The Sinking of El Faro

No Existe Un Mundo Poshuracán: ‘Fractured Infrastructures’

“Collapsed Soul” 2020-2021

Gamaliel Rodriguez

Ink & Acrylic on canvas

No Existe Un Mundo Poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria at the Whitney Museum of American Art is an exhibition dedicated to various works of art created by locals in the aftermath of the devastating storm. The phrase “No Existe Un Mundo Poshuracan” can be very roughly translated as “a post-hurricane world doesn’t exist,” and the phrase is an excerpt from a poem by Puerto Rican poet Raquel Salas Rivera. The exhibition is defined by the larger context in which the devastation was exacerbated by historic events that preceded and followed the hurricane. Exhibition materials refer to Hurricane Maria an "(un)natural disaster" because hurricanes are usually thought of as natural disasters. The social and environmental devastation that occurred in Puerto Rico from Hurricane María is truly an unnatural disaster and is a result from a long history of colonial conquests, economic struggle, environmental injustices, infrastructural neglect, and broken laws. Hurricane María affected all of Puerto Rico to some degree, but the disaster also exposed the weaknesses created by socioeconomic imbalances and the mistreatment of the island’s rural regions.

The exhibit was divided in to six sections that focus on one specific factor that led to the island’s destruction. The piece “Collapsed Soul” was located in the ‘Fractured Infrastructures’ section. The prevalent theme of this section was to display how years of political negligence further intensified the physical impacts of the Hurricane. All the works in this section cross-examine the ways that the Hurricane unearthed Puerto Rico’s dated infrastructure.

The piece “Collapsed Soul” by Gamaliel Rodriguez is a photorealist painting inspired by the sinking of a container ship named “El Faro” after getting caught in the path of 2015’s Hurricane Joaquin. Initially I was drawn to the artwork mainly because of the explosion, but I thought to it had a bit of a double meaning where the explosion of the ship also represented the destruction of Puerto Rico. After reading the exhibition label and description it confirmed my hunch, but it provided more detail and context for the piece. The label further explains “El Faro” was an aged ship in poor condition before getting caught in the path of Hurricane Joaquin. Rodriguez used this event as a metaphor to draw parallels between the sinking of El Faro and Hurricane Maria. The parallel being that the Hurricane was the final straw, but many unaddressed issues were the real reason behind devastation of the ship as well as the island.

Lastly, the formal elements of the piece did a lot to enhance the artist’s message. Additionally these elements really attracted me to the piece. As aforementioned I was initially drawn to the explosion, but I really like the colors used in the piece. The darkness of the piece was particularly captivating. It had a real haunting, murky feel. The use of the blue and black really do a lot to reflect the darkness in relation to of lack of electricity and in relation to the future outlooks of island's inhabitants. It is also striking how the artist used blue to portray the smoke and the fire as those elements are usually red. Personally I thought Rodriguez used blue because the damage ultimately was caused by water not fire. In my opinion it further expands upon the metaphor of the piece. The darkness of the waters surrounding the ship represents the situation at hand with "El Faro" but it also projects the reality of the uncertain future of the island’s inhabitants after Maria. The piece is a great visual metaphor for the entire tragedy.

Denzel Rodgers

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