Sandra Antongiorgi

A native of Puerto Rico, Sandra Antongiorgi grew up in a small town at the center of the island called Utuado. Much like many of the other Pilsen muralists, her family immigrated to the US when she was very young and found themselves in Pilsen. She witnessed from a young age the growth of the mural movement as she walked the streets of Pilsen with her family. She became inspired by the work Aurelio Diaz and Ray Patlan were creating at the time “Galeria del Barrio” and realized the impact that art on the scale could have on the people who witnessed it.

Her first encounter with protests in Chicago was in the 70’s when Puerto Ricans protested against police violence. This movement and call to action by the people of her culture inspired her to document the changes and the community through the use of public art. Even today, a lot of her work is inspired by many of her life experiences, power relationships, culture boundaries, mysticism and spirituality. Her goal with her work is to explore and share about people, groups, and concepts that might turn away from, such as exposing the damage that is caused by family violence, incarceration, and systematic marginalization.

Antongiorgi’s work has received wide recognition across several museums and exhibitions. These include the National Museum of Mexican Art, Zhou B Gallery, Advocate & Gochis Galleries, and Halsted Gallery. She has various prominent works, most notoriously Weaving Cultures, which she completed in collaboration with Samantha Kirk and won the Chicago Readers’ ‘Best Mural of 2017’. Other prominent works are Rebirth, in collaboration with Andy Bellomo and The Love I Vibrate, also in collaboration with Andy Bellomo and Samantha Kirk, both highlighting the non-binary/LGTBQ+ community giving them leadership and visibility. Most importantly, her work Es Tiempo de Recordar, created in 1992 in collaboration with Akinlana and Ralph Mueller was whitewashed by the city in 2018. This led Antongiorgi to establish advocacy work around establishing a permanent public mural registry known now as the Mural Registry of Chicago.