West Side Story
Joslyn Arteaga Gana
April 06, 2016
Visual Analysis Paper: West Side Story Upside Down,
Backwards, Sideways and Out of Focus
Aldo Maldonado, a Nuyorican conceptual artist has focused on issues of identity. He was born in Utuado, Puerto Rico and moved to New York City at the age of seventeen. Aldo’s, West Side Story Upside Down, Backwards, Sideways and Out of Focus, communicates the idea of identity and how it has changed in circumstances. His identity has always been the Puerto Rican culture which is a blend of Spanish, African and indigenous Taino influences and he thinks that the collective identity for a Puerto Rican is an ‘out of focus identity.’ He says this because it was caused by trauma by mental colonization, first by Spain, and then by the United States. This piece of work portrays the idea of migration to America from Puerto Rico and how these people were seen as outcasts. Racial discrimination and stereotypes came about during this time and Maldonado did a his job in letting his work of art speak to people. West Side Story Upside Down, Backwards, Sideways and Out of Focus is a suitcase with a flat-screen LCD monitor, single-channel digital video that was featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum under the exhibition Our America.
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Certain stereotypes brought biases towards Puerto Ricans and he uses existing footage from the film, West Side Story to subvert the representations and he did it in a way so that viewers can dig deep into the meaning of social discrimination towards Puerto Ricans. Many Latino artists realized that television and film renders groups and communities with little access to the means of realization and understanding who they really are. Maldonado took this into account and uses a digital video, and film to expose the social and political factors of neglect towards Puerto
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