Maestro Blanco: The Many Phrases of a Broad Vocabulary

Curated by Ash Cortes

Artists: Joseph “Sep” Blanco, Wilfredo “Eloy” Blanco

April 14 - 27, 2022

Maestro Blanco invites audience members to look, touch and potentially break the archives and artworks of two autodidactic artists, Wilfredo “Eloy” Blanco and Joseph “Sep” Blanco. This exhibition speaks in a language such that it is always actively learning; it uses every point of contact as an opportunity to strengthen its voice and message. It is an experiment meant to tease out how the practices of Sep and Eloy, and those of many other autodidacts, differ from those embedded in institutionalized forms of knowledge production.

The exhibition derives its overall shape, structure and content from a file box of donated materials from Eloy’s archive, located at El Museo del Barrio in New York City. Maestro Blanco comprises multiple reproductions from this box, mixed with original artworks and reproductions from Sep’s archive. Looking at what might be considered the byproducts of their practices, we can learn how they acquire knowledge, aligning their procurement of it with methods of creation as being the same. Maestro Blanco is an artwork, an archive and a unique experience unveiling these artists’ remarkable means of producing knowledge as autodidacts.