Serving the Community of East Harlem and Beyond

Founded in 1969

During the 1970s, social justice, democracy, egalitarianism, and critiques of capitalist excesses inspired artists to create conceptual, performance, and installation-based art. SoHo, Tribeca, and the Lower East Side became the primary meccas for artists, performers, and musicians to develop non-traditional work. These neighborhoods became populated with experimental and artist-run spaces that featured conceptual, video, performance, installation, and acoustic art, as well as artists’ books. However, for one group of Puerto Rican Latinos, East Harlem of New York became their primary creative home stage.

Taller Boricua has been an advocate for East Harlem artists and residents through providing work and gallery space, curating exhibits and performances, conducting in-school arts education programs, and spearheading the rehabilitation of several buildings in El Barrio, including the Julia The Burgos Latino Cultural Center at 1680 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10029

Taller Boricua, was founded in 1969 by artists Marcos Dimas, Adrian Garcia, Manuel Otero, Armando Soto, and Martin Rubio. In 1970 it was incorporated as the Puerto Rican Workshop Inc.—a 501(c) non-profit arts organization. The Puerto Rican Workshop has been instrumental with East Harlem’s “El Barrio” community’s cultural and long-standing social well-being. Taller Boricua’s mission statement describes its purpose “to establish a cultural and educational center for the Puerto Rican community in New York City and enhance the “aesthetic, cultural, historical, political, and economic experience of Puerto Ricans in New York.”

Taller Boricua began as an artist collective to disseminate art throughout traditionally underserved communities; the group held guerilla outdoor exhibits and curated exhibitions and cultural events involving music, poetry, and the visual arts around New York City. As an early collaborator within the Nuyorican poetry and art movement, Taller Boricua continues to be a catalyst for traditional and new perspectives and an experimental multicultural forum for the evolutionary arts.

In 1978 Taller Boricua moved to the Heckscher Building, cofounding it along with Boys Harbor Inc. on Fifth Avenue at 104th Street, which now houses El Museo del Barrio. Taller Boricua’s Director, Marcos Dimas, served on the original Advisory Board of El Museo, and Fernando Salicrup, Taller Boricua’s former Director, served on El Museo’s Board of Directors. The lead organization in the initiative, Taller Boricua, finally moved to its current location in the Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center in East Harlem, where it eventually moved in in the year 2000.

Now 51 years later, Taller Boricua continues drawing attention and relevancy to artists who are unrepresented and marginalized by the dominant cultural gatekeepers of our times. Its historic-artistic engagement with the Young Lords Party, which once were headquartered neighbors on the same city block, infused the inspiration that gave rise to the socially political, cultural, and poetic Nuyorican movement.

Taller Boricua Gallery / Artist Workshop / Event Space

All programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Taller Boricua is also funded in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, Consejo Grafico, the Puerto Rican Workshop Inc. and individual contributors

Taller Boricua Board of Directors

Taller Boricua Board of Directors