Episode No. 619 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Edra Soto and José Lerma.

Soto and Lerma are among the 18 artists featured in “entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition examines the artistic genealogies and social justice movements that connect Puerto Rico with Chicago, which is home to third-largest mainland population of Puerto Ricans. “entre horizontes” was curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates with Iris Colburn. It is on view through May 5, 2024. 

Edra Soto’s sculpture and installations prompt viewers to reconsider cross-cultural dynamics, the legacy of colonialism, and personal responsibility, often via riffs on vernacular architecture familiar to Puerto Rico that she calls Graft. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in the 2020-21 El Museo del Barrio, New York, triennial, at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and more. In 2023 Soto was awarded a US LatinX Art Forum fellowship. Soto also is the co-director of the outdoor project space The Franklin. 

Lerma is a painter whose work blends the historical, autobiographical, art historical and mythological, often through portraits that suggest (or name) specific individuals while pointing to how much of their public personae are manufactured. Simultaneously riffing on European portraiture traditions and popular representation, his work is smart, funny, and always painterly. The Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the MCA Chicago have all presented solo exhibitions of his work. 

Instagram: Edra Soto, José Lerma, Tyler Green.

Air date: September 14, 2023.