Rafael Sánchez

RAFAEL SÁNCHEZ

B. 1960, Havana, Cuba

Lives and works in New York, NY

Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

duCret School of Art, Plainfield, NJ

Founding member, Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ, 1983-87

Executor, Estate of Kathleen White

ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2018         Tree of Heaven, Marlborough Contemporary, Viewing Room, New York, NY

2008         Unfinished Masterpiece, Casino X, Las Vegas, NV

2004         Balloons Umbrellas Turntables, Participant Inc, New York, 1997 

1997         Unfinished Masterpiece, Barney’ s Windows, New York, NY

1995         Sugar Paintings, Hoboken Dental Specialties, Hoboken, NJ

1993         Teatro de la Cabeza, Foundation Elba, Nijmegen, Netherlands

1991         Rafael Sánchez, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ

1989         Unfinished Masterpiece, D’ Clic Arts Club, Paris, France

1987         Black White Paintings, etc., Furman and Mildred Finck Residents, New York, NY

Rafael Sánchez, Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY

1985         Look Don’t Touch, Aljira Arts Inc., Newark, NJ

EXHIBITIONS WITH KATHLEEN WHITE 

2022         Rafael Sánchez and Kathleen White: Earth Work, Martos Gallery, New York, NY

2021         Kathleen White and Rafael Sánchez: Messages to the Future, Fall River MoCA, Fall River, MA

2014         Kathleen White, A Rake’s Progress, Curated by Rafael Sánchez, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY, 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025         a grammar of attention, Whitney ISP Curatorial, Westbeth, New York, NY

2023         Anything Can Pass Before the Eyes of a Person, Derosia, New York, NY

Looking Back: The 13th White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York, NY

Under Erasure, Martos Gallery, New York, NY, Martos Gallery, New York, NY

2021         A Gathering, HOUSING, New York, NY

Anarchy of the Imagination, Kerry Schuss, New York, NY

2019         Life of a Flower, Galerie Max Mayer, Dusseldorf, Germany

The form is stone, The dress is rain, Provincetown, MA

Some Brave Apollo, Art Helix, Brooklyn, NY 

2017         AIDS at Home, Art and Everyday Activism, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY

2014         Aljira @ 30, State Museum of New Jersey, Trenton, NJ

Not Over, processed by Visual AIDS, LaMaMa Galleria New York, NY

2011         Millennium Magazines, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Strange Birds, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY

The ( S ) Files, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY

2010         Double-Bill, Art in General, New York, NY

2009         Mold, Rotterdam, Netherlands

2006         Unsteady, Studio 1.1, London, UK

2005         This Hard Gem-like Flame, Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, TX

2001         The Record Show, Exit Art, New York, NY

1998         Fashioned, White Box Gallery, New York, NY

1996         Alternatives, Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY

1993         Mob @ Speedway, Speedway Gallery, Boston, MA

The Naming of the Colors, White Columns, New York, NY

Dress Codes, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

1992         Mob @ 620 Pavonia, Ave. Apartment C6, Jersey City, NJ

1990         Selections by Carl Hazlewood, Artists’ Space, New York, NY

1989         Mob @ 3 Boys from Italy, Pizzeria, Jersey City, NJ

1986         On Line, City Without Walls, Newark, NJ

1984         On Paper / Of Paper, Aljira Arts Inc., Newark, NJ

SELECTED PERFORMANCES

Bookstand, Whitney ISP Curatorial, 2025

BOG, Soon is Now, Long Dock Park, Beacon, NY, 2025

The Banks of Sullane, Soon is Now, Long Dock Park, Beacon, NY, 2024

Vegetable Liberation Front, Five Years, Experiments and Disorders, Dixon Place, NYC, 2019

Vegetable Liberation Front; The Just Ones, PataCircus, 24 Bonds Art Center, NYC, 2018

Untitled Poem, Deconstrukt; Brooklyn, NY, 2018

The Devil and St. Vincent, Last Address Walk, Visual AIDS, St. Vincent’s Triangle, NYC, 2018

Changes, Artists Space, New York, NY, 2017

Fandango!, MoCA, Miami, FL, 2008

Rafael Sanchez and Rafael Sanchez, Gershwin Hotel, NYC, 2008

TABLE, Gene Frankel Theatre, NYC, 2006

The Three Voices. Performa, Participant Inc., New York, NY, 2005

REVOLVER, Participant Inc., New York, NY, 2004

Subdivisions for Mis Gowanus, Red Dive, Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, NY, 2003

Les Fleurs des Vents, Fruit Farm Film Festival, McMinnville, OR, 2002

Les Fleurs des Vents, Market Theater, Cambridge, NY, 2001

Les Fleurs des Vents, Gershwin Hotel, New York, NY, 2002

Les Fleurs des Vents, The Pineal Body, White Walls Crosby St., New York, NY, 2001

Dark Pearl, Antonia Barge, Armada Festival, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 2000

The Libation Bearers, Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY, 2009

My Only Child, White Box Gallery, New York, NY, 1998

Dream On, Jackie 60, New York, NY, 1997

Water Boy, Chasing the Apron, Jackie 60, New York, NY, 1997

Feed The Birds, Extrapol, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 1996

Interlude, A garden in Brooklyn, NY, 1996

Rising for the Moon, Needle Exchange Benefit, Jackie 60, New York, NY, 1996

Not a Pretty Girl; Dark Circus, Jackie 60, New York, NY, 1996

Goat Song, X-Teresa, Mexico City, 1995

Beside the Bed - Boogaloo, Rushmore Festival, Orange County, NY, 1994

Beside the Bed, Rushmore Festival, Orange County, NY, 1993

Teatro de la Cabeza, Foundation ELBA, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 1993

Love Hurts, Mai Thai, Paris, France, 1992

Indians, Verti-GoGo, Maxwell’ s, Hoboken, NJ, 1991

No More Mr. Nice Guy, Verti-GoGo, Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, 1991

SELECTED FILMS

Bathing Ritual (for St. Vincent), Digital Video, 3.24min, 2020

Lonesome Dove, 2.5min. video w/ Kathleen White, 2009

REVOLVER, 30min. performance video, 2004

Balloon Inflation Filming Event with Glenn Fogel, duration variable, Super-8 & video, 2003

Lazy, 7min. video, 2003

Wuthering Heights, 15min. super 8mm film, 1999

Stormtrooper in Stiletoes, 10min. video, 1998

Little Prayers, 15min. super 8mm film, 1995

SONGS, READINGS, AND TALKS

Collective Space/Embodied Resistance: 40 Years and Beyond AIDS, ART and Activism, HOWL Arts, New York, NY, 2021

Performing Difference: Gender on the 80’s Downtown Scene, MoMA Art, New York, NY, 2019

An Evening with Rafael Sánchez, Artists Space, New York, NY, 2017

Embrace, The 8th Floor, New York, NY, 2016

On Caregiving and Creativity, Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, New York, NY, 2017

For a Reading Yet Unread, 425 Oceanview Ave., Brighton Beach, New York, NY, 2017

alLuPiNiT Vol V, Gypsy Joe, USA, Dixon Place, New York, NY, 2016

A Whiter Shade of Pale, Gene Frankel Theater, New York, NY, 2016

The Space Between L and D and other Writings, P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY, 2015

99 Objects: Mark Morrisroe, Untitled, 1985, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY, 2015

Sound Texts, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY, 2014

Reading for Arje Ayden, The Performing Garage, New York, NY, 2014

ADS (Richard Maxwell), P .S. 122, Performance Space New York, NY, 2010

Something on Your Mind, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY, 2008

Shadow and Me, Gershwin Hotel, New York, NY, 2006

Readings from the Bookstand, Table, Gene Frankel Theatre, New York, NY, 2006

SELECTED STAGE WORKS

Bathing Ritual, Novenas for a Lost Hospital (prologue), St. John’s in the Village Church, 2019

Mandra Gora (An Incantation), David Lewis Gallery, New York, NY

BOAT, Magnus, Miller & Truman; Theater at St. Mark’ s, New York, NY

People Without History, NYC Players; Chapter, Cardiff, UK; Project Arts Center, Dublin, Ireland, 2011

Crime or Emergency, Sybil Kempson / Mike Iveson; P.S. 122, NY, 2010

People Without History, NYC Players; The Performing Garage, New York, NY, 2009

Eclipse, Robert Whitman Projects, DIA Art Foundation, New York, NY

AWARDS, RESIDENCIES

2004         Braziers Artists Workshop, UK

2002         Creative Capital Foundation, NY

1999         Brazier Artists Workshop, UK 1993 Foundation ELBA. NL

1992         New Jersey State Council on the Arts, NJ

1990         Usine Ephemere, Paris

COLLEGE TALKS / Screenings

Braziers International Film Festival, Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research, UK, 2025

City University of New York, Studio Arts Dept, Graduate School, Harlem, New York, NY, 2023

The New School, Literature Dept, Graduate School, New York, NY, 2023

Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, 2022

SPECIAL EDITIONS

Tintura del Sol, 2022; Edition to benefit Treatment Action Group (TAG), New York, NY, 2022

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Clearings, Reverend Joyce McDonald in Conversation with Rafael Sánchez, Interview, Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald, Exhibition Catalog, The Bronx Museum, NY, 2025

Nottage, Exx, “I Wanna Be Well: Preliminary Materials for the Formation of Cooperative Clinics” “evidence toward a need for communal, collective, and cooperative strategies for healthcare in queer, transexual, and chronically ill populations,” “as demonstrated through the artwork and activism of chloe dzublilo, historical framing provided in the writing and testimony of her contemporaries rafael sánchez and giulliame dustan.” Participant Inc, 2025

Cotter, Holland “Rafael Sánchez, Kathleen White: Earth Work” The New York Times, February 24 2022 Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit explores ties with New York Art Scene,” The Herald News, January 1, 2022 

Thacker, Gail, “Between the Sun and the Moon; The Polaroids of Gail Thacker” Queensborough Community College Press, NY, 2017

Fleming, Alex; Nottage, Nia, “An Evening with Rafael Sánchez” interview, MASK Magazine, #46 The Organized Issue, Novembe, 2017

Ventur, Conrad, (interview) Rafael Sánchez, “200 1st Avenue” , Conrad Ventur: Pink Seat, (exhibition publication) Rokeby Gallery, London, 2016

Fletcher, Jim, Balloons Talk, BODY Literature, (interview) Rafael Sánchez, bodyliterature.com pub. July 1, 2014

Bahenna, Veralyn, “Santiago de Compostela” Tomorow’s Man 2, Jack Peirson, Bywater Bros. Editions, 2014

McKenzie, Philip, FutureMark, "Transcendent Ideas of the Near Future" interview, Influencer Conference, New York, NY, 2013

Teresa Philo Gruber, There Was A Sense of Family, (interview) Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nünberg, GmbH, D.A.P., CH, 2012

El Otro, Feran, "If The Medium is The Message, What Happens When the Medium(s) Disapear(s)?" Pipa, is. # 1, Barcelona, 2011 

Sánchez, Rafael, “20,000 Years Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” alLuPiNiT, Vol. 4, NYC, 2011

Sur, Sur Rodney, (interview) Rafael Sánchez Visual Aids Web Gallery, “The Architecture of Loss / Mark Morrisroe 1959-1989" April, 2011

Goldberg, Roselee, PERFORMA, New Visual Art Performance, Rafael, Sánchez / The Three Voices, pg. 65, Performa NY / Art Publishers, 2006

Smith, Roberta, “Rafael Sánchez: Balloons Umbrellas Turntables” The New York Times, October 1, 2004

Smith Regina, “Squaring the Circle: The Invocations of Rafael Sánchez” Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, is. no. 62, Spring, 1999

Jackson, Susan, “Sheer Art Attack” Time Out New York, January 7-14 is. no. 172, 1999

Adams, Brooks, “New Humanist Photography” The Print Collector’ s News Letter, Vol. XXVII #2, 1995

Kenny, Kay, Art Makes the Medicine Go Down Easier” The Jersey Journal, April 7, 1995

Sánchez, Rafael, “Panorama with Hood Ornament” Boston School, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Lia Gangitano editor, 1995

Arning, Bill, The Naming of the Colors, exhibition catalogue, White Columns, Kirby Gookin co-editor, 1993

Zimmer, William, “Painting with Peanut Butter and Jelly” The New York Times, December 29, 1992