Albizu, An FBI Portrait 2024
Artist: Jancarlo Vega-Gierbolini
Title: Albizu, an FBI Portrait, 2024
Medium: Acrylic ink serigraph on cream Legion Stonehenge cotton rag paper 90lb
Size: 16 x 20 in.
Edition: 10
Between 1936-1976, the FBI produced over 5,000 pages on Pedro Albizu Campos, President of El Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico (The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico). The FBI’s counter intelligence program had agents infiltrate the political party and Albizu’s social sphere, documenting his constant whereabouts, communications, telegrams, letters, phone calls, speeches, etc. — all with the intent of establishing evidence to charge Albizu and party members with conspiracy to overthrow the United States’ insular government in Puerto Rico and to curb the pro-independence movement. Decades of intelligence helped the United States produce La Ley de la Mordaza, the Gag Law (Law 53 of 1948), which censored and criminalized all language or expression of pro-independence in Puerto Rico. The Nationalist Party had to publish its political/press materials in New York City due to the Gag Law’s prohibition of independence speech. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, these documents are now accessible to the American public, making visible the struggles Albizu and Puerto Ricans faced during the 20th century to gain liberation and political sovereignty. Albizu died in 1965 after his health deteriorated from radiation poisoning, an experimental torture tactic used by the United States while Albizu was imprisoned for his pro-independence movement.
Scans of Pedro Albizu Campos’s FBI files are collaged against his portrait. The work is treated with a grunge effect by superimposing photographs of weathered walls from Viejo San Juan. The FBI text and image of Albizu display the suppressive colonial reality of Puerto Rico which is juxtaposed with the epithet Isla del Encanto (Island of Enchantment). A second layer is printed above Albizu, reading “¡Viva la República!” and “¡Abajo los Asesinos!” These words were written by a Nationalist cadet with his own blood on a wall after being shot and killed by Ponce police during the Ponce Massacre. Lastly, the word “Confidential” is also printed in red as a reminder that the truth of our people's struggles and history is often hidden from us by colonizers.
The print, titled "Albizu, An FBI Portrait," was made for exhibition and educational purposes only. I do not commodify or sell the image of prophets or historical figures who opposed colonial capitalism. This is not a profitable sale transaction, but a fundraiser/donation to a cause and non-profit that helps the Puerto Rican people directly. Each work is signed, numbered, dated, and comes with a certificate of authenticity.
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