FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For additional information, contact Jodi Waynberg at 212.420.9202 or [email protected]

Sweety’s Radio: Edición Especial Curated by Sweety’s members Bryan Rodriguez Cambana, Julia Mata, Eduardo Restrepo Castaño and Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz.

On View: June 27 through July 30, 2017 Interview Dates: Friday, June 30, July 7, July 14 & July 21, 6-8P Closing Reception: Friday, July 28; 6-8P Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 12-6P

New York, NY—Sweety's Radio is a live talk- show/installation project developed by Sweety's - a curatorial initiative conceived by artists Julia Mata, Bryan Rodriguez Cambana, Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz, and Eduardo Restrepo Castaño that since 2013, works on seeking out spaces and producing events dedicated to the labor of black and brown artists.

At Cuchifritos, the collective will host Edición Especial, a special iteration of Sweety’s Radio that focuses on Spanish speaking cultural producers, as a means to bridge the conversations taking place amongst black and brown (Spanish-speaking) communities in and outside of the U.S. From June 27th through July 30th Sweety’s programming will consist of weekly interviews featuring four invited artists whose work will take over the Cuchifritos space for each week, culminating in a collaborative installation by the four members of Sweety’s.

In response to the local community surrounding Cuchifritos and Essex Street Market, as well as the history of the Lower East Side as Loisaida, and the curators’ personal investment as immigrants and first generation, Sweety’s brings together four artists: Cecilia Gentili (June 27th- July 2nd), Raul Gonzalez III (July 4th- 9th), Emanuel Xavier (July 11th-16th), Elia Alba (July 18th-23nd).

Image: Raul the Third, #bic pen on paper, 2014, image courtesy of the artist and Chronicle Books

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CECILIA GENTILI, originally from Argentina, worked at the LGBT Center, Apicha CHC and currently serves as the Director of Public Affairs at GMHC. She was a contributor to Trans Bodies Trans Selves and is a board member at Translatina Network. That’s for work. For fun, she acts sometimes and loves doing storytelling

events where she talks about her life experiences and she cooks amazing brunches for her friends on the weekends. She is very passionate about advocating for her community, and mostly for transgender women with a Latino background, sex work history, drug use and incarceration history.

RAUL GONZALEZ III is an award winning artist from El Paso/Juarez living in Medford MA. He is the illustrator and co-creator of the critically acclaimed and award winning books Lowriders in Space and Lowriders to the Center of the Earth with Cathy Camper. He makes his home with his two loves Elaine Bay and Raul El Gonzalez IV.

EMANUEL XAVIER, an LGBT History Month Icon and Gay City News Impact Award recipient, is author of the poetry collections Radiance, Nefarious, Americano, Pier Queen, If Jesus Were Gay and the novel Christ Like. A former homeless teen involved in NYC’s ball scene in the 90s and one of the first openly gay poets, he has been a longtime gay rights activist, AIDS activist and homeless youth advocate. He was featured on presents Def Poetry, has spoken at The United Nations, was a featured TEDx speaker and was filmed for a soon-to-be-released documentary on poets from around the world. He continues to perform at colleges and universities throughout the country and his books are often included in LGBTQ and Latino Studies courses.

ELIA ALBA was born in , NY in 1962. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in 1994 and completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2001. She has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. Those include The Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Science Museum, London; ITAU Cultural Institute, Sao Paolo; National Museum of Art, Reina Sofía, Madrid and the 10th Havana Biennial. She is also recipient of numerous awards and residencies for example, Studio Museum in Harlem Artist-in Residence Program in 1999; Foundation for the Arts Grant, Crafts 2002 and Photography 2008; Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2002 and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant 2002 and 2008; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Workspace Program, 2009 and LMCC Process Space 2016; Recess Analog, 2012. Her work is in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of Art, , Lowe Art Museum to name a few. For the past five years she has been working on a publication/event series title “The Supper Club”, currently supported by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, The 8th Floor. The project brings together artists, scholars and performers through portraiture, food and dialogue to examine race and culture. A solo show on The Supper Club is forthcoming fall 2017 at The 8th Floor.

Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space is a program of Artists Alliance Inc., a 501c3 not for profit organization located on the Lower East Side of within the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center. Cuchifritos is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This program is made possible by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. We thank the following for their generous support: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York City Economic Development Corporation and individual supporters of Artists Alliance Inc. Special thanks go to our team of dedicated volunteers, without whom this program would not be possible. For more information, visit artistsallianceinc.org