Juan Sánchez: States of Liberation
Opens Fall 2027
Juan Sánchez: States of Liberation
Juan Sánchez, Para Don Pedro, 1992. Color photolithograph, lithograph, and laser print with oil stick additions and collage, 23 3/16 × 30 in. (58.9 × 76.2 cm). Edition 11/22. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 94.47. © Juan Sánchez
Juan Sánchez: States of Liberation will be the first traveling retrospective devoted to Juan Sánchez, one of the founding figures of Latinx art in the United States. For more than four decades, Sánchez has created a powerful and deeply personal body of work rooted in the histories, politics, and spiritual traditions of the working-class and Puerto Rican communities that shaped his upbringing in New York.
Across more than 60 works, including paintings, works on paper, photography, and video, the exhibition weaves together the narrative threads of autobiography, community, nation, and utopia. Together, these works offer a comprehensive look at Sánchez’s expansive practice and his sustained engagement with identity, collective memory, colonialism, resistance, and the possibility of social transformation.
Juan Sánchez: States of Liberation is co-organized by The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, in collaboration with the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. Curated by Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; Tie Jojima, Curator of Global Contemporary Art, The Phillips Collection; and Alejandro Anreus, Guest Curator, with Carina Martinez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow, Whitney Museum of American Art.