Business Info
The Owner's Story
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We now have 19 years in the same shop serving the community. My daughter Nuvia is now working in the office, and I feel happy that this is a family-owned and operated business. My goal now is to expand this business for the next generation to take over and to leave a legacy so that other people can dream and be able to succeed and fulfill their dreams too no matter their background heritage or ethnicity. Currently, we are working on expanding and growing this business. In 2017 we knocked down the house that was next door, expanded the parking lot, and we added a building with 3 hoists. The job was completed in 2019.
Owner's Connection To GR, Thoughts on Liberation, Reclamation
Connection to GR: It has been difficult and hard to operate a business here. We understand that rules must be placed to better the city but at times I felt they were very strict with me. My friend Arturo was a very big help. He fought to expand our shop.
Liberation: We have not been liberated although I am a business owner. I like I am still in a box as a Latino.
Reclamation There is nothing to reclaim, I’ve never had anything to reclaim. We want to expand and grow.
About the Artist
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Hugo Claudin is a multidisciplinary artist- curator living on The Avenue of The Arts where he lives in his loft otherwise known as Méxicains Sans Frontiéres and award-winning alternative art space. Claudin studied Fine Arts and Illustration at Kendal College of Art and Design. He later became involved in curating an avant -jazz series which he did at various locations around town eventually settling down in his loft. Claudin first gained national attention when he was invited to show at Judith Huacuja’s Survey of Latin American Artists in the Midwest at the University of Dayton, Ohio in 2006, and more recently at the UICA (Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts) Pulso: Arte de Las Americas/Art of the Americas in 2013. In 2019 Claudin was voted Second Place for Visual Artist in Grand Rapids by readers of Revue Magazine. For the last 20 years he has been working on a series of paintings and photographs titled Women on the Verge of Kicking your Ass works that depict women in Mexican Wrestling Masks. As a love letter/exorcism of a romantic relationship exploring issues of power and dominance. More recently Claudin has been preoccupied with public space, public art and the relationships of power and representation, the examined life, pleasure activism, and liberated art spaces. Currently he is a fellow at the National Equity Program 2020-2021, a Board Member of the UICA and the Latino Community Coalition.
ARTIST'S CONNECTION TO GR, THOUGHTS ON LIBERATION, RECLAMATION
Liberation: I moved here from Guadalajara Mexico in 1980 to study at Kendal College of Art and Design. I think of liberation from a Marxist lens, I am inspired by the Zapatistas and Black Panther Party. I also use ideas from the Rights to the City and the Situationist Artist Movement. I wear many hats, I am an artist, photographer, painter, curator and play music in Les Creatif (drums and percussion) and the leader of the South Division All-Stars. I have been involved in the GR music and downtown scene for over 30 years.