In his new exhibition at 65Grand, The Division Road Riots, the Chicago multimedia artist Carlos Rolón is displaying works referencing the 1966 rebellion within the Humboldt Park neighbourhood that occurred the day after the town’s first-ever Puerto Rican Day Parade. The catalyst for the unrest was the police capturing of 20-year-old Arcelis Cruz and the combating lasted three days. Rolón was born in Chicago in 1970 to Puerto Rican mother and father and grew up visiting his mother and father’ native island. Through the years he has produced work that explores and celebrates problems with Puerto Rican tradition, id and the diaspora.
Rebel II (2026) options in Rolón’s present at 65GRAND Photograph: Clare Britt; courtesy the artist and 65GRAND
The artist labored underneath the title Dzine for a few years, creating vibrant, ornate installations and luxurious works bursting with color—and sometimes punctuated with Swarovski crystals, mirrors or gold. His 2007 work Pimp Juice, a personalized cherry-red, white-topped 1993 Cadillac Fleetwood lowrider with 14 audio system, 5 video screens and 24-carat gold hydraulics, made a splash at that 12 months’s Artwork Basel Miami Seaside truthful. For this tight exhibition at 65Grand, Rolón’s tone is nearly sombre, seemingly taking visible cues from the black-and-white photos and newspaper articles he examined at numerous archives in Chicago. It contains, as an illustration, 4 dye sublimation prints that he created by cropping and enlarging small segments of historic pictures, as if to verify guests discover revealing particulars. Rolón spoke with The Artwork Newspaper about what drew him to this historical past and imagery.
The Artwork Newspaper:Materially, this exhibition is nearly conventional, a minimum of by your standard requirements. You’re principally working in graphite, making black-and-white photos which are practically documentary of their realism. What drew you to this subject and the way did it inform your strategy?
Carlos Rolón: What drew me to this topic was each private proximity and a way of historic duty. I grew up with most of my household dwelling in Humboldt Park in Chicago, the place the historical past of the 1966 Division Road Riots nonetheless resonates throughout the group and the place I at the moment dwell. For a few years I heard fragments of this story from residents and elders, and I grew to become more and more conscious that this pivotal second in Puerto Rican civic historical past in Chicago was largely absent from the broader narrative of the town and on a nationwide stage.
As a part of my broad studio follow, the usage of supplies corresponding to mirrors, crystals and textiles is linked to aspirational and home areas and what this seems like for households that arrived within the US together with the usage of gold as a part of the colonial panorama and historical past.
Yo No Me Quito (Man With Flag, After Frank Espada) (2024-26) Holly Murkerson; courtesy the artist and 65GRAND
For this mission, nevertheless, the topic demanded a extra restrained strategy. Working primarily with graphite and charcoal allowed the drawings to perform nearly as acts of witnessing. Lots of the works are based mostly on archival pictures from the rebellion, and the black-and-white palette acknowledges their documentary origins whereas creating area for reflection somewhat than spectacle.
How did your artwork follow change if you began spending extra time in Puerto Rico?
Rising up in Chicago, my visits to Puerto Rico have been formative. I used to be fascinated by the visible language of the houses there, the decorative wrought-iron gates or rejas, patterned tile, the usage of color and the cautious method folks constructed magnificence inside modest areas. The gates specifically have stayed with me. By reproducing these works, incorporating a reflective materials corresponding to mirror and crystals, they perform as each safety and ornament, a sort of threshold between the private and non-private, and that duality grew to become an essential motif in my studio follow.
Lots of the wrought-iron fence patterns created as a part of the island’s structure are extremely intricate, nearly like drawings in area. As a toddler I didn’t take into consideration them conceptually, however they stayed in my visible reminiscence. Once I started spending extra time on the island as an grownup, my understanding deepened past the aesthetics. I grew to become extra attentive to how craft traditions, spirituality and colonial architectural historical past form on a regular basis life. My work started to include references to home altars, devotional objects, tropical flora with the usage of gold leaf, and architectural parts that carry each cultural delight and the legacy of colonial affect.
Are you able to discuss concerning the bicycle sculpture within the exhibition, from the sounds it tasks to whatit represents?
Customized autos and bicycles which have been made into practical artworks are extra polished and reflective of the Chicano lowriding group. They’ve appeared in my work for a few years due to the layered meanings they carry. They converse to motion, migration and aspiration, but in addition to labour and on a regular basis life. In locations like Chicago and New York, customized Schwinn bicycles specifically symbolised mobility and standing in Puerto Rican communities and symbolize a sort of arrival—a standing image, but in addition a metaphor for navigating American city area.
Set up picture together with Carlos Rolón’s Protest Banner (2026) and Humboldt Park Bicycle (2026) Courtesy the Artist and 65Grand. Photograph: Holly Murkerson
The bicycle on this exhibition, Humboldt Park Bicycle, is extra DIY than polished. It’s a response to and reflection of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Caribbean group that should adapt to each day disruptions on the island to assets like electrical energy, which individuals within the US take with no consideration.
I had held onto this bicycle in storage for over ten years with out absolutely understanding why. I really feel artists on the whole are likely to preserve objects as a result of they really feel charged with potential which means. Once I started researching the occasions surrounding the 1966 Division Road Riots, I used to be struck by how bicycles seem in archival pictures and group reminiscences shifting by the neighbourhood.
This bicycle sculpture grew to become a method of activating that object as each artefact and image. With the tv and audio elements, it features nearly like a vessel for reminiscence. It’s a quiet monument to motion throughout the group, how folks circulated tales, warnings and solidarity throughout a second of upheaval.
Carlos Rolón: The Division Road Riots, till 12 April, 65Grand, 3252 West North Avenue, Chicago
