En Foco is a non-profit organization that nurtures contemporary fine art and documentary photographers of diverse cultures, primarily U.S. residents of Latino, African and Asian heritage, and native peoples of the Americas and the Pacific.
Founded in 1974 and inspired by the civil rights movement, it has been in the forefront[ according to whom? ] of documenting the artistic journeys created by photographic artists often overlooked by the mainstream art world. [1]
En Foco has created exhibitions, workshops, fellowships and a permanent collection. [1] The organization supports its constituent artists with direct and indirect funding opportunities. [2]
Through its visual arts programs, En Foco strives to balance the inequities of the art world by creating the 'missing pages' in art history. In 1984 it created the bilingual (English/Spanish) photographic magazine Nueva Luz, which concentrates on works by U.S.-based photographers of color. [3] Some photographers En Foco has exhibited or written about are Hank Willis Thomas, Sama Raena Alshaibi, Juan Sánchez, Hong-An Truong and Víctor Vázquez. [4]
Inspired by the 1973 traveling exhibition Dos Mundos (organized by the Institute of Contemporary Hispanic Art and exhibited in New York City, Los Angeles and Puerto Rico), a group of Puerto Rican photographers - Charles Biasiny-Rivera, Phil Dante, and Roger Cabán - banded together to form the core En Foco group and incorporated in 1974. [5]
In 2012 en exhibition of a selección of En Foco’s permanent collection was presented at the Art Museum of the Americas and included works by Chuy Benitez and Lola Flash among others. [6]
El Museo del Barrio, often known simply as El Museo, is a museum at 1230 Fifth Avenue in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is located near the northern end of Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile, immediately north of the Museum of the City of New York. Founded in 1969, El Museo specializes in Latin American and Caribbean art, with an emphasis on works from Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican community in New York City. It is the oldest museum of the country dedicated to Latino art.
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Charles Biasiny-Rivera was an American photographer. He was the co-founder of En Foco, a collective of Puerto Rican photographers based in New York City.