Organized by El Museo del Barrio, Juan Francisco Elso: Por América investigates the brief yet significant career of the late Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso (1956–1988), who emerged as a visual artist in the late 1970s and early 1980s before dying of leukemia at the age of 32. Elso, who was based in Havana, is associated with the first generation of artists born and educated in post-revolutionary Cuba. Por América is the first traveling survey of Elso’s work in the United States since the early 1990s, representing a rare opportunity for Arizona audiences to experience the artist’s dynamic and visceral creations.

Fashioned from natural, organic materials such as mud, clay, straw, twigs, bark, and earth, Elso’s sculptures and installations examine the complexities of contemporary Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American identities, which draw influence from Indigenous traditions, Afro-Caribbean religious beliefs, and the traumas of colonial oppression. The artist’s limited production, including plans for several unrealized works, reveal a more expansive understanding of the Americas, free from continental division and conventional ideas of state and nationhood.