Unit 1 Gallery showcases "Til the Cows Come Home" By Rolando Chang Barrero

Til the Cows Come Home by Rolando Cang Barrero

"‘El Pajaro Numero 1’, shows a serious yet peaceful expression with beautiful hues of blue, surrounded by tropical flowers that seem to blend with the emotion of the work."

-Laura Lordi, Palm Beach Post

Curator's Notes

"But there is a dark-side, after all, to the pretty little birds and the beautiful boys, and if you care to venture below the surface into the depth of the symbol, you might find evidence of a life lived with hard lessons and hard truths."

-Jacques de Beaufort, Curator

Visit Rolando's facebook page

By Laura Lordi

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A new, unique gallery has opened in Lake Worth. Unit 1, described as a performance and exhibition space, showcases artists in all media.

Their newest show, ‘Surface and Symbol: The Work of Rolando Chang Barrero’, promises to be of the same description: unique.

After overcoming brain cancer, which halted his career for years, Barrero is having his first solo show in 15 years.

His close-up portraits depict colorful, yet dark expressions of the subject. The vibrant face in his acrylic piece, ‘El Pajaro Numero 1’, shows a serious yet peaceful expression with beautiful hues of blue, surrounded by tropical flowers that seem to blend with the emotion of the work.

It is though the dark reality Barrero has had to face shows underneath the surface of his paintings.

The opening reception and show will be Friday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., with musical performances by Jean Jacket and Sweet Bronco from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

The gallery is currently open during events and by appointment only.

‘Surface And Symbol’

When: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday

Where: Unit 1 Gallery, 1202 Lucerne Ave., Lake Worth

Admission: Free

Info: (213) 255-0730 or visit https://www.facebook.com/unit1projects

New Times: ActivistArtistA Celebrates Two Years of Art and Fun with Three Days of Art and Fun

ActivistArtistA Celebrates Two Years of Art and Fun with Three Days of Art and Fun

ActivistArtistA's GOLDEN WEEKEND!

FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

October 11th, 12th, and 13th 2013

ActivistArtistA Gallery

422 W. Industrial Ave.

Boynton Beach, FL 33426

786/521-1199

Click for details: GOLDEN

Click: RSVP on Facebook

Visit our Webpage: ActivistArtistA

ActivistArtistA Celebrates Two Years of Art and Fun with Three Days of Art and Fun

By Fire Ant, County Grind, New Times

Two years along and still choogling, artist and impresario Rolando Chang Barrero's adventurous alternative arts gallery ActivistArtistA is throwing a three-day birthday bash this weekend. The event includes live music, visual arts, food, and performances of the unexpected sort that we've come to expect from him. This includes fire acts, capoeira, andbelly dancing.

Located in a threadbare industrial district (like all the best avant-garde arts efforts) just West of the FEC railroad tracks off I-95, the Miami ex-pat's venue is the heart of a compound of storage bays and workspaces that make up the Boynton Beach Arts District. It hosts multimedia extravanganzas week after week -- shows by up-and-coming artists, spoken word events, theater and, always, lotsa music -- making itself a keystone and magnet for local arts.

See also: Rolando Barrero Says: "Miami Is Dead and It's Dying. It's Gone Commercial"

At this weekend's "Golden" event, Barrero and the resident artists of the compound will be showing their work, with three bays devoted to that of the visitors from Miami's Dwelling Projects collective. The fire show is Friday, capoeira Saturday afternoon, and the belly dancing on Sunday (with kids' events earlier that day).

The music, spread over three days and nights, includes -- among many others -- the "rock, reggae, and funky groovage" of Making Faces, the electro swamp rock of Koffin Varnish, and the "multi-genre funk roots drum n bass" of Beat Thief Inc.

Proud papa Barrero had this to say, in an email, as he looked back:

It really doesn't seem like two years have gone by for me. Coordinating the gallery exhibitions, as well as the Boynton Beach Art District events has kept me so busy that time has flown by fast. While I love where both are, my dreams get bigger and my business plan seems to get longer. What started out as simply a studio to work in has blossomed into an art scene. The highest point was being recognized as the Best Art Walk 2013 by New Times [Flattery will get you everywhere, Rolando] but there is actually a second high point happening now, a group of us have organized Art Synergy, and have positioned ourselves with Art Palm Beach to create three satellite exhibitions in January 2014. ActivistArtistA Gallery is growing up fast.

GOLDEN Weekend: Music, Art, and Dance Fest. Starts Friday, 7 p.m. to Sunday, 10 p.m., at Boynton Beach Art District at 422 West Industrial Ave., Boynton Beach.

Fire Ant -- an invasive species, tinged bright red, with an annoying, sometimes-fatal sting -- covers Palm Beach County. Got feedback or a tip? Contact Fire.Ant@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

Sun Sentinel on ActivistArtistA's (Un)Common Traces Exhibition

To Ecuador and back: 

Artists to unveil new vision

Thank you Jan Engoren, Sun Sentinel!

From left, Andres Ramirez, Sofia Bastidas, artistan Herlinda Gonzales, Eddison Peñfiel and Nathalie Alfonso during their trip to Ecuador. Their exhibition, (Un)Common: Traces, will be unveiled at an opening Friday at Rolando Chang Barrero's ActivistArtistA Gallery, at the Boynton Beach Arts District. (submitted photo, FPG / October 1, 2013)

Jan Engoren jengoren@tribune.com

October 2, 2013

What to do when you graduate college with a degree in art or art history? Well, if you're students Nathalie Alfonso, Sofia Bastidas, Andres Ramirez and Edison Peñafiel, you will create a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to sojourn to La Factoria, an established art residency in Vilcabamba, Ecuador.

Once there, you will set out to confront undiscovered places, uncontrolled emotions, unseeing reactions and use these experiences to translate them into a new artistic vision.

That vision, (Un)Common: Traces, will be unveiled at an opening Friday at Rolando Chang Barrero's ActivistArtistA Gallery, at the Boynton Beach Arts District.

Barrero was an early supporter of the project, having a fundraiser and exhibition titled, "Paper Plane," to raise money for their trip and their Kickstarter campaign yielded $4,500 for their travels to Ecuador.

"Their works highlight the impact of four artists who journeyed toward their past; akin more to time travelers tracing their ancestral culture heritage, than to the tourist/voyeur documenting the spectacle of a different culture," he said.

Bastidas said, "As an artist, art historian and curator I find fascinating the interrelation one can develop with art while traveling, but also establishing a home, a base where all this knowledge can pass on."

With that philosophy in mind, she created a gallery space in her home called Dwelling Projects. It's a space to show the work of visual artists outside the gallery venue and focus on new and emerging artists.

"We want to dwell in new spaces, develop and create awareness in the visual arts as well as expose ourselves to new experiences," Bastidas said.

In Ecuador the four students learned to work with local artisans using local materials such as tagua seeds, which come from the Ecuadorean ivory palm and are used to make jewelry and paja toquilla, the native straw palm that is used to weave traditional Panama hats, most of which are made in Ecuador.

Ramirez, 22, calls himself a photographer, but doesn't limit himself to portraits or landscapes. Rather, he incorporates photography into video and large-scale installations.

"Photography is my medium but I combine all the tools I can into my projects," he said.

He found it inspiring to meet the local campesinos and, despite being depicted as poor, he said, "They may not have material items, but they are rich in their cultural heritage. I was so happy to be with them."

"We were exposed to their art – what we might call handicrafts – but art is a subjective term. They make beautiful bracelets and keychains with techniques that have been handed down through the generations," Ramirez said.

"I want to show that one artist can make a difference and inspire me," he wrote on his Kickstarter page, "but 10 strong, ambitious and inspiring and open artists can change a community. It is something that we need in South Florida."

"Going to Ecuador to create art and bring it back here to present to galleries as exhibitions, critiques, dialogues and workshops is only the beginning," Ramirez said.

The Dwelling Projects in (Un) Common:Traces exhibition continues through Oct. 25 with an opening reception set for 7 p.m. Friday at the ActivistArtistA Gallery, 422 W. Industrial Ave. Call 786-521-1199 or email ActivistArtistA@Gmail.com.

BBAD celebrates its second anniversary with a 

Golden Anniversary Party Weekend Oct. 11 to 13 

with a full lineup of music, art and dance. 

For a full schedule, visit: http://activistartista.blogspot.com/2013/09/golden-anniversary-party-weekend-at.html.

Copyright © 2013, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Cultural Council of Palm Beach: 

Call for Nominations for prestigious 2014 Muse Awards Due November 15th, 2013.

Please consider ActivistArtistA Gallery/ Rolando Chang Barrero for: 
Outstanding Collaboration withThe City of Boynton Beach in the developement of the Boynton Beach Art District and contributuitions to the arts in Palm Beach County.

Outstanding Festival for KeroWACKED ART and MUSIC Festival 2013and The Boynton Beach Art District Art Walk (awarded Best Art Walk 2013), both of which were recognized by the press and the public, as new refreshing and vibrant.
.
http://activistartista.blogspot.com/2013/10/cultural-council-of-palm-beach-call-for.html

New Times: Art and Culture Review and Photos of (Un)Common Traces Opening Reception

Cultural Council of Palm Beach: 

Call for Nominations for prestigious 2014 Muse Awards Due November 15th, 2013.

Please consider ActivistArtistA Gallery/ Rolando Chang Barrero for: 
Outstanding Collaboration withThe City of Boynton Beach in the developement of the Boynton Beach Art District and contributuitions to the arts in Palm Beach County.

Outstanding Festival for KeroWACKED ART and MUSIC Festival 2013and The Boynton Beach Art District Art Walk (awarded Best Art Walk 2013), both of which were recognized by the press and the public, as new refreshing and vibrant.
.
http://activistartista.blogspot.com/2013/10/cultural-council-of-palm-beach-call-for.html

NEW TIMES REVIEW:

Arts & Culture

Dwelling Projects, a Wandering Artists Collective, Descends on Boynton Beach

By Fire Ant Fri., Oct. 4 2013 at 11:15 AM

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Categories: Arts & Culture

The artist and arts impresario Rolando Chang Barrero hosts another interesting diversion this weekend at his Boynton Beach exhibition space, ActivistArtistA Gallery, with the opening of (Un)Common Traces, a fresh effort from the Dade County-based artists' collective Dwelling Projects. Four of the group's core members have come to Barrero's venue to reflect on their recent visit to Ecuador, where they spent 4 weeks immersed the Andean nation's artisanship and culture.

Spread throughout three bays of Barrero's compound -- a collection of what were formerly industrial storage and workspaces -- the works are in media including photography, video, pen-and-ink, charcoal, found objects assemblage, and fiber.

The bay labeled "Ephemera" offers the most direct documentation of the four artists' Ecuadorean experience, with a totem of travelers' gear -- shoes, backpacks, blankets -- delicate drawings by Sofia Bastidas, and two walls of photography. Some photos are from their time at La Factoria, an ecologically aware craft and design center on the Pacific coast, where they absorbed and played on the methods of local crafts. Others are from their stay at a private home in the highlands.

A second bay, unnamed, contains individual pieces by two others of the group. Andres Ramirez shows a flair for abstraction from nature in a video and more photography. Eddy Peñafiel's mixed media work of video, floorboards, and feathers is a very clever play on the "hunt-and-peck" method of typewriting.

A full other bay is taken up by Nathalie Alfonso's untitled installation piece in which immense spools of burlap are draped from the space's ceiling and uncoiled across the floor, with a long stretch of charcoal markings on paper along three walls of the room. The implications are deeply political, the burlap referencing the bags of commodities on which so much of the Ecuadorian economy relies. The charcoal markings mimic the housecleaning work Alfonso does to support herself as an emerging artist. It's a thoughtful, imposing, provocative piece.

The four artists in the show are just a small cohort from the Dwelling Spaces group, which grew out of the arts program at Florida International University. The group's membership is floating and elastic, up to two dozen individuals at one point, all from Latin American backgrounds. Just two years along, the group's early shows were held in private homes and other unorthodox spaces. Their improvisatory, socially conscious spirit is a fine match for Barrero's wild and wooly enterprise.

(Un)Common Traces, 7 p.m., Friday, October 4th thru the 25th, at ActivistArtistA Gallery/Studio, 422 West Industrial Ave., Boynton Beach.

Fire Ant -- an invasive species, tinged bright red, with an annoying, sometimes-fatal sting -- covers Palm Beach County. Got feedback or a tip? Contact Fire.Ant@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

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