Juan Sanchez Art and Politics Ricanstructed

A comprehensive look at Juan Sánchez's mixed-media art and its commentary on Puerto Rican life

Juan Sánchez's vibrant mixed-media paintings offer a trenchant commentary on the Puerto Rican experience – and, more broadly, American culture. At the heart of these works are intricate collages that express the artist's ideas about identity and place through a unique iconography. Sánchez combines photographs and newsclips, handwritten texts, found objects, and imagery that ranges from Taíno petroglyphs to the Puerto Rican flag, creating richly colorful works that are exuberant and joyful – and also darkly serious.

Carolina A. Miranda's detailed account of Sánchez's life and career reveals the deeply personal, political, and formalist dimensions of his photographs, prints, and paintings. Drawing on extensive interviews and visits to the artist's Brooklyn studio, Miranda places Sánchez's observations about art, activism, and family within a broader cultural and historical context. Juan Sánchez: Art and Politics Ricanstructed introduces an extraordinary artist whose widely collected work is inextricably tied to the past, present, and future of Puerto Rico.

Distributed for UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press.