On a Thursday in 2015, Christopher Rivera flew to San Juan, installed an exhibition that night, finished it Friday, opened it Saturday, and flew back Sunday to make it to his job at a New York gallery on Monday.
He did this for years. It became EMBAJADA — "embassy" — the gallery that decided Puerto Rican artists didn't need to wait for the art world to arrive. This year it turns ten, and Observer sat down with Rivera and his partner Manuela Paz to mark it.
We read the whole thing three times. Not because we needed to — because every gallery on this island should have to.
Here's what ten years of not asking permission actually looked like.
01START AS THE THING, NOT THE COMPANY.
EMBAJADA didn't launch as a business plan. It was a project space, born out of what Rivera calls necessity — in 2015 there was "a real lack of contemporary art spaces in Puerto Rico." The commerce came later. The urgency came first. If you're waiting for your gallery to be "ready," you've already misunderstood the assignment.
02THE EMBASSY METAPHOR IS A BUSINESS MODEL.
Rivera is explicit about the political weight: given the colony's status, "there's often a lack of real empathy or understanding. I felt a responsibility to engage with that — to operate almost as an ambassador." That's not branding. That's a job description. Every gallery in Puerto Rico is doing diplomatic work whether it admits it or not.
03STABILITY BEATS PRESTIGE.
No permanent New York space. Two fairs a year, pop-ups, done. Rivera watched friends close under New York rent. EMBAJADA bought a 1960s building in San Juan before prices ran, and stays anchored here. The international calendar comes to the island; you don't have to move to it.
04ADAPT THE PARTY.
The New York opening — six to eight, then dinner — "never worked. People arrive at eight. You have to adapt." Every EMBAJADA show runs on multiple events, and they feel like parties on purpose. Art gets to a new generation through the door they actually walk through.
05HUMOR IS A LEGITIMATE PRESS STRATEGY.
The closing event for the current show is a comedy roast of the colony. It's called Que Viva la Colonia. "It's funny, but it's also political." Most galleries would never. That's exactly why it works.
Pablo Delano, My Paradise Is Hell, at EMBAJADA — the first Puerto Rican artist in the Venice Biennale's main exhibition; MASP São Paulo next. Paradise, colonization, tourism branding, sugar. Go before it closes.
Ten years ago, one gallery decided the island was the story. The rest of us — galleries, residencies, the artists on every wall in Santurce — live in the world that decision made. The question for the next ten years isn't whether Puerto Rican art belongs in the international conversation. It's how many more of us are going to stop waiting to be found.