At the Center for Art & Advocacy, a solo exhibition by Gilberto Rivera meditates on the material conditions of both confinement and liberation. Jailbirds presents a series of mixed-media collages that map the prison cell onto wood panel, with a variety of avian species as their protagonists.
Incarcerated for two decades himself, Rivera draws on the concept of recidivism and the derogatory term for someone who’s habitually imprisoned. He invokes a sort of cyclical migration pattern that entraps people and returns them to carceral facilities again and again. The titles of the works—”Jailbird #12″ and “Jailbird #13,” for example—similarly nod to the dehumanization of the penal system, which refers to people as numbers rather than their names.
Given their ability to fly, birds are often symbols of freedom, with a special status reserved for the eagle as the national emblem of strength and pride in the U.S. On the other hand, fowl are also kept in cages when domesticated or bred for consumption or commercial use, making the creatures an apt representation of incarceration.
In Jailbirds, Rivera presents parrots, herons, pelicans, pigeons, and others in architectural environments teeming with activist imagery. Snippets of magazines, newspapers, protest signs, archival footage, and even text clipped from an Instagram story cover the walls of each cell, transforming the otherwise austere concrete-and-steel setting into a space of possibility.
For many people inside, world-building of the kind the artist visualizes is a necessary act of survival. Books, magazines, and other materials are often passed from one person to another with imagery displayed within the cells as a stark contrast to the drab interiors. Liberation, for Rivera, is rooted in both this act of creation and the material conditions that make up our lives, whether inside or out. Through his layered, typographic paintings, he envisions the possibilities of imagination within confinement and the fundamental need to create the world we want to live in.
Jailbirds, Rivera’s first solo exhibition, is on view in Brooklyn through February 15. Find more from the artist on Instagram.
