Papo Colo

Papo Colo is Puerto Rican performance artist, painter, writer, and curator. He was born in Puerta de Tierra, Puerto Rico. He lives and works in New York City and in El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico. Papo Colo is an interdisciplinary artist, whose work ranges from performance, theater and installation art to painting, writing, and graphic design.

His father, Francisco Colon Garcia, was a boxing champion and his exposure to the glorification of the body through boxing was influential to his work. In 1982 Papo Colo, with Jeanette Ingberman, founded Exit Art, an internationally known cultural center in New York City. Jeanette Ingberman died August 24, 2011 from complications of leukemia.

Besides being the curator and cultural producer of Exit Art, Papo Colo has organized over 100 shows in which he was also the exhibition and graphic designer. His work has been exhibited at numerous venues, including The Clocktower (2013), Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco and MoMA PS1, New York (both 2009), El Museo del Barrio (2008), National Gallery of Puerto Rico (2007), Grey Art Gallery (2006), Art in General (2006), RISD Museum, Providence (2005), and the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach (2001). He has won numerous awards including The New York Times Best Inaugural Show by an Alternative Art Space for his exhibition Exit Biennial: Reconstruction Additionally, REACTIONS, an international response to 9/11 conceived by Papo Colo, was acquired by The Library of Congress for its permanent collection

In 1992 he founded the Trickster Theater, a collection of dramatic vignettes that utilizes YouTube as a portal for theatrical presentation. In 2005 he wrote and directed Mplay, a theater piece created solely for the web. From May 22 through August 29, 2016, MoMA PS1 presented Colo’s early works in the museum’s lobby. The presentation at MoMA PS1 coincided with The Cleaner, a new work the artist performed in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, and culminated in a festival in Puerto Rico in January, 2017, with the purpose of drawing attention to the island’s ongoing economic crisis.

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