Nostalgic Venerations: Artistic Reinterpretations of the Caribbean Tradition of Altars

Abstract

From the 50´s decade, some Caribbean cultural traditions have survived in Puerto Rican communities in cities such as New York and Philadelphia, through the diaspora to the United States. One of those traditions is the creation of altars in private spaces to venerate ancestors, Christian and Afro- Caribbean deities. In Pepon Osorio’s artwork, altars are reconceptualized in the museum. They become a nostalgic idealization of a familiar but distant geography, of a past that needs to be present and the new idols created by the media.