BOZALES, LADINOS, CIMARRONES
New works by Dexter & Felix Ciprian
Underground Gallery, Harlem, NY
on view Sep 23 - Oct 7, 2019

Through collage, sculpture, fabrics & textiles, the Ciprian brothers tap into a well of ancestral knowledge to offer narratives of resilience. Layered within their work are varying forms of resistance — from defiant mass rebellions to oral histories passed on through generations in coded songs, stories and riddles. Bozales, Ladinos, Cimarrones are terms which were used by the Spanish in the “new world” to describe different communities of color at varying degrees of tension with the colonial enterprise. As their forebears, the Ciprian brothers employ an ethic of make-do resourcefulness in pieces that integrate photographs, discarded books, old bedsheets and family lore.