User:Juliajusto8/sandbox

Juan Puntes is a New York-based art curator and founder and director of WhiteBox. He established the alternative, non-profit art center in Philadelphia in 1997, before relocating it to Chelsea, New York City in 1998.

Life
Puntes was born in Zaragosa, Spain. In 1973, at the age of twenty, Puntes arrived in the United States from Spain, with the intent to evade a draft from Franco's army, at the end of the Vietnam War. Puntes attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts as well as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston. In 1983, after studying in Boston he moved to New York City.

Career
Throughout his tenure at WhiteBox, Puntes has served as Artistic and Programs Director. He has curated notable exhibitions at WhiteBox, including a survey of Michael Snow and Carolee Schneemann and solo exhibitions of Alexey Kallima, Mary Mattingly, Javier Tellez, and Duke Riley. Later, when the art center relocated to Harlem as WhiteBox Harlem, Puntes created a series of programs engaging community with emphasis on sustainability and environment, as well as continuing his socio-political projects to serve and support undeserved communities, youth in particular, in the neighborhood. He co-curated "We Are Your Future", a special project for the 2007 Moscow Biennial, featuring 33 contemporary conceptual artists from China and Latin America. In 2005 Puntes co-curated "Russia 2: Bad News From Russia", a presentation of avant-garde Russian art. In 2016, after Mr. Trump was elected president, Puntes co-curated the exhibition "#makeamericagreatagain" with Raul Zamudio and Blanca de La Torre. The intention for this show was to appropriate Mr. Trump's campaign hashtag, bringing together a physical exhibition with that of social media, where both components would juxtapose and integrate. Puntes promised to call all of his contacts to join them in reacting to –as Mr. Puntes calls it– the “2016 presidential election charade.” In 2017 he curated "Illegal Fashion Runway Show" a fashion show that combined politics, art and fashion. It featured the works of artists and designers of diverse immigrant background. The concept of the show was a response to President Trump's travel ban. In 2022 Puntes and Zamudio co-curated the exhibition "Perfect day, Drugs an Art" at WhiteBox Harlem. Puntes co-wrote the book "Russian Art From Glasnost to the Present", published 2008 by Chelsea Art Museum, M&J Guelman Gallery, Russia! Magazine.

Other roles
Outside of WhiteBox, Puntes has contributed to other international curatorial projects. In 2016 he was a speaker at "Sites of Mass Displacements" panel discussion. He was a panelist at the Symposium "Art Activism – White Cube vs Public Space" at The Museum of Cultural History, in Oslo. In 2021 Puntes was part of the “From the Viewpoint of MAKING” exhibition panel discussion. The exhibition has also included multimedia performances of music, dance, and poetry.