On the occasion of the exhibition La casa de todos nosotros: Antonio Martorell y sus amigos [A House for Us All: Antonio Martorell and Friends] held at El Museo del Barrio in 1992, Puerto Rican curator Susana Torruella Leval analyzes Antonio Martorell’s installations on the house theme. Each one of Martorell’s houses/installations is bound to a period of the artist’s life and to his interests, while also paying tribute to mentors and addressing the experiences of fellow Puerto Ricans. Torruella Leval provides an in-depth discussion of the work La casa Singer [Singer House], in which the artist recalls the childhood incident when his family was evicted and he honors the work of seamstresses who toil at home; indeed, his family was supported by the work of seamstresses both before and after they lost their home. La casa del grabador [The Printmaker’s House] is a work built out of woodblocks of the sort used by printmakers and out of posters produced for more than twenty years. This work references Martorell’s prolific life as a graphic artist. Rilkehaus and La casa en el aire [The House in the Air] were conceived as tributes, the first to Rainer María Rilke, whom Martorell called the “mentor” of his youth, and the second to the thousands of Puerto Ricans whose identity is largely suspended as they move back and forth between Puerto Rico and the east coast of the United States. Torruella Leval considers these and other “houses” concrete expressions of Puerto Rican reality.

Susana Torruella Leval analyzes the works: Casa Singer [Singer House] (1991), La casa de los mapas [The House of Maps] (1991), Rilkehause (1991), Kamikaze (1991), La casa del grabador [The Printmaker’s House], La ceiba de Ponce [The Ceiba Tree of Ponce] [(1991), La casa verde [The Green House], Casa Blanca [The White House] (1990), La casa del fuego [The House of Fire] (1991), and La casa en el aire [The House in the Air] (1992). Antonio Martorell (Santurce, b. 1939) was trained at the Taller de Gráfica del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rican Cultural Institute Print Workshop] under Lorenzo Homar. During his career, Martorell worked as a theater set and wardrobe designer, poster artist, printmaker, painter, book illustrator, professor, and writer. But, most importantly, he has been a graphic designer. In 1968, he founded the Taller Alacrán [Scorpion Workshop]—a workshop-art school devoted to criticizing Puerto Rican social conditions and politics—and managed it until 1971. In 1974 he was among the prize-winning artists at the III Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano [3rd San Juan Biennial of Latin American Prints]. Two years later, on the eve of the 4th Biennial he resigned from the jury because he was opposed to using funds from the United States bicentenary to finance the event. Multiple protests led to the cancellation of the 4th Biennial in 1976, and the event did not take place until 1979. Martorell was honored with a retrospective exhibition at the 7th Biennial in 1986. A year earlier the FBI raided his home as part of an attempt to arrest presumed members of Los Macheteros [the Machete Wielders], an underground revolutionary group that worked tirelessly to promote Puerto Rican independence.