MCNY's exhibition: Byzantine Bembé: New York by Manny Vega explores Vega's visual storytelling as it interweaves community stories with themes that range from African deities to urban mythologies, spanning the personal and the collective. Deeply rooted in an idiosyncratic understanding of the diaspora experience, which in his case includes communities in El Bronx, El Barrio, and Bahia, Brazil, Vega’s worldview is colorful, danceable, passionately spiritual, and complex-yet-accessible. The show marks the Museum’s commitment to its thriving neighborhood as it looks ahead to its next one hundred years.
Manny Vega's mosaics and murals adorn street walls, subway stations, cultural centers, and business facades throughout East Harlem. Many of these works celebrate important figures—particularly women—in the history of the Puerto Rican and Latinx communities. His style has been dubbed “Byzantine Hip-Hop” for his uncompromising technical command that encompasses ancient Mediterranean mosaic-making and the electrifying lines of hyper-detailed Sharpie pen-and-ink drawings.
Print: Sharpie Pen and Ink Drawing,
Size: 24x36 inches.