Papo Colo

Papo Colo (b. August 12, 1946) is a Puerto Rican is a performance artist, painter, writer, and curator. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He lives and works in New York City and in El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico.

At 18 he left natal Puerto Rico as a merchant marine. After returning to the island in 1971, he falsified a diploma from the University of Puerto Rico as his first conceptual art piece.^[1] In New York he studied under the tutelage of the poet Nicanor Parra at Columbia University. His interest in pre-Columbian and Latin American cultures led him to travel across Mexico for a year. From 1973 through 1980 he lived and worked between New York City and Barcelona. During these years he did a series of performances involving physical endurance with political undertones. He is best known for Superman 51, which consisted of the artist running with 51 blocks tied to his back on the West Side Highway until exhaustion. His father, Francisco Colon Garcia,^[2][3] was a boxing champion and his exposure to the glorification of the body through boxing was influential to his work.

In 1982, Papo Colo with Jeanette Ingberman, founded Exit Art,^[4][5] an internationally known cultural center in New York City. In 1992 he founded the Trickster Theater, an experimental multilingual and multicultural theater company.^[6][7] The company served as an integral part of Exit Art's discourse and was held on the lower level of its facilities. In 2005 he wrote and directed Mplay, a theater piece created solely for the web. He has won numerous awards including The New York Times Best Inaugural Show by an Alternative Art Space for his exhibition Exit Biennial: Reconstruction^[8] Additionally, REACTIONS, an international response to 9/11 conceived by Papo Colo, was acquired by The Library of Congress for its permanent collection^[9] Jeanette Ingberman died August 24, 2011, from complications of leukemia.

Besides being the curator and cultural producer of Exit Art, Papo Colo has organized over 100 shows in which he was also the exhibition and graphic designer. His work has been exhibited at numerous venues, including The Clocktower (2013), Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco and MoMA PS1, New York (both 2009), El Museo del Barrio (2008), National Gallery of Puerto Rico (2007), Grey Art Gallery (2006), Art in General (2006), RISD Museum, Providence (2005), Barnes Foundation (2017), Band the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach (2001). The retrospective of his early work at MoMA PS1, which was organized by Klaus Biesenbach, coincided with The Cleaner, a new work the artist performed in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, and culminated with the performance event Procesión Migración that reflected on the constant Puerto Rican migration to the mainland. The artist is establishing Pangea Art Republic, a new alternative art space in El Yunque Rainforest.^[10]

In 1991 Papo Colo received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an award that is bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated distinguished accomplishment in the past and potential for future achievement.

• Superman 51 (1977), El Museo del Barrio
• Photogenics (1979, 1982), Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• Aro Head: La huella de los campeones (2004), Museum of Art of Puerto Rico
• Every American Has Two Hearts (2006), Museum of Modern Art

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• 1977: Armas Blancas, Galería Mec-Mec, Barcelona, Spain
• 1977: Contradiction, Spanish Institute, New York, NY
• 1979: Documentos Falsos, Galería Ciento, Barcelona, Spain
• 1980: Untitled / Anonymous, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
• 1982: Papo Colo: Lost and Gained Paradise, Part One, Just Above Midtown (JAM), New York, NY
• 1982: Language is the Mechanic of Culture, Franklin Furnace, New York, NY
• 1986: Will, Power, and Desire 1976 - 1986, Exit Art and Rosa Esman Gallery, New York, NY
• 1997: Paintings, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, PA
• 2004: Arohead, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

• 2009: Jumping the Fences, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA^[11]
• 2013: Papo Colo, The Clocktower, New York, NY
• 2016: Papo Colo, MoMA PS1, New York, NY
• 2017: Assorted Times in Singular Spaces, Clocktower at the Liga de Arte in San Juan, Puerto Rico
• 2023: Papo Colo, Calderón, New York, NY

• 1976: The Spirit of Independence, Cayman Gallery, New York, United States
• 1977: Roots and Visions, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
• 1978: Resurgimiento, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
• 1979: Private Icons, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY
• 1980: Marking Black, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
• 1981: VARS at JAM, Just Above Midtown Gallery, New York, NY
• 1981: Dark Thoughts: Black Paintings, Pratt Institute New York, NY
• 1982: Dirty Pictures, White Columns, New York, NY
• 1982: Illegal America, Franklin Furnace, New York, NY
• 1991: NY: The Next Generation, Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
• 1992: Will/Power, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
• 1992: SLOW ART: Painting in NY Now, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY
• 1992: Concurrencies, Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York, NY
• 2001: globe>miami<island, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL

• 2005: Island Nations, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI^[12]
• 2006: The Downtown Show, Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY^[13]
• 2008: Arte ≠ Vida, El Museo del Barrio, New York
• 2013-2015: Radical Presence, organized at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, and which traveled to the Walker Art Center, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.
• 2022: In Support, The Kitchen, New York, NY
• 2023: Juan Francisco Elso: Por América, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, FL
• 2024: The Garden of Forking Paths, Deli Gallery, New York, NY
• 2024: Politics and Daily Life, Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State University, University Park, PA

• Papo Colo at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History