I recently found a post on a short video entitled Hebras y vejigantes [Strands and Vejigantes] by Juan Pablo Vizcaíno Cortijo and Gloriann Sacha Antonetty Lebrón. According to 90grados, Hebras y vejigantes is a piece of “video art that combines poetry, vejigante masks, African hairstyles and textiles showcased by 13 advocates of Afro-Puerto Rican culture.” It is now on view at the exhibition “The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today” at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, which opened last week (January 24) runs through August 30, 2026. It was co-curated by art historian and curator Taína Caragol; the juror panel for the Outwin competition includes curator and art critic Carla Acevedo-Yates, Caragol, and visual artist Daniel Lind-Ramos—all from Puerto Rico.
Here are translated excerpts from 90grados, followed by more information from the National Portrait Gallery.
[. . .] The five-minute film, produced for large-format screens, was selected along with thirty other pieces, from over three thousand submissions, for the exhibition The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today—a competition celebrating the best of portraiture as an expression of personal and collective histories. The exhibition will run from January 24 to August 30.
Hebras y Vejigantes (Strands and Vejigantes) is the result of the personal and collective work of Juan Pablo Vizcaíno Cortijo and Gloriann Sacha Antonetty Lebrón, documenting the contributions of Blackness and Afro-descendants to Puerto Rican culture and life.
Antonetty Lebrón is an editor, communicator, poet, and author in various genres. Vizcaíno Cortijo is an artist focused on preserving the tradition of vejigante masks from Loíza and a stylist specializing in ancestral African hairstyles. [. . .]
According to the National Portrait Gallery: “The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today” is co-curated by the competition’s director Taína Caragol, the Portrait Gallery’s senior curator of painting and sculpture, and Charlotte Ickes, the Portrait Gallery’s curator of time-based media art and special projects. Jurors for the 2025 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition were Carla Acevedo-Yates, curator, writer and member of the artistic team for documenta 16; Huey Copeland, the Andrew W. Mellon Chair and Professor of Modern Art and Black Study, Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh; LaToya Ruby Frazier, artist; and Daniel Lind-Ramos, artist. “The Outwin 2025” co-curators Caragol and Ickes also served on the jury with Rhea L. Combs, the Portrait Gallery’s former director of curatorial affairs.
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. For full article (in Spanish), see https://90grados.com/arte/hebras-y-vejigantes-arte-afroboricua-llega-a-smithsonian-institution
Also see https://npg.si.edu/exhibition/outwin-2025-american-portraiture-today
I recently found a post on a short video entitled Hebras y vejigantes [Strands and Vejigantes] by Juan Pablo Vizcaíno Cortijo and Gloriann Sacha Antonetty Lebrón. According to 90grados, Hebras y vejigantes is a piece of “video art that combines poetry, vejigante masks, African hairstyles and textiles showcased by 13 advocates of Afro-Puerto Rican culture.”