Arts & Entertainment
Finding His Roots: New York Artist Discovers Much to Love in Humboldt Park as Exhibition Opens
Adrián Viajero Román at “Archivos Vivos,” his new exhibition at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
“What is home to you, and where is home? Home could be anywhere – it could just be in your own mind, your own emotions,” says Adrián Viajero Román.
The New York artist stood in front of a tribute to his grandfathers, both of whom moved to the United States in the late 1940s.
“They were the first to migrate from Puerto Rico to New York,” he said.
Román pointed to his mustachioed abuelo. “He fought in the Korean War and was murdered in his hometown later in life.”
The piece is titled “Perhaps Home Is Not a Place but Simply an Irrevocable Condition.”
“During the 1940s, Puerto Rico started Operation Bootstrap with the government here to bring Puerto Ricans over for work,” Román explains. “They thought that they’d just be coming to work and then come back. But you end up staying, and it becomes your life.”
Those lives are reflected in the new exhibition “Archivos Vivos” at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.
“Archivos Vivos,” an exhibition by artist Adrián Viajero Román, is on display at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture through Jan. 17, 2026. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
The artist spoke with WTTW News about the large yet intimate graphite images he draws on wood panels. The portraits are embedded in a setting of everyday items and heirlooms – a straw fedora, steamer trunks and machetes.
Some drawings are based on family photos, others on historical snapshots. Elders and youth look straight at you. The work is stamped with emotion and history.
“I use a lot of found objects,” he said. “I touch on the past and how it reflects on the present, how we can be reminded of where we are today because of where we’ve been.”
Objects include debris he found on the island after the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017. He calls these “PR-tifacts.”
Some works are prayers to resilience. Others reference the words of a Puerto Rican leader on the intentions of colonizers: “They want the cage, not the bird.”
Based in Brooklyn, Román now has his first show in Chicago. He’s enjoying the stretch of Division Street in Humboldt Park known as Paseo Boricua, and he wishes New York City still had a place like it.
“It’s fragmented in New York with a lot of gentrification,” he said. “What Humboldt Park is, and Paseo Boricua is, we used to have in New York in various communities. And we don’t have that anymore.”
Román says he is trying to figure out how to take some of what the Chicago Puerto Rican community built back to New York.
“Archivos Vivos,” an exhibition by artist Adrián Viajero Román, is on display at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture through Jan. 17, 2026. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
When he isn’t making art, Román curates art shows. But that job has new complications.
“We’ve had experiences of artists from Puerto Rico not wanting to come because of the politics of what’s happening now – arresting people after just hearing them speak Spanish, right? They don’t want to take a risk and travel, not knowing English very well, and be mistaken for someone else,” he said.
In murky times, Román continues to see his cultural heritage as a guiding light.
“There’s things going on in the world that all of us should be thinking about, but we can’t forget our immediate community and our family,” Román said. “We can’t forget those things.”
“Archivos Vivos” will be on view at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Art and Culture until Jan. 17, 2026.
Marc Vitali is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.
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