Photo: Installation Exterior, Pepón Osorio, “En La Barberia No Se Llora,” (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop), 1994, mixed media, Real Art Ways, Park Street Community, Hartford, CT.
In honor of National Puerto Rico Day on June 9 (and the annual Puerto Rican Day parade typically held on the Sunday following), we are sharing a photo of “En La Barberia No Se Llora” (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop), a 1994 mixed media installation by one of our favorite artists, Pepón Osorio.
Born in Puerto Rico, Pepón Osorio spent much of his adult life in the South Bronx, before moving to Philadelphia. As an artist and an educator, he has always been interested in exploring social and political issues around cultural identity and community dynamics.
Commissioned by Real Art Ways and located in the Park Street Puerto Rican community of Hartford, Connecticut, “En La Barberia” was based in part on the traumatic memory of a first haircut at a barbershop in Puerto Rico as a child, but also given much input from the local Park Street residents.
Stepping inside the 1994 installation (which after traveling around the world is now housed in El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico), one encountered an overwhelming sense of time gone-by, of a barbershop from the 1980s or before, and of a particularly male-coded gathering space - with its heavy scent of cheap cologne; black & white tiled flooring and a detached car seat; dozens of framed photos of Latino icons from the past: movie stars, ballplayers, boxers, etc.; red barber chairs embellished with Puerto Rican flags, baseballs, and other chucherias; a life-sized statue of a martyred saint, pink walls decorated with dozens of car hubcaps; giant tattoo-like imagery; interspersed with a couple of videos of men crying (with no audio).
Typical of Osorio’s practice “En La Barberia” does not shy away from contradictions or abundant symbolism/imagery, instead it simultaneously celebrates Latino popular culture and aesthetic sensibilities, while interrogating the social construct of “machismo."