You Create Your Own Situation

"In the spring of 2013, I made the first of many visits to the Brooklyn studio of Juan Sánchez, to begin research on a monograph about his work. Back then, Sánchez inhabited a cacophonous space between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, where conversation was punctured by the insistent rattle of subways, and jazz and salsa drawn from Sánchez’s music collection filled the gaps in between. Like many artists’ studios, it was a window into his methods and his interests. On cluttered bookshelves were volumes by Caribbean philosophers and the Puerto Rican poet Juan Antonio Corretjer, a fierce independentista known for his wry wit. Here and there were in-progress canvases and the objects that ended up collaged to their surfaces: Catholic prayer cards, photographs, cowrie shells. But among the things that I most remember was an improvised shrine displayed on one wall that featured a cowbell, a Hamsa amulet, and a steel sculpture by Melvin Edwards."