improvisation, choreographed gestures, and reenactment to convey lived histories and symbolic alternatives to them. She rejects ethnography’s scientific origins and instead hints at truths beyond what is immediately visible. Santiago Muñoz’s most recent film, The Unspeakable Thing, focuses on the work of Jan Susler, a Chicago-based civil rights lawyer who has represented numerous Puerto Rican political prisoners.
Screenings: May 6–7
Marché Salomon, 2015
Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (b. 1972), still from Marché Salomon, 2015. High-definition video, color, sound; 15:57 min. Courtesy the artist and Galería Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan