Edra Soto

Ep.226 Edra Soto (b. 1971) is a Puerto Rican-born artist, educator, and co-director of outdoor project space The Franklin. Soto instigates meaningful, relevant, and often difficult conversations surrounding socioeconomic and cultural oppression, erasure of history, and loss of cultural knowledge. Soto has presented recent solo exhibitions at Comfort Station, Chicago, IL (2024); Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL (2023); Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2018); Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA (2017); The Arts Club of Chicago, IL (2017). Her work has been featured in notable recent group exhibitions including Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (2024); Entre Horizontes, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL (2023); no existe un mundo poshuracán, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2022); and Estamos Bien, La Trienal 20/21, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY (2021). She has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant; Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award; the US LatinX Art Forum Fellowship; and MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund. Soto has received numerous public commissions, for Noor Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2024); Now & There, Central Wharf Park, Boston, MA (2023); the Chicago Architecture Biennial, IL (2023); and Millenium Park in Chicago, IL (2019). Her work is in the collection of institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Pérez Art Museum Miami and Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. Photo Courtesy of Public Art Fund ~ Liz Ligon Artist https://edrasoto.com/home.html Public Art Fund https://www.publicartfund.org/exhibitions/view/edra-soto-graft/ MSU Broad Art Museum https://broadmuseum.msu.edu/events/artist-talk-edra-soto/ por la señal | by a signal at Morgan Lehman Gallery https://www.morganlehmangallery.com/exhibitions/edra-soto4 Lazos Terrenales at ICA at MECA&D Maine https://meca.edu/ica/lazos-terrenales-earthly-bonds/ La Casa de Todos at Comfort Station https://comfortstationlogansquare.org/calendar/2024/6/1/la-casa-de-todos John Michael Kohler Arts Center https://www.jmkac.org/artist/soto-edra/ Carnegie Museum of Art https://carnegieart.org/art/hillman-photography-initiative/cycle-4-widening-the-lens/ US Latinx Art Forum https://uslaf.org/member/edra-soto/ Noor Riyadh https://riyadhart.sa/en/artists/edra-soto/?_program=noor-riyadh CAB5 https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/people/edra-soto/ Ree Kaneko Award https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/511285/edra-soto-winner-of-2022-ree-kaneko-award/#:~:text=Established%20in%202019%20at%205%2C000,support%20of%20its%20alumni%20community. The Art Newsletter https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/09/05/edra-soto-this-kind-of-architecture-lives-in-the-background TimeOut https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/this-new-outdoor-sculpture-in-central-park-honors-the-puerto-rican-community-090624 Hyperallergic https://hyperallergic.com/946566/new-three-year-arts-series-will-center-nyc-latine-community-clemente/ El Nuevo Dia https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/notas/el-arte-de-una-boricua-transforma-el-central-park-de-nueva-york-con-su-obra-de-rejas/ Newcity Art https://art.newcity.com/2024/08/26/central-park-state-of-mind-edra-soto-puts-the-home-in-public-art/ Chicago Reader https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/art-feature/everybodys-home-edra-soto/ Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelbyknick/2023/12/14/the-brilliance-of-noor-riyadh-a-city-wide-canvas-comes-to-life-again/?sh=400c0e4a6a23 New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/arts/design/chicago-architecture-biennial.html Chicago Tribune https://www.chicagotribune.com/2023/11/14/3arts-awards-50k-unrestricted-grants-to-local-teaching-artists-with-next-level-awards/ Artforum https://www.artforum.com/events/susan-snodgrass-edra-soto-513802/