Glendalys Medina, Atabey

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0:00:01.7 Dr. Tamara Díaz Calcaño: We are at El Museo del Barrio in New York, and we are before Atabey by Glendalys Medina.

0:00:13.2 Dr. Susanna V. Temkin: Atabey is the deity, the mother, the creative goddess of the Taíno, the people living in many places throughout the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, where Glendalys Medina, the artist, was born.

0:00:31.9 Dr. Díaz Calcaño: Medina is taking inspiration from the petroglyph found at the site of Caguana in the town of Utuado. There, Atabey is carved upon a monolith, and she is part of a whole representation of deities and zemís that form the visual culture of the site in Caguana, where we have a great ceremonial site. It was a space where the cohoba ritual was practiced, where the ball games were practiced. And the magnitude of the site leads us to believe that many yucayeques, many tribes, would gather at that place during important periods of time or important periods of religious practice. So we are in front of an image of great importance to the Taíno culture.

0:01:15.4 Dr. Temkin: Glendalys Medina draws from a lot of other cultural references, ranging from nkisi, African power figures, to hip hop culture. Medina’s visual language, these circles that we see, the ovular shapes, they are an abstracted reduction of the boombox, which is fundamental to the composition of her works.

0:01:38.4 Dr. Díaz Calcaño: I think Medina is also connecting with the history of art in the context of New York, in the context of the Nuyorican art scene. We know in the 1960s and 70s, there was the Taíno movement, where artists in places like New York, East Harlem, were very interested in Taíno imagery, in Taíno mythology, as a way to reclaim that heritage.

0:02:00.3 Dr. Temkin: Medina spent many months creating this work. It’s physically an arduous task that also, I think, has almost a meditative quality. It’s very carefully and thoughtfully and mindfully constructed. And as we get closer to the piece, we can see how these threads create these convex and concave structures that enhance the work’s three dimensionality and liveliness. And Medina has spoken about being very specific in using an unfixed oil pastel, how that references a sense of incompletion, a sense of mediation, ever changing quality that they are interested in exploring when they’re thinking about myths of creation.

0:02:51.4 Dr. Díaz Calcaño: And I’m also very glad you brought up that brown color is almost visually reminiscent to ceramic. And we know that Taíno had a very important ceramic production. And I think that ties well not only with Taíno culture, but that notion of the origins as well.

0:03:02.0 Dr. Temkin: The color that’s sparkling before our eyes is this gold. Medina points to the fact that gold is one of the driving forces that brought the conquistadors, the Europeans, into the New World, to the Caribbean.

0:03:17.5 Dr. Díaz Calcaño: I think the gold also brings to mind the goldsmith production that Taíno also had. They would adorn themselves with gold jewelry. For example, the cacique would wear a guanín, which was a golden medallion. And very little of Taíno gold work survives. So I think this is also a very interesting reference to that material culture that we have lost.

0:03:36.0 Dr. Temkin: I agree. I think that Medina is reclaiming these different cultural inheritances. This piece is part of a series that Medina is currently working on that is all dedicated to a reinterpretation of Taíno mythology and specifically Taíno creation, the creation of the world.

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The artist’s website

Taíno zemís and duhos

Power Figure (Nkisi Nkondi), Kongo peoples

More Smarthistory images...

Introduction to Taíno art

Contemporary art, an introduction

1980–now in the United States, an introduction